STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 193 



twine, at proper intervals, which would make our observations of the 

 courses of the \arious air currents more complete and satisfactory? But 

 when all is done, however complete our instrumentalities, and however 

 careful their record and their use, we can never get at a real science of 

 meteorology, until we can comply with Prof Maury's suggestion : and 

 by co-operation with all the peoples, under our own latitudes at least, 

 make the circuit of our observations embrace all the mutually dependent 

 fields of observation around the entire globe; a so-called science from 

 any narrower field, even if obtained, would evidently be only empyrical, 

 and could never be made complete. 



I throw out these suggestions, not only to encourage all to observe 

 both the weather and the signs of the weather, which we now have, as 

 well as they can, but also, if possible, to stimulate our scientific leaders 

 and teachers in our schools and universities to perfect both their instru- 

 ments and their habits of using them, so as to adjust them to our practical 

 as well as our scientific wants, and to incite all to unite in some effort to 

 form a meteorological alliance with all the other nations of the earth. 

 With proper care and thought there is no inherent difficulty in learning 

 to forecast and predict both the seasons and the storms any more than 

 there once was in the case of eclipses, or the return of the meteors. 

 If the laws are more complex, they are equally solvable, when their data 

 are once well known. What untold millions of wealth such a capacity 

 would .save to the race, in all departments of life, and especially in our 

 own most beautiful art, it is wholly needless to suggest. 



VEGETABLE GARDENING. 



KV A. I.. HAY, JACKSONVILLi;, II, I,., MK.MUKR OK STANDINc; COMMIT IF.K 0.\ VEGliTABLK 



GARDKNING, 



During the last quarter of a century, probably not a year has passed 

 without giving to the world a half dozen or more volumes of sugar-coated 

 literature upon the subject of Vegetable Gard'ening. 



It has been the aim of writers generally to show only the flowers and 

 figs, leaving the deluded followers after worldly wealth an enormous 

 onion, or to snag themselves upon the thorns and thistles. This brilliant 

 style of exhibiting the bright side of the vegetable kingdom has inducetl 

 many a thriving mechanic, and many a poorly patronized professional 

 man, to turn from ''the even tenor of their way," ancl to devote 

 their time antl attention to harrowing, or otherwise lacerating the bosom 

 of mother earth, for the purpose of obtaining the treasures which lie hid- 

 tlen in her chemical laboratory. That this unwise or undue use of the 

 pen has been the cause of many failures in vegetable gardening, by lead- 

 ing the unsuspicious beginner to expect too much, there can be no doubt. 

 But a writer who would waste his or her time and paper in the comi)ilation 

 of a volume of the downs, and say nothing of the ups ; that would write 

 only of the failures and forget to mention the fruits; that would enumerate 



only the back-aches and neck-aches, and entirely ignore the pleasures and 

 u 



