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gratulate you that the Society enters upon a new year under happy auspices, 

 with a numerous list of members, with an income sufficient for its present 

 wants, and with a rational prospect of its gradual increase, with a board of 

 officers chosen with great unanimity, with a gentleman placed at its head, 

 to be its President, of mature judgment, enlarged views, liberal principles, 

 of high cultivation in whatever relates to horticultural science, of eminent 

 skill in all that pertains to horticultural practice, and who, so far as a con- 

 tinuance of the prosperity and usefulness of the Society can be dependent 

 on individual effort, is both able and willing to promote the one and extend 

 the other. 



For the many tokens of kindness that I have received at the hands of 

 the Society since my connection with it, I now, by returning my thanks 

 therefor, make all the acknowledgment in my power. Those kindnesses 

 have been duly appreciated, and the remembrance of them will be gratefully 

 cherished. 



Having thus, gentlemen, given you this account of my stewardship, I am 

 ready to resign it into the hands that you have delegated to receive it ; for 

 I have now so nearly "finished the work that has been given me to do," 

 that when I shall have performed one more act of official duty, or perhaps 

 I should say of official courtesy, my connection with the Society as its 

 President will be finally terminated. To perform that act will be entirely 

 satisfactory to me. I am sure that it cannot be otherwise than acceptable 

 to you, because that which I am called upon to do, as the one final, closing 

 act of my official career, is for me to give place to my elected successor. 



And now, gentlemen, in the performance of this last duty, to that suc- 

 cessor I resign the chair, — thereby conferring upon him the powers and 

 imposing upon him the duties heretofore exercised by or assigned to me ; 

 and having done this, with my most sincere wish that the exercise by that 

 successor of the one, and the fulfilment by him of the other, may be in such 

 manner as to redound alike to his own honor and to the benefit of the 

 Society, I bid you a final farewell. 



ADDRESS OF MR. STICKNEY. 



Josiah Stickney, the newly-elected President, upon taking the chair, 

 spoke as follows : — 



Gentlemen of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, — It is with some 

 embarrassment that I now address you. I have a deep and grateful sense 

 of the high honor you have conferred upon me in electing me as your 

 President, — an honor heretofore bestowed upon gentlemen in all respects 

 qualified to discharge the duties of the office in a manner entirely satisfac- 

 tory to the Society, and with lasting credit to themselves. When I read 

 from our records the names of the presidents who have, from the earliest 

 history of our Society down to the present day, filled this chair, it seems 

 to me an act of temerity for one of my humble capacities to stand in their 

 place ; but, gentlemen, I have yielded my own judgment in the case to the 



