394 Festival of the 



This called up G. S. Hillard, Esq., who, in his usual felicitous manner, 

 and beautiful language, replied in a brief speech, but for M'hich we have 

 only room for the conclusion. 



" As I have not the honor to be a member of the Horticultural Society, 1 

 can speak the more fully and freely of its claims and merits. I feel that 1 

 owe you a debt of gratitude, in common with the whole community. It is 

 our privilege to live in a growing and improving region. Each successive 

 year shows a marked progress in that beautiful belt of villages which clasps 

 our city like a jewelled zone. Trim gardens are constantly encroaching 

 upon the uncultivated fields ; neat houses and tasteful cottages are peeping 

 through their screens of foliage, and filling the mind and the eye with im- 

 ages of quiet beauty. Lovely are such scenes 1o the sense — more lovely 

 to the soul. The moral beauty is even more than the material. I forget 

 the houses in thinking of the homes. I delight to dwell upon the happiness 

 that those roofs shelter, the manly and gentle virtues that are there nurtured, 

 the domestic peace that endears, and the intelligence and worth that dignify 

 those hearths ; my heart swells with a grateful emotion that my lot is cast 

 in so favored a land. I feel that your society has had its part in this good 

 work, by diffusing a taste for those simple rural pleasures and the virtues 

 of which they are the allies, and that you have helped to make our people 

 happier and better. And you are reaping no scanty harvest of return. 

 Your triumphs and successes are recorded upon a page wide as the living 

 landscape, and bounded by no margin less than that of the horizon. Every 

 tree which waves in the wind is vocal with your good works, and every 

 flower that holds up its painted cup to drink the dew of the morning, seems 

 redolent of your praise. Allow me to conclude these remarks, which 

 have been extended to a greater length than I had proposed, by a sentiment 

 suggested alike by the scene now before us, and by the associations which 

 belong habitually to this hall : — 



Tlie Gardens of our CountT^ — May the apple of discord never grow there, nor the 

 serpent of disunion glide among their bowers. 



The Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association — A rich bed of soil from which 

 has grown not only some of the most ornamental, but many of the most useful members 

 of society. 



Mr. G. G. Smith, President of the Association, responded to this, and 

 gave : — 



The Sentiment of Beauty, Moral, Phijsical, and Intellectual, — Implanted by the Crea- 

 tor in the human mind. It is our duty as well as our privilege to cultivate and improve it. 



Mr. W. R. Prince, delegate of the Queen's County Horticultural Soci- 

 ety, sent to the chair the following sentiment : — 



77(6 Flowers of Rhetoric and of the Floral Domain — Entwined in perfect union : the 

 one adds permanence and the other imparts beauty to this glorious fabric of freedom. 



Dr. R. T. Underbill, of New York, then gave— 



The people of New England prove their title good as the lineal descendants of the 

 Pilgrim Fathers, by their energy in subjugating an ungenial soil to all the useful pur- 

 poses of life, their love of liberty, and by the Temples of their mechanical genius. 



