Marshall Pinckney Wilder. 69 



thoroughly, and report to the next Legislature. He was made chairman 

 of this commission, and in connection with Rev. President Hitchcock 

 of Amherst College, another member, drew up a report on the subject of 

 agricultural education; the materials of the report being made up of Dr. 

 Hitchcock's observations in Europe in visiting a large number of agricul- 

 tural schools and experimental farms. These united efforts were the seed 

 which has chiefly given rise to the Agricultural College that is now estab- 

 lished at Amherst, of which Mr. Wilder is the first tmstee. 



At this period, Mr. Wilder was the leading spirit in influencing the 

 different agricultural societies of this State to act in harmony, and in the 

 movement out of which grew the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture, 

 of which he was elected president in 1851, and for eleven years a member, 

 by appointment of the Governor's council. In connection with the Board 

 of Agriculture, he suggested a national convention of cultivators, which 

 should endeavor to do for the agriculture of the whole country what the 

 Board were attempting for that of Massachusetts. Similar suggestions 

 came from gentlemen connected with agricultural societies in other States. 

 As a result, the United-States Agricultural Society was organized at 

 Washington, D.C., in 1852; and Col. Wilder was elected its first president, 

 and held the office for six years, or until his resignation of the same. 



During his presidency, Mr. Wilder addressed the society in Massa- 

 chusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky. The attend- 

 ance of people was often from seventy to eighty thousand a day; and 

 the cash receipts of a single exhibition sometimes amounted to nearly 

 forty thousand dollars. Under his administration was instituted the 

 " Great National Field-trial of Reapers and Mowers " at Syracuse, N.Y., 

 — the first of the kind in the world, — when forty-two machines were 

 entered for competition, and kept up the exciting contest for a week. 



At the close of his official duties, the society presented him with its 

 large gold medal of honor, inscribed to Mr. Wilder as " Founder, First 

 President, and, Constant Patron;" and with a tea-service of solid silver, 

 with a complimentary inscription. 



Col. Wilder, as a horticulturist and pomologist, has a world wide repu- 

 tation. It is in this capacity that he is best known everywhere. 



Soon after he removed to Boston, or in the year 1829, was organized 



