1976 



WILDER 



WILD GARDEN 



nation four times, he was elected commander of the 

 Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He was a 

 trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

 At one time he was president of the state senate. 

 In masonry he held all degrees, including the thirty- 

 third. It is said that when Wilder was 27 there were 

 no horticultural societies in America, and that he lived 

 to see more than 1500 societies devoted to horticulture 

 and kindred subjects. 



In 1883 Marshall P. Wilder urged upon the American 

 Pomological Society the necessity of a reform in the 

 nomenclature of fruits. He took an active part in the 

 great work that followed. 



Wilder's personality was most engaging, being char- 



cultural Society $1,000, to encourage the production of 

 new American varieties of pears and grapes. Wilder 

 wrote no book, but his occasional contributions and 

 presidential addresses make a notable body of writings 

 when gathered together into the bound volume presented 

 by him to the library of the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society. "The Proceedings at a Banquet given by his 

 Friends to the Hon. Marshall Pinckney Wilder * ** » 

 to Commemorate the Completion of his Eighty-fifth 

 Year," is a stately memorial of 116 pages published in 

 1883. The best account of him seems to be that by the 

 secretary {Robert Manning) of the society, in Trans. 

 Mass. Hort. Soc. 1887: 20-39, from which the present 

 article has been chiefly compiled. t^ ]yi 



2723. A Wild Garden. 



acterized by geniality, dignity, tact and conservatism. 

 Horticulturists remember with what graciousness he 

 met and recognized the younger men of merit at the 

 meetings of the American Pomological Society. He was 

 by nature a peacemaker, and in the early days when 

 the conflicting interests of the Massachusetts Horticul- 

 tural Society and the Mount Auburn Cemetery required 

 separation, he was an important factor in solving the 

 complicated and delicate problem. The settlement of 

 this difficulty laid the foundations of the unparalleled 

 wealth of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. 

 Wilder was a man of habit. Until he retired from busi- 

 ness it was his life-long practice to rise early, devote 

 the morning to books, garden and orchard, the middle 

 of the day to business and the evening to family and 

 study. He was married three times and had fourteen 

 children, only five of whom survived him. He was 

 sitting in his chair at home and engaged in conversation 

 when death came to him instantly. 



The portrait of him in Plate XLI was considered 

 by Mr. Wilder to be his best likeness. At his death 

 he left the American Pomological Society $1,000 for 

 Wilder Medals for objects of special merit and $4,000 

 for general purposes. He left the Massachusetts Horti- 



WILD GARDEN. Pigs. 2723-28. Wild gardening is 

 that form of floriculture which is concerned with plant- 

 ing in a nature-like manner colonies of hardy plants that 

 require a minimum of care. A wild garden is not to be 

 thought of as a garden run wild, nor should it be con- 

 fused with the promiscuous sowing of flower seeds. "No 

 form of gardening," says Wm. A. Stiles, "gives greater 

 and more lasting pleasure than that which aims to nat- 

 uralize wild or garden plants in positions where they 

 will appear to be growing naturally and without the in- 

 tervention of the gardener's art." A wild garden should 

 be so planted and tended as to give "that appearance of 

 untamed luxuriance, of careless and unstudied grace 

 which suggests perfect freedom." 



Both the idea and the name of wild gardening origi- 

 nated in the early seventies with William Robinson, of 

 London, first editor of " The Garden " and author of many 

 important books on floriculture. The idea came as a 

 reaction against formal gardening in general and par- 

 ticularly the extravagant use of tender bedding plants 

 to the exclusion of hardy herbs of less gaudy charac- 

 ter and of simpler and less expensive cultivation. The 

 idea spread rapidly in England and is steadily gaining 

 in America. It appeals to the wealthy amateur with 



