202 TEANSACTIONS OF THE HOKTICULTUEAL 



the state, who could not content himself with seven acres of land. 

 The Roman acre being about one-third less than ours, the law actu- 

 ally limited the possession to about five acres. This was only in the 

 early days of Rome. Afterwards, as the nation became more power- 

 ful and extended its limits by conquest, the citizen was allowed fifty 

 acres, and later on he could be the holder of five hundred acres 

 among the Romans, according to Pliney. Small gardens filled with 

 roses, violets and other sweet-scented flowers, were in repute, while 

 many of the choicest plants and flowers which we now cherish were 

 cultivated by the ancient Greeks. 



Horticultural art declined, however, with the fall of the Roman 

 Empire, and not until long after did it revive, under the Monastic 

 institutions. In England, pleasure gardens, with f oun tains and shady 

 walks, with hedges and designs, were known from the time of the 

 conquest, but it was not until the construction of conservatories for 

 the preservation of tender plants, that horticulture made much pro- 

 gress. According to London, it was not until the year 1717 that 

 such structures were built with glass roofs — and from this time a 

 new era of gardening began. The education and training of young 

 persons to the practice of gardening, raised the occupation to an art, 

 and has brought horticulture, in European countries especially, to a 

 high rank. 



We have considered horticulture as the acme of agriculture; 

 and those familiar only with ordinary farm tillage would be surprised 

 to find how productive land can be made, when husbanded by prac- 

 tical gardening. 



In the best market gardens, the soil, by abundant fertilization or 

 manuring, and working, is kept up to the highest attainable state 

 of fertility, and is made to always produce two, and sometimes three 

 and four crops in a year. It often happens that a single acre, near 

 a large city, yields the cultivator a greater profit than many entire 

 farms bring their owners. 



Within the last thirty or forty years, horticulture, in the United 

 States, has rapidly advanced, and its progress has been largely due to 

 the influence of the various horticultural societies, of which our own 

 State Horticultural Society take? rank as among the best. We have 

 very few magnificent gardens, but in the difl:usion of a knowledge of 

 horticulture among the people at large, there has been a steady 

 advance, and a special literature pertaining to the science and prac- 

 tice of horticulture, has been published by the societies, for the last 

 twenty-five years, under the head of " Transactions of the Illinois 

 State Horticultural Society," Avhich makes, in itself, a library of val- 

 uable information, every volume having furnished many valuable 

 facts, statements and suggestions, i:)ertaiuing to horticulture as an 

 educator. No study offers so many inducements — so attractive that 

 nearly all instinctively drift into, from the very love they have for it 

 — as horticulture. How varied the field of information — how much 



