MEMOIR OF HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER. 25 



On the 19th of June, 1841, Mr. Wilder exhibited Clematis 

 azurea gra7idiJlora, a fine new kind. On the 7th of August, the 

 High Bush Blackberry (now known as the Dorchester) was exhib- 

 ited b\- Eliphalet Thayer of the town from which it took its 

 name. This was the first of the improved varieties of blackberry. 

 That afternoon Mr, Wilder went with his friend, Cheever Newhall 

 of Dorchester, to see the blackberries growing in Mr. Thayer's gar- 

 den, and he was afterwards instrumental in disseminating it. The 

 next week he exhibited the first of the Japan Lilies, now so ex- 

 tensively cultivated. It was the Lilium lancifoUum album; the 

 plant having two flower spikes on which were eight expanded 

 flowers and ten buds, and being in the estimation of the Commit- 

 tee " a superb plant." It was not discovered until about ten 

 years later that these lilies are hard}' in this climate. 



At that time in all parts of Europe and America new varieties of 

 fruits, plants, and trees were continually brought into existence by 

 the hand of the skilful gardener. The vanity or the ignorance of 

 the originators of many of these new varieties led them to over- 

 rate their value. Differences of soil and climate also render such 

 productions, which may be of the greatest value in one country, of 

 less in another. It is of the highest importance that these accumu- 

 lations should be tested in regard to their intrinsic value and their 

 adaptation to our soil. This work Mr. Wilder set himself 

 to perform, so far as he might, for his own gratification and for 

 the benefit of the community. Especially had the pomologists of 

 Belgium and other European countries been busy in producing 

 from seed new varieties of the pear, and the desire on the part of 

 several cultivators near Boston to test these new varieties was so 

 great that it was described by A. J. Downing as a " pear mania." 

 Here again Mr. Wilder's zeal and energy were exerted until the pear, 

 in his orchard of twenty-five hundred trees and eight hundred va- 

 rieties, became as noted as the camellia in his conservatory. At 

 the exhibition of the American Pomological Society in this city in 

 1873, he placed on the tables 404 varieties of pears. Of this 

 fruit alone he tested over 1200 varieties, while grapes, cherries, 

 plums and small fruits were tested on such smaller scale as was 

 appropriate. Among the magnificent prizes which were the re- 

 sults of these untiring labors was the Anjou pear, so widely 

 renowned at the present time, which was first shown b}' Mr. 

 Wilder, at the Annual Exhibition in 1844. He continued to intro- 



