1869.] HORTICULTURE IN AMERICA. 531 



had then been introduced into our gardens or catalogues ; now we have many 

 new kinds, and the product is equally great. 



Such is the onward march of civilisation and refinement in our own day. How 

 cheering and inspiring the omens of the future ! Our illustrations in some parti- 

 culars may seem to be too highly coloured and too hopeful, but we think time will 

 prove them to be substantially correct. Such is our rapid progress, that if any 

 apparent over-statement has been made, its correctness will be verified or even 

 exceeded while we yet speak. 



How would our eyes have been gladdened, and our hopes have been encouraged^ 

 if in our early exhibitions we could have had a vision of the extended displays 

 of the present time, where, instead of two baskets of fruit, presented at the first 

 exhibition of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society by Robert Manning, the 

 great Eastern pioneer, were afterwards brought from the same garden nearly 

 three hundred varieties of the Pear, not to speak of other fruits ! And how 

 would our confidence have been strengthened and our zeal have been excited, if 

 any prophetic eye could have pictured to us a view of such magnificent exhibi- 

 tions as those witnessed at St Louis at our last session, or could even have fore- 

 shadowed the cornucopial display in the grand Philadelphia temple of horticulture 

 on the present occasion ! 



And how would the founders of the Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Societies, the first, and for many years the only, societies on this continent 

 for the promotion of horticulture, have rejoiced in the anticipation of the multi- 

 plication of institutions, all of which recognise fruit culture as a prominent object. 

 The first agricultural society and the first horticultural society in this country 

 were established in this city, the former in 1785, the latter in 1827. Truly, "a 

 little one has become a thousand," there being now enumerated on the books of 

 the Department of Agriculture at Washington more than thirteen hundred 

 organisations, including State, county, and town societies, for promoting the cul- 

 ture of the soil. 



The first agricultural newspaper printed in America, the 'American Farmer,' 

 made its appearance in 1820, less than fifty years ago. How would the enter- 

 prise and ambition of its valiant editor, John S. Skinner, have been excited by 

 the idea that within half a century some of its successors would enroll on their 

 subscription-lists the names of one hundred and fifty thousand persons, thereby 

 exciting the surprise and admiration of the Old World ! Magazines, periodicals, 

 and papers devoted to horticulture, furnish testimony equally gratifying ; and 

 where, within the knowledge of some present, there was but one horticultural 

 journal published in our country, there are now numerous monthlies and periodi- 

 cals, whose columns of editorial and other appropriate matter compare favourably 

 with the best European publications of the day. Nor is this all. Thousands of 

 secular and even religious papers have special columns on these subjects, without 

 which their success would be doubtful. 



Some are here to-day who remember the condition of the few nurseries on our 

 eastern shores fifty years ago — for there were scarcely any in other States. These 

 were limited to a few hundred acres in all. Those in New England, from whence 

 emanated so much of the early interest of our country in fruit culture, were not, 

 in total extent, half so large as that of a single establishment in Western New 

 York at the present time, supposed to be the largest in the world. Nurseries of 

 large extent are now distributed throughout the length and breadth of our 

 domain, sending out annually an amount of trees and plants that would then have 

 been deemed fabulous ; single towns, like Eochester or Geneva, possessing three 

 thousand acres or more devoted to the nursery business. Nor should I omit to 



