JO Marshall Pinckney Wilder. 



the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, under the leadership of Gen. 

 Henry A. S. Dearborn, who was elected its first president. Col. Wilder 

 was one of the noble band that founded this society. At its eleventh 

 annual meeting, in 1840, he was elected the fourth president of the 

 societ}-, and was annually re-elected to the same office for eight years. 

 During his presidency, much from his personal exertions, the property of 

 the society increased from a small amount to nearly forty thousand dollars. 

 Through his leadership, the old Horticultural Hall in School Street was 

 erected, which was for so many years an ornament to the city. It was 

 a brilliant period in the history of the society. Its several festivals in 

 Faneuil Hall and elsewhere were attended by the talent and elite of the 

 country, and constituted gala-days of each year. 



It was chiefly through the exertions of Col. Wilder as one of the com- 

 mittee that separated the society from Mount- Auburn Cemetery, which it 

 really had the honor of founding, that the committee agreed on the terms 

 of separation. He was the pacificator, and the proposer of those favor- 

 able terms for the society which were finally accepted, and which have 

 been its chief source of wealth, and which must greatly increase those 

 riches in all time to come. As a memorial, Mr. Charles O. Whitmore has 

 presented a fine marble bust of Mr. Wilder to the society, which now 

 adorns the Library Hall, and will forever be a monument of his disinter- 

 ested labors.* Col. Wilder is still an active member of the society; has 

 been one of its Executive Committee for twenty-six years, and of the Fi- 

 nance Committee for eighteen. 



But Mr. Wilder has been more widely known at home and abroad as 

 the President of the American Pomological Society for the past eighteen 

 years, — a position that he still occupies. He and such men as Andrew J. 

 Downing, and men of like tastes, had long considered the formation of 

 such a society as important to the interests of American pomolog)^ 

 Accordingly, in July, 1848, he drew up a circular, calling a meeting of 

 fruit-growers and horticulturists in the city of New York. on the follow- 

 ing October. This was signed by committees of several States, Mr. 

 Wilder's name being first, as in the case of the call for the convention that 

 formed the United-States Agricultural Society. 



* The Horticulturist for 1863, pp. 163, 164. 



