MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE. 115 



MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE. 



At a regular meeting of the Society, held December 31, 1859, Hon. 

 Marshall P. Wilder submitted the following paper as embodying facts which 

 might be used in a Memorial to the Legislature for a reservation of lands 

 on the Back Bay. 



It was then voted that the Committee now having charge of this matter 

 be instructed to present the subjoined petition. 



To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives in General Court 

 assembled : 



We, the undersigned, a Committee of the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society, respectfully petition your honorable body in aid of a General Me- 

 morial now before you, for a reservation of linds on the Back Bay, on 

 which may be erected a structure, or structures, for the accommodation of 

 societies devoted to tlie advancement of Horticulture, Agriculture, and the 

 Ornamental Arts ; and to Science in its application to the various purposes of 

 life. 



The interest manifested throughout our country, in all the departments 

 of Horticultural science, is, in a great measure, to be traced to the estab- 

 lishment of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 



For more than thirty years this Association has been actively engaged in 

 the acquisition and diffusion of scientific and practical knowledge in the 

 various branches of terraculture. Prominent among the means for the 

 attainment of these objects have been its exhibitions and publications. It 

 would not be difficult to show that its labors have bejn greatly blessed, and 

 are highly appreciated by the community ; in fact, that they are not second 

 to those of her time-honoreJ sister, the Massachusetts Society for the Promo- 

 tion of Agriculture. 



The evidences of its beneficial influence appears in the introduction of 

 new varieties of fruits, flowers, and vegetables from distant and different 

 parts of the world, — in the creation of new and improved sorts of these, 

 particularly adapted to our own soil and climate ; and in the rural archi- 

 tecture, orchards, gardens, and pleasure-grounds of our New England 

 villas. 



The facts connected with the early history of American Pomology have 

 principally been developed through the agency of the Massachusetts Hor- 

 ticultural Society. This was the avenue through which the more advanced 

 art and science of Horticulture in Europe passed into this now widely 

 extended country. The noble results of a life-long iaJaor of Van Mons, in 

 Belgium, of Duhamel, Poiteau, Noisette, and other pioneers in France, 

 and of Sir Thomas Andrew Knight, President of the Horticultural Society 

 of London, created a stimulus and furnished a guide to American cultiva- 

 tors, and here laid the foundation of a progress which has advanced tliis 



