PRESIDENT BRECk's ADDRESS. 81 



PRESIDENT BRECK'S ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen : 



Another year has passed away, and we are again permitted to greet each 

 other with a happy new year, and renew our assurance of cooperation and 

 union in the work for which our Society was organized, and to which many 

 of us have been for so many years devoted. 



We cannot, however, meet together to commence the business of the 

 year, without strong feelings of sadness, as we call to remembrance the 

 beloved and active members of our Society, who, in the providence of God, 

 have been called from their labors, and whose chairs are to-day vacant. 

 With these faithful and devoted friends and active members, we have been 

 accustomed, for a long series of years, to meet from week to week to ex- 

 change salutations, and to receive their counsels of wisdom and instruc- 

 tion ; and through them we have felt our hands strengthened and our hearts 

 encouraged. 



The decease of Josiah Bradlee, Esq., was announced at the commence- 

 ment of last year, — a gentleman whom we shall ever remember as a liberal 

 benefactor and devoted friend of our Society. 



A kw months after, we were called to mourn the loss of our invaluable 

 friend, the Hon. B. V. French, one of the original founders of the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society, and who never failed, to the day of his 

 death, to take the deepest interest in its prosperity. Who that knew him, 

 can ever forget the enthusiasm ever uppermost in his mind on the subject 

 of horticulture, agriculture, or anything connected with the cultivation of 

 the soil. 



The departure of Enoch Bartlett, Esq., in a good old age, having passed 

 the time allotted to man on earth, was not so marked a loss to the members 

 of the Society, who only knew him as one from whom one of our most 

 popular pears received its American name, but who, nevertheless, was one 

 that those more advanced in life highly appreciated for his activity and 

 interest in the Society in the earlier stages of its history. 



The mild and modest Sumner was hardly known, except to his immediate 

 circle of friends, but he might have been often seen in the rooms passing 

 from stand to stand of flowers, admiring everything new and beautiful — 

 evidently enjoying all the productions exhibited with a keen delight; but, 

 like the flower of the field, he has also faded away, and we shall see his 

 face no more. 



We hoped, almost against hope, that we should not be called upon again 

 to mourn the loss of another of our most valuable and highly esteemed 

 associates during the year, already so remarkable for the impress of the 

 fell destroyer upon the ranks of our Society. But those of us who were 

 privileged with a more intimate communion and exchange of feelings with 

 our beloved Walker, could hardly be made to feel otherwise than that his 

 work on earth was about to cease, though unwilling to believe that he 

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