410 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



pie mountain side, miles away, or to the silvery lake, 

 or across the water to the groves, turrets, and fine .out- 

 lines of Wellesley College ; and, last and most striking 

 of all, the unique Italian garden, with terraces rising 

 one above another from the shore of the lake to an 

 ornamental balustrade crowned at intervals with vases of 

 agaves, and with pines, beeches, and other trees clipped 

 into fantastic shapes, and arbor- vitaes forming walls so 

 thick and solid that they might be taken for the ram- 

 parts of a fortification, the location seeming to have 

 been provided most felicitously by Nature for this very 

 purpose, and its construction and surroundings making 

 it in some respects more attractive than the famous gar- 

 dens of Lake Maggiore. With this brief notice of the 

 triumphs of horticulture at a place which in 1851 was 

 a barren plain, but where every branch of the art is 

 now carried to the highest perfection through the per- 

 sonal attention and interest of the proprietor, closes the 

 record of the year 1874. 



The winter of 1874-5 was characterized by severe 

 cold of unparalleled steadiness and duration, commen- 

 cing the first of December, and continuing until March, 

 with hardly a day of mild weather. The ground froze 

 to an unusual depth, and it was thought by many that 

 the extreme cold would destroy most of the small fruits ; 

 but a happy disappointment was experienced in this 

 respect, the greater part of them coming out in fine 

 order, and producing abundant crops, particularly the 

 strawberries ; but blackberry canes were so much in- 

 jured that the crop was almost an entire failure. The 

 more tender varieties of the native grape, when unpro- 

 tected, were either killed or badly injured. The spring 

 was so cold and backward as to affect the exhibitions 



