134 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



BUSINESS MEETING. 



Saturday, March 30, 1889. 



An adjourned meeting of the Societ}' was holden at half-past 

 eleven o'clock, the President, Henry P. Walcott, in the chair. 



Benjamin G. Smith, Chairman of the Committee appointed at 

 the last meeting to prepare a memorial of the late Charles L. Flint, 

 reported the following : 



Charles Louis Flint, son of Jeremiah Flint, a farmer, was born 

 in the town of Middleton, Massachusetts, May 8th, 1824. His 

 early life, like that of most farmers' bo^'s, was divided between 

 labor on the farm and stud}' in the country school. But in this 

 quiet country life influences were at work which gave this young 

 farmer-boy an intense desire for study, and a determination to 

 acquire a thorough education. By his indomitable perseverance, 

 unaided by others, he surmounted every obstacle and secured a 

 thorough academic, collegiate, and legal education at Cambridge. 

 He resolved not to graduate wholly without honor or distinction as 

 a writer ; he determined to compete for one of the Bowdoin Prizes, 

 and, although engaged in teaching at the time and having the 

 strongest competitors the class could offer, he won the first prize. 



The Boylston Prizes for declamation were also open to him on 

 graduating, and he determined to try his fortune as a speaker. In 

 this contest he carried off the second prize. He had previously 

 taken the first prize for Latin hexameters and pentameters, on the 

 first institution of those prizes in 1848. 



At his graduation from the Cambridge Law School he received 

 an invitation to enter the office of a lawyer in extensive practice in 

 New York City ; this he accepted, and he was admitted to the 

 New York bar, of which he was a member at his decease. At 

 this time he was a frequent contributor to the " Journal of Agri- 

 culture," a monthl}' publication in Boston, and some of his articles 

 were extensively copied and republished in agricultural periodicals 

 both in this country and in Europe. 



The Massachusetts Board of Agriculture was organized in 1852, 

 and the selection of a competent secretary was a subject of anxious 

 concern to all interested in the enterprise. It was seen that the 

 efficiency of the Board in promoting the important interest for 



