THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 193 



each moving aside, while a path through the middle lies open for you. By 

 touching a spring on the other side it is again brought back to its former 

 position. Visit all this, and, if you have time, go through the kitchen gardens, 

 orchards and forcing houses, where flowers, fruit and vegetables are grown out 

 of their season. Travel through Europe, and notice the thousands of places 

 similar to this one, and you will have an idea of European horticulture. 



But it is not only in these places, owned by so-called noblemen, that you will 

 find Flora worshiped. The surroundings of the farmer's cottage and working- 

 man's hut show indisputable evidence of taste for gardening. According to the 

 circumstances of the owner, you will generally find around every farmhouse 

 from one acre and upwards, enclosed by a fence to separate it from the rest of 

 the farm, neatly laid out with grass-plats, flower-beds, and graceful curving 

 walks, and planted with appropriate trees and shrubbery. In some secluded 

 corner you will find a summer-house covered with ivy, or other trailing plants, 

 under which the farmer, after having spent the long hot day in hard labor in 

 the field, now enjoys his evening pipe surrounded by his happy family. 



Now let us contrast this with American horticulture, and we shall see how 

 much it may yet be improved. Around the average farmer's house, even in 

 New England and the older States, wo rarely meet with a well-kept garden ; 

 not because they cannot afford it, for the American farmers are better off than 

 the European tillers of the soil, they having no landlords that, like immense 

 parasites, suck nourishment from their pockets. It is simply because the inter- 

 est and skill is wanting. An American farmer would think it foolish indeed to 

 spend fifty dollars in the laying out of a garden and an appropriate plantation 

 of ornamental shrubbery, never thinking or caring for the comfort and general 

 good appearance it would add to his place. Fruit trees are often set out with a 

 view to making money from them, but too often they are either trimmed up on 

 the model of a broomstick, or they are left to themselves, half choked by pig- 

 weeds, with straggling branches shooting out everywhere but in the top, and the 

 trees leaning against each other like so many drunken sailors. Even the culti- 

 tion of a proper selection of vegetables is sadly neglected by many farmers, — 

 only three or four of the most common sorts being cultivated — while the 

 numerous assortment that embellish the table of the European farmer is en- 

 tirely unknown. Horticulture is so well known to be a profitable business near 

 the larger towns, that it is useless to dwell upon it. The only thing that is not 

 well understood is, that it is necessary to understand the business in order to be 

 successful. 



Horticulture ought to be encouraged for the refining influence that the plants 

 have upon the human mind. Who does not admire a well-grown specimen of 

 double geranium, when its superb umbels of Scarlet flowers are stretching out 

 from it in all directions? Who does not love to inhale the delicious odor of the 

 opening rosebud or the humble pink? AVe admire the graceful drapery of the 

 Virginia creeper, when encircling the post of the piazza or clinging to the side 

 of the wall. But all these impressions on the senses are not without their 

 effects when daily received. A love for their cultivation is awakened, a taste 

 for the beautiful is acquired, a tenderness felt toward them, a pleasure and 

 cheerfulness is engendered which spontaneously and insensibly communicate 

 themselves in our dealings with our fellow men, both in our business and in 

 social life. 



Of what great value, then, is the association of plants to all, and especially 

 to the child whose plastic mind is so easily impressed upon, whose flexible 



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