SOCIETY OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS. ' 229 



I am probably however wandering greatly from my subject and 

 may prove tiresome. Let us, however, inquire for a moment, what is 

 horticulture? As generally accepted or at least acted upon in this- 

 country, horticultural societies treat more of fruits, with, as Col. 

 Sellers would say, flowers and vegetables as a side show. Occasionally 

 however some bold individual springs other cognate subjects before 

 the meeting, as how to lay out ground, the vegetable garden, trees 

 and shrubs, etc. The word horticulture, however, we are told is de- 

 rived from Hoiins, a garden, and Cultuni, culture, in other words 

 the culture of the garden. The garden then is the foundation of 

 the whole subject, and history informs us that from the earliest 

 times the great men of the world have been noted for their gardens. 

 The garden is supposed in reality to have had its origin in supplying 

 man's primitive wants. The oldest history known even locating 

 the first man in a beautiful garden — Eden. If then I take a rather 

 wide latitude for my subject, this is my excuse; horticulture is 

 founded on the garden, and gardening likely older even than agricul- 

 ture or field culture. 



Condon, the great horticultural writer says, " gardening like 

 most other arts, had its origin in the supply of a primitive want, and 

 as wants grew into desires and desires increased, and became more 

 luxurious and refined, its objects and its province extended. " 'Till 

 from an enclosure of a few square yards, containing, as Horace Wal- 

 pole has said, ''a gooseberry bush and a cabbage," such as may be 

 seen before the door of a hut on the borders of a common, it has 

 expanded to a park of several miles in circuit, its bounderies lost in 

 forest scenery, plantations, pleasure grounds, lawns, flower gardens, 

 hot-houses, orchards and kitchen gardens, producing for the table of 

 the owner and his guests, the fruits, flowers and culinary vegetables 

 of every climate of the world. The Emperor Dioclesian, as Cowper 

 has it, is made to say: — 



If 1 my friends 'said he' should to you show. 

 All tlie delights which in these gardens grow, 

 "Tis likelier far that you would with me stay, 

 Than 'tis that you should carry me away, 

 And trust me not, mv friends, if every day 

 I Wiilk not here with more delight, 

 Than ever after the most happy fight; 

 In triumph to the capital I rode, 

 To thank the gods ! ! 



Illinois, and with it Chicago, in the early part of the year 1857, 

 had passed through a few years of extraordinary growth. The iron 

 horse had reached it, and 3,953 miles of railroad had then a central 

 point in the now great city. But five years before — think how 

 short a time — the first rail, a strap one, had been laid west to Elgin, 

 forty miles. Is it any wonder there had been a tremendous boom. 



