14 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tree stood in a plat quite near his house, and its branches were 

 not only loaded but lay on the ground under their burden of old- 

 time " Rareripes," blushing red, so juicy as to melt in the mouth, 

 and yet perhaps (the grape only excepted) the only fruit so pure 

 and so good that they never injured the little fellow who put 

 them to a full test. Back of the house stood a majestic chestnut 

 tree, which bore the largest nuts on the farm. A boy, who was 

 no lover of early rising, was sure to be up after a frosty night to 

 pick up the chestnuts, forestalling the sheep, who thought they 

 would be on hand first, but were usually mistaken. Sixty years 

 afterward I saw that same tree, and could understand why the old 

 Greek, among his many gods, was sure to worship a goodly tree. 



The taste acquired in those early days followed the young man 

 in college. We had then as Professor of Natural Histor}', Thomas 

 Nuttall, who awakened special interest in one other of my class- 

 mates out of the seventy, Henry Perkins, afterward a distinguished 

 physician and President of the Massachusetts Medical Society, 

 who was my constant companion at the lectures of Nuttall. We 

 walked each summer's Saturdays with the Professor, through the 

 then woods and wilds of Cambridge, absorbed in the man, as in 

 the science he taught us. I gathered, there and elsewhere, an 

 herbarium of wild flowers, which for long years was a source of 

 special interest. 



Professor Nuttall, born in England, came to this country in 

 1810, explored the great lakes, Arkansas, and the Pacific coast, 

 and published in 1821 a Journal of Travels. From 1822 to 1834, 

 he was Professor of Natural History in Harvard College and 

 Curator of the Botanical Garden. He published a volume on 

 Ornithology and a work on the North American Sylva. He 

 was a member of several societies abroad, and was an authority 

 in natural history. 



During a long residence in Cambridge, and for twenty years, I 

 had the pleasure of cultivating a garden in that town. In those 

 early days, I could only produce about twenty varieties of pears, 

 and a few apples. My grapes were of but two varieties, the 

 Catawba and Isabella, trained on a trellis sixty feet in length 

 and on a part of my house. We had, one year, several bushels of 

 these two grapes. The seasons from 1834 to 1846 were more 

 friendly than at present for the out-door culture of these early- 

 known varieties. I ventured occasionallj^ a few dishes of fruit at 



