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A LOOK ABOUT US. 



think he will, in collecting and presenting 

 statistics, and other information showing 

 the importance and value of the agriculture 

 of the United States, Ave helieve this Agri- 

 cultural Bureau will he of vast service, if 

 only in showing the farmers their own 

 strength for all good purposes, if they will 

 only first educate, and then use their 

 powers. 



In our more immediate department — hor- 

 ticulture — there are the most cheering signs 

 of improvement in every direction. In 

 all parts of the country, but especially at 

 the West, horticultural societies are being 

 formed. We think Ohio alone, numbers 

 five at this moment. And as the bare for- 

 mation of such societies shows the existence 

 of a little more than private zeal on the part 

 of the inhabitants in gardening matters, we 

 may take it for granted that the culture of 

 gardens is making progress at the west, 

 with a rapidity commensurate to the won- 

 derful growth there in other respects. 



It is now no longer a question, indeed, 

 that horticulture, both for profit and plea- 

 sure, is destined to become of far more con- 

 sequence here than in any part of Europe. 

 Take, for example, the matter of fruit cul- 

 ture. In no part of Europe has the plant- 

 ing of orchards been carried to the same 

 extent as it has already been in the United 

 States. There is no single peach orchard 

 in France, Italy or Spain, that has produced 

 the owner over $10,000 in a single year, 

 like one in Delaware. There is no apple 

 orchard in Germany or northern Europe, a 

 single crop of which has yielded $12,000, 

 like that of Pelham farm, on the Hudson. 

 And these, though unusual examples of or- 

 chard cultivation by single proprietors, are 

 mere fractions of the aggregate value of 

 the products of the orchards in all of the 

 northern states. The dried fruits — apples 

 and peaches alone, of western New-York — 



amount in value to very large sums annu- 

 ally. And if we may j udge by what we hear, 

 orchard culture, especially of the finer market 

 fruits, has only just commenced. 



We doubt if, at any horticultural assem- 

 blage that ever convened in Europe, there 

 has been the same amount of practical 

 knowledge of pomology brought together as 

 at the congress of fruit-growers, last Octo- 

 ber, in New-York. An intelligent nursery- 

 man, who has just returned from a horti- 

 cultural tour through Great Britain, assures 

 us that at the present moment that country 

 is astonishingly behind us, both in interest 

 in, and knowledge of fruits. This he partly 

 explains by the fact, that only half a dozen 

 sorts of each fruit are usually grown in 

 England, where we grow twenty or thirty; 

 but mainly by the inferiority of their cli- 

 mate, which makes the culture of pears, 

 peaches, &c., without walls, an impossibi- 

 lity, except in rare cases. Again, the fact 

 that in this country there are so many land- 

 holders of intelligence among all classes of 

 society — all busy in improving their pla- 

 ces — whether they consist of a rood or a 

 mile square — causes the interest in fine fruits 

 to become so multiplied, that it assumes an 

 importance here that is not dreamed of for 

 it on the other side of the water. 



With this wide spread interest, and the 

 numberless experiments that large practice 

 will beget, we trust we shall very soon see 

 good results in the production of best 

 native varieties of the finer fruits. Almost 

 every experienced American horticulturist 

 has become convinced that we shall never 

 fairly " touch bottom," or rest on a solid 

 foundation, till we get a good assortment 

 of first rate pears, grapes, &c, raised from 

 seeds in this country ; sorts with sound con- 

 stitutions, adapted to our climate and soil. 

 With great respect for the unwearied la- 

 bors of Van Mons, and others who have 



