12 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICrLTUEAL SOCIETY. 



native Caledonians were indebted for their independence rather to 

 their poverty than to their valor. " The masters of the fairest and 

 wealthiest climates of the globe turned with contempt from gloom}' 

 hills assailed by the winter's tempests, from lakes concealed in blue 

 mists, and from cold and lonely heaths over which the deer of the 

 forest were chased bv troops of naked barbarians." The boasted 

 liberty of the Swiss has been due to the inaccessible and repellent 

 nature of their glaeier-clad Alps, while the sunny slopes of Ital}' 

 have been the scenes of war and rapine. 



"Italia I O Italia I hapless tliou 

 Who didst the fatal gift of beautv gain ; 

 A dowry fraught with never-ending pain, 

 A seal of sorrow stamped upon thy brow 1 " 



The great calamities that came upon mankind early in our era, 

 when the civilization of the world was overwhelmed by barba- 

 rians, were caused by the armed immigration of the Northern races 

 seeking a better couutr\'. They came not as armies, but as moving 

 peoples. They had with them all that they loved and all that they 

 possessed: their Dacian women, their young barbarians, their 

 troops of Scjthian cavalrj', their hei-ds of coarse, rough-haired 

 cattle ; their homes were where they encamped. They left their 

 Arctic allegiance behind ; they exchanged with gladness the waters 

 of the Don and the Volga, murmuring under imprisoning ice, for 

 the sunny slopes of the Arno, the Rhone, and the Guadalquivir. 

 They left the gloom of Northern forests, the dark shadows of fir 

 and birch, for the fruitful groves and vineyards of Italy. 



The causes of the emigration that commenced a settlement upon 

 the stern coasts of Massachusetts at the beginning of winter, when 

 December winds howled through the forest and tossed the freezing 

 foam upon the rocks, were not similar to those I have described. 



" Xo lure of conquest's meteor beam, 

 Xor dazzling mines of fancy's dream, 

 Nor wild adventure's love to roam. 

 Brought from their fathers' ancient home, 

 O'er the wide sea, the Pilgrim host! " 



A thirst for freedom of the soul, freedom of thought, and a 

 larger measure of freedom of life. — a desire that two centuries had 

 been kindling, and which had to be satisfied, — led to the reckless 



