Your great abilities, energy, talents and training have brought you distinction in a variety of fields so diverse that you have rightly been called the ideal of the complete man in this age of the specialist. Whatever your wide-ranging intellect has been focused upon has been improved for your having clone so. You have demonstrated your aptitude in athletics, ornamental iron work and Shakespearean acting. You have achieved eminence and renown in art, botany. business, folk dancing, horticulture. literature, nature study, nursery practice and scholarship. With you always have been courage and determination. It is to your efforts as a practical nurseryman and a horticulturist with an intense interest in rhododendrons that our attention is primarily drawn this evening.

Through patient trials you found representatives of exotic rhododendron species hardy in the American northeast. From 1921 to 1928 you experimented with a propagating frame for the rooting of cuttings outdoors without a greenhouse. In 1932 this frame was patented. Sharing your knowledge with the horticultural world, you in 1939 published articles describing your methods of using the Nearing frame. In 1939 the wounding of cuttings in order to produce an adequate root system was first proposed by you.

Your production and introduction of excellent dwarf rhododendrons suitable for modern landscaping in cold climates are well known to discerning gardeners. Additional introductions of beautiful and hardy rhododendrons created by you are anxiously awaited by amateur growers, hobbyists and professional nurserymen.

This Plaque formally marks the recognition by the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society of your many achievements as it also signifies the appreciation and affectionate regard of your associates in the Society.

By unanimous action of the Board of Directors.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania November 8, 1962