TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 121 



appreciate the progress of society, and the difTusion of innocent gratifica- 

 tions which we owe to the labor and knowledge of man, working upon the 

 raw materials of nature. But the waning hour forbids me to go further in 

 this path. 



As I have not the honor to be a member of the Horticultural Society, I 

 can speak the more fully and freely of its claims and merits. I feel that I 

 owe you a debt of gratitude, in common with the whole community. It is 

 our privilege to live in a growing and improving region. Each successive 

 year shows a marked progress in that beautiful belt of villages which 

 clasps our city like a jewelled zone. Trim gardens are constantly en- 

 croaching upon the uncultivated fields ; neat houses and tasteful cottages 

 are peeping through their screens of foliage, and filling the mind and the 

 eye with images of quiet beauty. Lovely are such scenes to the sense — 

 more lovely to the soul. The moral beauty is even more than the mate- 

 rial. I forget the houses in thinking of the homes. I delight to dwell 

 upon the happiness that those roofs shelter, the manly and gentle virtues 

 that are there nurtured, the domestic peace that endears, and the intelli- 

 gence and worth that dignify those hearths ; my heart swells with a grate- 

 ful emotion that my lot is cast in so favored a land. I feel that your 

 Society has had its part in this good work, by diffusing a taste for those 

 simple rural pleasures and the virtues of which they are the allies, and 

 that you have helped to make our people happier and better. And you 

 are reaping no scanty harvest of return. Your triumphs and successes 

 are recorded upon a page wide as the living landscape and bounded by no 

 margin less than that of the horizon. Every tree which waves in the 

 wind is vocal with your good works, and every flower that holds up its 

 painted cup to drink the dew of the morning, seems redolent of your 

 praise. Allow me to conclude these remarks, which have been extended 

 to a greater length than I had proposed, by a sentiment suggested alike by 

 the scene now before us and by the associations which belong habitually 

 to this hall, — 



The Gardens of our Country, — May the apple of discord never grow 

 there, nor the serpent of disunion glide among their bowers. 

 The Chair then gave, — 



The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, — A rich bed of 

 soil from which has grown not only some of the most ornamental, but 

 many of the most useful members of society. 



Mr. George G. Smith, the President of the Association thus alluded to, 

 said, that carried away by the tide of happy influences arising from the 

 scenes of the day and evening, he might easily make a speech. But the 

 lime had passed, and he stood there as the representative of an association 

 more famed for action than for words. He congratulated the Society on 

 the triumphant success thus far of their enterprise. For himself he would 

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