1879] REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 35 



revert to the protoplasm. Therefore, and most essentially, is it 

 that from the trotting sulky and base-ball diamond may be 

 expected the "just made perfect " saints of New England. 



Our own Society can indulge in no such pious dreams. 

 Greek, or Barbarian ; Gentile, or Jew ; from the Gardens of 

 Alcinous, or those in which the Fire-Worshippers of Persia cul- 

 tivate the Rose ; the love of Flower and Fruit is in and of itself 

 a species of devotion : — limited to no country, — contracted by 

 no creed. An effort was lately made to steal your household 

 gods. The Attorney General of the Republic ; laboring under 

 an optical illusion, easily explicable when it is remembered that 

 his official gaze has been somewhat intent upon the " moon- 

 shine " of Carolina ; fancied that he detected a heavenly pres- 

 ence in the crowd which thronged around him. Your Secretary 

 would not like to vouch for Ceres, whose good manners may 

 have been corrupted by evil communications while scouring 

 Avernus for her daughter. But he can bear cordial witness to 

 the fact that no errant fancy has ever seduced her long-time 

 associates. And it would have been a source of deep regret, 

 indeed, had Flora and Pomona, after keeping their virginity for 

 so many centuries unharmed by Faun or Satyr, at last prosti- 

 tuted themselves, gratuitously, upon the first unclean solicita- 

 tion. 



In his late Semi-Centennial address before the Massachusetts 

 Horticultural Society, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder speaks of Agri- 

 culture as having "included" Horticulture. How so wise a 

 man could be betrayed into such a serious error would be unac- 

 countable did we not recall his association upon the " State 

 Board." For it was never thus; — whether under the bright 

 Heathen Mythology, or the more ascetic Mosaic dispensation. 



When God had finished the Earth — Terra — the fields and 

 farms — ager — "behold! it was very good ! " But when He 

 would improve upon His own work, He "planted a garden " — 

 Hortiis — "eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom 

 " He had formed." Not until after Eve, — "anxious and aim- 

 "less," — had eaten of the tree of the knowledge of evil ; com- 



