118 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



combines the ornamental with the useful, for a garden is only a small and 

 highly cultivated farm. 



Who can doubt ■whether the multiplication of these rural comforts 

 strengthens local attachments, fosters industrial habits, promotes the 

 love of kindred and couxtry, and reflects honor on the Commonwealth ? 

 History, observation, and experience confirm the sentiment that it is a 

 wise policy for states or nations to encourage every branch of honest 

 industry, especially those which relate to elevated taste in rural art. 



While the progress of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society has 

 more than realized the brightest anticipations of its founders, yet its 

 operations have for many years been restricted for want of space for de- 

 velopment. It has been confined to its small hall in School Street. That 

 hall has recently been sold, and the Society will now have to seek a new 

 location. It has needed a more spacious edifice for its exhibitions, — larger 

 rooms for its library, for models and drawings, and for depository of seeds. 

 It also needs land for a conservatory of plants, and especially an area 

 around its edifice, in which specimens of the most rare and beautiful trees, 

 flowering shrubs and plants of North America should be planted for the 

 instruction and entertainment of our own citizens and those from abroad. 

 The London Horticultural Society, the great pioneer institution, the first in 

 the world, is engaged in a similar enterprise. It has lately taken up new 

 grounds for its accommodation, and its estimated expenditure is put down 

 at £100,000, or about half a million of dollars. Hitherto the Massachu- 

 setts Horticultural Society has maintained a rank not less honorable in 

 America. 



A society so auspicious in its beginning, so beneficial in its influence, 

 and so hopeful for the future, seems entitled to the fostering patronage of 

 the government to enable it to fulfil its mission, and to advance those inter- 

 ests upon which rest so much of the happiness of individuals and of the 

 welfare of the Commonwealth. Is it, therefore, too much to expect that 

 the Old Bay State, so famous for her industrial, educational, and philan- 

 thropic institutions, will avail lierself of the present rare and perhaps the 

 only opportunity in her gift within the limits of this city, to grant the prayer 

 of your petitioners. 



Signed, 



Joseph Breck, 

 Marshall P. Wilder, 

 JosiAH Sticknet, 

 Samuel Walker, 

 Geo. W. Pratt, 

 Chas. M. Hovet, 

 W. C. Strong, 

 B. V. French, 

 E. S. Rand, Jr., 



Committee. 



