494 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



THE WORKS OE CREATION. 



Each countiy resident, and indeed town inhabitant, if he only has a few 

 square rods to cultivate, may have an inexhaustible fund for enjoyment. I once 

 counted in the contracted enclosure of a friend who lived in the thick portion 

 of New York city, no less than forty species of ornamental plants, besides his 

 currants, raspberries, and grapes; and in a still more contracted, space in 

 Chestnut street, Philadelphia, tlfe residence of the late Dr. Brinckle, was col- 

 lected, that remarkable museum of growing fruits of new varieties, which he 

 originated there, and which have rendered his name so well known throughout 

 the Union. But the country resident has greater opportunities and a much 

 wider field for observation, and can witness all that is beautiful, and may enjoy 

 the grandeur and glory which the works of Creation open before him. It is 

 too common for men to devote their whole time and all their thoughts to the 

 accumulation of money. It is a great and common error to suppose that hap- 

 piness is earned and intelligence advanced by a perpetual struggle for wealth. 

 In this engerness and error, men confine themselves to the office and counting- 

 room, every hour of the day, week after week, year after year, and occupy their 

 thoughts in the hours of the night, with constant efforts for gain, and shut out 

 from their vision the sweet sunshine of heaven, and the beauty and glory of 

 the world around them. The microscopic charms everywhere beneath their 

 feet, and the telescopic wonders of the orbs above, are alike unseen and 

 unheeded. The grandeur of wealth is nothing compared with the empire of 

 beauty and glory which is given on every side, to the attentive observer; the 

 fascination of money-making is low and groveling before the myriads of 

 •created forms which are constantly revealed to the vision. It is not necessary 

 that the observer should be a man of entire leisure, to enjoy these scenes ; an 

 hour can be taken, morning or evening, or at midday, for the trees of his own 

 planting, and for the flowers which are blooming under the touch of his hand. 

 To all these, the revelations of science give a tenfold charm. The opening 

 buds of spring are seen to develop a thousand microscopic wonders; he sees in 

 every starting shoot a structure more surprising than the greatest work of 

 architecture; he discovers millions of minute cells in every leaf that expands 

 to the summer sun; he sees in every tree a perfect system of circulation and 

 supply, complex by myriads of parts, but complete in order, by which its struct- 

 ure is ceaselessly built up, through the intervention of cells and vessels, too 

 minute for the unaided eye, but under the optician's glass more perfect than 

 the finest part of a watch, and more finished than the finest work of the 

 engravei', — a single fall grown apple tree containing within its branches more 

 than a hundred millions of minute vessels, and having in its three hundred 

 thousand leaves more than a thousand million breathing pores of exquisite 

 form; delicious fruits forming on every spray, which, as they expand and 

 ripen, become touched by the soft and unseen pencil of nature with tints of 

 gold, or shadings of crimson; all a perpetual scene of wonder and change, 

 without cessation by day and by night. And who that has witnessed this cease- 

 less rotation of life would give them all up for the sake of pouring over 

 ■columns of figures and musty packages of bonds and contracts pent up within 

 brick walls I 



THE PLEASURES OF HORTICULTURE. 



There is everything to invite the cultivation of the soil. The cheap com- 

 forts and luxuries which it furnishes in the yearly circle of fruits, — the increase 



