NOTES AND MEMOREES OP OQR EARLY HORTICULTURE. 17 



fruits and flowers he gave his personal attention. In his numerous 

 official duties he was a model of industry ; and, at the same time, 

 his busy pen produced numerous valuable books. In biography 

 and historj^ his labors were constant. He published no less than 

 ten large volumes, besides several valuable addresses, sketches, 

 and minor productions. That such a man was so steadfast a 

 friend of this Society, and for five years its President, is to our 

 honor no less than his own. 



Not to forget other prominent men who were friends, officers, 

 and helpers of this Societ}', I cannot pass over the name of one of 

 pre-eminent claims — that of Marshall P. Wilder, who left us so 

 recently, and to whose high qualities our members paid a sincere 

 and tender tribute. My intercourse with him extended over a 

 large part of the century, and often his tender and confiding spirit 

 led him to introduce subjects beyond the direct interests and 

 work of this Society, and to dwell on topics high above those of a 

 material and temporary nature. His broad mind could not only 

 embrace the most valuable details essential to a better culture of 

 fruits and flowers, but could grasp and pursue inquiries that 

 concern our deepest nature and our grandest progress. If the 

 power of his mind convinced me that he was a strong man, I 

 often felt that, in the simplicity and tenderness of his heart, there 

 was the love of a child. 



We cannot, in justice to our subject, pass by the record of one 

 illustrious man, Asa Gra}', in 1847 made a Corresponding Member 

 of this Society. For nearly a half century he has been Professor 

 of Natural History in Harvard College. A large proportion of 

 this time I have known him personally, not only attending his 

 lectures, but meeting him in private, where his modesty has been 

 as remarkable as his merits ; so kind to all who have met him, 

 not only at his home and among the flowers, whose inmost nature 

 he so well know and of whose beauties and virtues, no less than of 

 their most latent and scientific properties he has profoundly written ; 

 a man honored abroad, as at home — whose titles could never rise 

 above his deserts. Who has not been delighted, when, other 

 authorities having failed to describe some perplexing plant or 

 blossom, he could say at length, " Go to Gray's book and you 

 are sure to have your desire gratified." 



Smitten as he now is, at a good old age, with what may prove his 

 final disease, let us hope he may jet be restored and enabled to 

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