ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT APPLETON. 7 



It is to this Society's encouragement, and to the work of its 

 members, that our citizens are largeh^ indebted for the beautiful 

 suburban landscape that is made up of the homes of our wealthy 

 and prosperous people. That encouragement and good work ex- 

 tends beyond the limits of Boston's suburbs. 



The horticultural work undertaken by our municipalities 

 throughout our State has also been stimulated and advanced 

 by the example set by distinguished members of our Society, 

 and others like them, whose beautiful grounds stand as object 

 lessons in all branches of such work. 



To show how horticultural tastes may be promoted, pardon my 

 being a bit personal. My early days were passed in the city of 

 Salem, where a home was incomplete without such a surrounding 

 garden as the experience of most of you can readily picture, 

 with its fruits and flowers, paths and hedges ; and there a phase 

 of horticultural liking was promoted. 



Later, a change of home to the neighboring country gave fields 

 and pastures, Avith natural growths of trees, shrubs, and native 

 flora, with all the living accompaniments that interest, and 

 benefit or torment ; all of which gave opportunity that has de- 

 veloped another phase of horticultural taste. 



With such varied surroundings, could tastes, other than those 

 that are framed with horticultural likings, be expected, even 

 though they are moderate in degree. 



Thus are individuals encouraged, in part, to aid in advancing 

 the work that our Society promotes. 



How can any one, living in these days and knowing of the 

 incorporated " Board of Trustees of Public Reservations," with 

 their right to hold an}^ land within the limits of, and in trust 

 for, the State ; also any one having a knowledge of the Metro- 

 politan Park Commission, with its right to take and hold lands 

 within that territory, whose life comes from the profits of busi- 

 ness transactions largely consummated in that section of Metro- 

 politan Boston which can be called '' the City,'' and any one 

 having a knowledge of the Boston Park Commission, which has 

 constructed and developed a system of connected Public Park 

 lands, from which the Metropolitan Park lands, and certain of 

 the Public Reservations, are to become readily accessible, — how 

 can any such person, if he has traveled, not agree that there is 

 no city anywhere, especially on a seacoast, and on the banks of 



