30 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1885. 



be completed by death, it is to be hoped it may long remain so 

 deficient !) from Waldo — the thoughtful founder, to Salisbury, — 

 our latest and most munificent benefactor ! What one of our 

 associate Members need be ashamed to show our Hall ? To 

 point to those almost speaking features ; to recall each public or 

 private career, — cycles as it were, of diligent, faithful, uninter- 

 mittent usefulness ! Upon the farm, or in the council chamber ; 

 by the busy marts of trade, or upon the judicial bench ; filling 

 the highest places of the Commonwealth, or engaged in equally 

 honorable, and perhaps more arduous, civic administration ; 

 where were they not found ready at call and ever equal to the 

 emergency ! The writer is one who has thrilled at the story, — 

 half fable, half history, — of Camillus and Cincinnatus; — those 

 strong Terrseculturists of old, whose ploughshares were of neces- 

 sity swords ; — alike ready at the behest of the Seasons or the 

 imminent need of the Republic. And therefore he cannot 

 wonder that tlie elder Lincoln ; — fresh from the patriotic 

 counsels that secured Louisiana, and affirmed the American 

 Republic ; should turn for diversion from those classic studies 

 wliereof he was so fond, and be found active in the organization 

 of the Worcester Agricultural Society ! Later, — when well- 

 earned competence brought with it the prospect of a comfortable 

 and serene old age, — is it surprising that Daniel Waldo applied 

 himself to lay broad and deep the foundations of our own 

 Worcester County Horticultural Society ; whicli, without his 

 careful and timely provision, would scarcely have survived its 

 first decade ! One and all filled the full measure of their oppor- 

 tunities, — heaped full and running over. Nay, they created 

 those opportunities, often ; never sparing themselves when the 

 gratuitous lecture, or the timely editorial, might avail to awaken 

 attention and foster inquiry. So that we may well appropriate 

 for them the epitaph upon Sir Christopher Wren ; and to him 

 who would ask what hath Earle and Colton, Jaques, or Ripley, 

 wrought at seed-time or harvest ; in the bud, or at entire fruition ; 



" Si quseris monuraentum, circumspice !" 



Perhaps we may never possess the portraits of William 

 Lincoln, or Christopher C. Baldwin, — the pioneers of local 



