MAINE STATE SOCIET"^. 59 



raising it from its former neglected position to the rank of a 

 separate and most important division, numbering among its ad-' 

 vocates many men who have devoted the best years of their 

 lives to its advancement, claiming several periodicals having an 

 especial reference to its interests, and many elegant and most 

 profusely illustrated works. Through their influence it has 

 taken a stronger hold on public attention in this country than 

 in the best cultivated districts of Europe. Ten years ago the 

 value of the horticultural interest of the country was estimated 

 to amount in its products to $459,000,000, being almost as 

 large as the whole manufacturing returns. Now when we take 

 into consideration that in 1851 Downing estimated that the 

 planting of orchards and fruit trees for the preceding five years 

 had been three times as great as in any previous five years, and 

 as we know from experience that for the last five years this 

 ratio has by no means diminished, we may hare some idea of 

 the importance which horticulture has already attained, and is 

 destined, in a still greater degree, to attain hereafter through 

 the influence of its appropriate journals. Farmers have begun 

 to see how much more productive their orchards can be made 

 by an approved system of attention than by the old slovenly 

 mode. 



Another subject, for a knowledge of which we are indebted 

 to these periodicals — and which may be incidentally mentioned 

 in this connection— -is that of reclaiming land which has become 

 sterile through a ruinous system of overworking. In many 

 places in the United States, especially in those portions longest 

 settled, land is constantly depreciating in value on this account 

 for farming; and the ignorant owners or settlers, either deem- 

 ing it an evil which cannot be prevented, or considering it too 

 laborious and expensive a task, move off to fresher and more 

 imcultivated localities. The journals have always steadily 

 attacked this vrretched system of constantly absorbing, by sue 

 cessive crops the inherent excellence of a soil, without ever 

 adequately recuperating it. Whatever advancement has been 

 made in this particular, and it is undeniably a great one, is due 

 entirely to their exertions. It would seem indeed that the dif- 

 ference between ten and twenty-five or thirty bushels of wheat 

 to the acre— which has been accomplished through their 



