148 TEANSACTIONS OF THE HOETICULTUKAL 



I, of England, to raise science from mere barbarian art toward the 

 realm of science ? Evelyn may be called the father of horticulture. 

 A man of the highest culture, the friend of his sovereign, differing 

 from him as he did in politics, but nevertheless upheld by the sover- 

 eign as against his enemies, he founded what constitutes the horti- 

 culture of to-day, as well as landscape art in the gardens that yet 

 exist in England. 



From England horticulture came to the United States. The 

 first great mind was Andrew J. Downing, and his work was of trees 

 and tree-planting, as well as landscape art. He, it was, who first 

 taught Americans the true idea of making art correspond with 

 nature. That was a great step in advance. It is not necessary to 

 elaborate; enough that I state certain salient points. 



Let us take the cultivation of fruits. Fifty years ago there were 

 comparatively few first-rate fruits known, as against the large 

 number of varieties that we have to-day. This fact alone may be used 

 to show the progress of horticulture within this comparatively short 

 time. Horticulture has really made progress, keeping the art fully 

 abreast of other inventions in civilized art and science. Curiously 

 enough we are coming back to the old-fashioned idea that we left 

 years ago, and are double-working certain fruits, realizing,-as we do 

 (and which is now borne out by scientific investigations), that 

 whether or not the graft influences the stock, the stock certainly 

 does influence the graft. 



We have the evidence of this all around us, notably in the fact 

 that our best pomologists cannot always identify a fruit with cer- 

 tainty, either by its color or its texture. They can come pretty 

 nearly to it by the stem, its indentation and the calyx end of the 

 fruit, and measurably so by the general contour of the fruit. Who 

 shall then say that horticulture has not made as much progress 

 within the last fifty years — nay, as much progress within the last 

 ten years — as has been made in other departments of human 

 industry. 



Agriculture, in its broad sense, includes all that comes within 

 the province of the tiller of the soil — the raising of grain, the breed- 

 ing, feeding and fattening of animals, pomology, aboriculture, vege- 

 table and flower gardening, and landscape gardening. Horticulture, 

 nevertheless, is what may be called the fine art of agriculture, and, 

 so far as money is concerned, or, rather, the profits on the inves^fc- 

 ment, it has always been ahead of the man who has been engaged 

 in mere husbandry. As my good old friend Minier would say : " It 

 is probably the religion of agriculture." And this probably accounts 

 for the fact that the average horticulturist is a very religious man ; 

 and, I am happy to say, that I stand in the same category, although 

 I may not be so Christian a man as I ought. 



Fifty years ago a good many honest and really intelligent men 



