TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 119 



" In that blest moment, Nature, throwing wide 

 Her vale opaque, discloses, with a smile, 

 The Author of her beauties, who, retired 

 Behind his own creation, works unseen 

 By the impure, and hears his power denied." 



Perhaps there is no State in the Union in which the science of horticul- 

 ture can be more successfully pursued, or in which a fairer prospect of 

 benefit, to great masses of the community, is held out from its cultivation, 

 than the State of Massachusetts. 



The surface of your Commonwealth is dotted with beautiful villages and 

 towns, the inhabitants of which, deriving their livelihood from mechanical 

 and manufacturing employments, furnish a ready and an increasing market 

 for horticultural products. Nor to any one, who has at heart the prosperity 

 of your State, can there be a more interesting contemplation, than to behold 

 the obstacles which nature may have interposed in the character of the soil 

 in the vicinity of these villages, gradually giving way before the instructed 

 industry of the horticulturist. Lands reclaimed from absolute waste — the 

 ruggedness of nature softened by the means and applications of art — neat 

 cottages smiling amid gardens and orchards, where early and late fruits, 

 those raised with much, and those with little care, are taught to grow in 

 obedience to the skill of the cultivator. Thousands of poor but happy chil- 

 dren, repaying, with their assistance, the love of their parents, and trained 

 from infancy to habits of industry and observation, these are the results 

 which the Society proposes for its aim and attainment. May every pros- 

 perity attend its labors ! The formation of the habits to which I have 

 alluded in the young, are of themselves, worth all the efforts which have 

 been made. Sir James Mackintosh once very politely and truly said, that 

 we think from our opinions, but we act from our habits. 



I had anticipated much gratification from visiting your exhibition. A 

 friend, now present, when in New York, had given me a description of 

 what I might expect to see. I thought I had made sufiicient allowances 

 for the excusable enthusiasm of a resident of your State and a member of 

 your Society ; but when I walked through the rooms of the beautiful edifice 

 erected by the Society, above all, when this scene of beauty broke upon 

 my view, I felt ready to exclaim, as the Queen of Sheba did when she 

 came from afar to see the riches of Solomon, — " The half has not been 

 told me." 



Without consuming any more of your time, let me propose for a senti- 

 ment, — 



Prosperity to the city of Boston and the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society. 



The President then remarked that one of the earliest and most important 

 acts of this Institution was the purchase and consecration of Mount Auburn 



