13G STATE BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. 



plo uro slill fearful tliat fruit-growiii_:j; will be ovenlone; lifty years ago the 

 same result was predicted, but the anticiimted result has not yet come, nor do 

 we believe that it ever will, for various reasons. Among which we notice, that 

 the increased taste for gardening, which is such a marked feature of our time 

 and nationality, augments the demand for lirst class fruits and vegetables, and 

 with this increased consumption, producers of a first class article need have 

 no fear of an over supply. The natural productions of the earth are simple, 

 and it is doubtful whether many of the grains, roots, herbs and fruits when 

 first discovered were palatable food for man in a state of civilization, certainly 

 in their native wild state, they hardly resemble their present appearance or 

 value. The peach was originally an almond, but now changed by the skill of 

 man into sweet and melting llesh. The pear has been cultivated for two thou- 

 sand years, but it is within tlie past seventy years that its fruit has been 

 brought to its present high state of excellence. Dwarfing the pear by graft- 

 ing it on the quince is also an art cf modern growth. The plum, cherry and 

 apple were as we still know them in their native wilds. The wild pea and 

 beau, the potato, and cabbage, with a leaf hardly larger than that of the ordi- 

 nary clover ; and in fact all our esteemed fruits and vegetables had but little 

 to recommend them, but gradually and surely have their natures been melio- 

 rated by breeding and cultivation, and made subservient to the wants of man. 

 The earliest efforts for improvement in horticulture in America were made by 

 nurserymen and fruit growers, meeting in convention and founding societies 

 for the advancement of pomology, and it seems to me that the future progress 

 of horticulture must depend largely upon the work of these societies, and 

 that of the professonal horticulturist. 



Here the latter can give to the public the result of his experience and 

 observation, and find cause for his failures in the success of his neighbors and 

 learn wisdom from those who by experience and observation have learned the 

 secrets of nature. And while we notice with pardonable pride the progress 

 made each year, yet are we fully conscious of how much we have yet to learn 

 of her hidden treasures? We know that plants absorb and utilize more or less 

 of certain elements as they are differently constituted, and yet the coloring of 

 their leaves and flowers is still a profound secret to us. Our greatest progress 

 has been in pomology, as the works of Downing, Warder, Wilder, and the rec- 

 ords of the American Pomological Society, amply testify that in this particular 

 department of horticulture we stand unrivalled. Still at the west and north- 

 west, horticulture in its broadest sense is still in its infancy; its most impor- 

 tant triumphs have been scored in the vineyard. 



Only a few years ago it was thought that the Isabella and Catawba were the 

 only grapes adapted to the northwestern states; now we have many others. 

 Certain varieties of the American grape belonging to the species riparia and 

 mstivalis are now the cliief reliance of French vineyardists on account of their 

 ability to resist the phylloxera. The American potato is also extensively culti- 

 vated in Europe for a variety of purposes, particularly by the Germans, who are 

 its most successful cultivators. The shrewd Germans are evidently not troubled 

 much with the mania for new varieties ; they exercise their good common sense 

 in confining their attention to such kinds as they have proved worthy of culti- 

 vation. The consequence is that they now control the English market, and 

 teach us this important lesson • to avoid the extensive planting of new varieties 

 until their adaptability to our soil and climate is fully proven. 



We say, then, that fruits a)id vegetables should be cultivated by every fam- 

 ily, as well for their hygienic tendencies as for their aid in satisfying our uat- 



