196 TRANSACTIONS OF THE HORTICULTUEAL 



menter, and his studies gave impetus to the science, as well as to the 

 art of plant-cultivation and produce. We still smile at some of his 

 notions, but his efforts were certainly crowned with great benefit to 

 horticulture, and so, to many thousands of his countrymen. It has 

 only been, however, within very recent years that professional gar- 

 dening in England has been more than a trade, learned by appren- 

 ticeship. Schools for the purpose have not been known, and private 

 tuition has been irregular and expensive. Most excellent opportuni- 

 ties are now offered the young specialist at the renowned gardens 

 and laboratories at Kew. Science-teaching, also, is taking hold of 

 public instruction, as to make progress in all such practical affairs 

 much more rapid and certain. 



In the United States we can easily trace the development of 

 horticultural practice and theory. The beginning, in any import- 

 ant sense, is a thing of our century. As elsewhere the earliest 

 attention was paid to useful, — in our case mostly edible, — products. 

 Except for the cultivation of the common kitchen vegetables, little 

 was done in a systematic way in the early years of the nineteenth 

 century. Even several important garden products, like tomatoes and 

 celery, came into very tardy use. Apples and pears were almost 

 wholly seedlings, and no commercial nurseries existed where grafted 

 fruit was offered for sale. No one thought of cultivating small 

 fruits, except in occasional instances where a very small bed of 

 foreign varieties of strawberries was made as a garden novelty. No 

 periodical horticultural literature existed; no societies met for dis- 

 cussion and instruction. The Massachusetts Horticultural Society 

 issued its first " Transactions" in 1829. The "Magazine of Horti- 

 culture, Botany and all Useful Discoveries and Improvements in 

 Rural Affairs " — the first of its kind — was started in Boston by C. 

 M. Hovey, in 1835. The enterprising editor still survives, a witness 

 of w^onderf ul changes, in which he has himself largely participated. 

 The Horticulturist, edited by A. J. Downing, was commenced in 

 1846, and one can almost read in this the beginning of true horticul- 

 tural practice and taste in our country. Certain it is, the journal 

 gave great impetus to the cause it advocated. The great seed indus- 

 tries and magnificent nurseries which we know, are not over fifty 

 years old. James Vick started his business within the memory of 

 his living sons, carrying at first his packages to the postoffice in a 

 basket upon his arm. It is not far incorrect to say that grape-grow- 

 ing commenced with us in 1827, when Major Adlum introduced the 

 Catawba to the public attention. In Kenrick's New American Or- 

 charclist, published in 1848, the American varieties of grapes deemed 

 worthy of mention are the following: Alexander, Bland, Catawba, 

 Elsinburg, Isabella, Ohio, Norton's Virginia, Cunningham Prince 

 Edward, Woodson Prince Edward, Scuppernong and Worthington — 

 eleven in all, of which four only are still known to the ordinary vit- 

 iculturist. Peaches were much earlier raised in abundance, and 



