30 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



turing Company, and in 1851 was a member of the city council of 

 that city. Mrs. Gardiner and her sister, afterwards wife of the Rev. 

 William H. Harison, D. D., built, at their own expense, the Church 

 of the Atonement, in Augusta, and to this work Mr. Gardiner him- 

 self gave a great deal of the labor of love. He was for many years 

 a delegate to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal 

 Church from Georgia, meeting in those sessions his father who had 

 been for many years, and until his death continued to be, a delegate 

 from Maine to the same body. 



On the breaking out of the Rebellion, Mr. Gardiner and his wife 

 came north, and afterwards visited Europe, where they spent several 

 3'ears. On the death of his father, in 1864, he took up his permanent 

 residence at Oaklands, where the remainder of his life was spent. 

 Mrs. Gardiner died in 1869. They never had children. Mr. Gar- 

 diner succeeded his father as T/easurer of the Maine Episcopal Mis- 

 sionary Society, and as Senior Warden of Christ Church. 



After the death of his wife Mr. Gardiner devoted his time to the 

 care of his orchard, farm and garden, and also to church and phil- 

 anthropic work. In referring to this period the writer of an obituary 

 notice in the Gardiner Home Journal says : "Through weary years 

 the church and the Master's work have been to him his greatest joy 

 and supplied the place of wife and children. They have been served 

 with a heart pure and loving, ever ready to spend and to be spent in 

 any good cause, ever ready to respond, and to even anticipate the 

 call of charity and the cry of woe." 



The famous orchard of Bellflowers at Oaklands was the especial 

 pride and care of Mr. Gardiner. This orchard was planted in 1863, 

 and commenced to bear for the first time in 1879. He gives an ac- 

 count of the same and its management in our Transactions for 1880- 

 81. It numbers about three hundred trees and its yield in 1886 was 

 seven hundred barrels. The care of this orchard and of his ornamental 

 grounds and garden, was a source of constant pleasure to Mr. Gar- 

 diner, and many of the trees were grafted and pruned b^^ his own 

 hands. Meteorological records have been kept at Oaklands for 

 nearly fifty years, since 1869 by Mr. Gardiner himself. He was 

 greatly interested in this work, exacting as it was, and was very 

 prompt in forwarding the monthly reports to the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution at Washington, and to the local papers. Some idea of the 

 exacting nature of the work may be gathered from the fact that each 

 day's record demanded three different observations of temperature, 



