He had lived io see great improvements in the art of 

 cultivation, and in these none were more remarkable 

 than that of fruit culture. He alluded to the example 

 of Gov. Endicott in planting his pear tree at Danvers, 

 now multiplied into thousands of orchards, and that, in- 

 stead of what was then considered an aristocratic tree 

 for the gardens of the opulent, it is now planted in or- 

 chards of five or more thousands of a single variety. 

 He also alluded to the same relative progress in other 

 fruits, stating that he had just returned from the great 

 meeting at Philadelphia of the American Pomological 

 Society, now in the twenty-first year of its existence, 

 where twenty-five States and thirty-four societies w^ere 

 represented, and Avhere from Kansas, California, and ter- 

 ritories which had not even a name when the national 

 society was established, were brought fruits, for size ana 

 beauty almost surpassing belief These, said he, are the 

 results of a wide-spread interest in fruit culture, ema- 

 nating more from the early examples in Massachusetts^ 

 than from any other cause. 



Mark the wonderful progress since the establishment 

 of the Mass. Horticultural Society forty years since, 

 when at its first exhibition, Robert Manning, your own, 

 our own great American pomologist, (thank God, his 

 honored son, bearing his own name, is here to-day), pre- 

 sented but two baskets of fruit, and who afterwards ex- 

 hibited some three hundred varieties of the pear alone 

 at one exhibition of this society. 



Continuing his remarks on the influence of Societies, 

 he accorded to Old Essex County a foremost place as a. 

 pioneer not only in Agriculture but Fruit Culture ; in- 

 stanced the fact that Gov. Endicott, Timothy Pickering, 

 and Robert Manning, all had nurseries of trees. In re- 



