134 



A FEW WORDS TO BEGINNERS. 



Ijelieved, and once had the hardihood to de- 

 clare, ina long rambling essay under the title 

 of " Temperance and the Vine." 



Isaac Underhill, Esq., eighteen miles 

 ahove Peoria, has five hundred acres in or- 

 chard. He has in the last two years planted 

 out 12,000 apples, all ejigrafted, and 7,000 

 peach trees, of which, as I gather, about 

 16,000 or 17,000 are doing well. He is, 

 however, like all of us, troubled with the small 

 native caterpillar, which renders orchards, and 

 even wild groves and forest trees, most un- 

 sightly objects. But the caterpillar may be 

 destroyed, though there is another thing of 

 more consequence to mention — a sort of 

 " blight," perhaps identical with " pear-tree 

 blight." Here at the north, it is principally 

 confined to the quince — further south, from 



one-eighth to one half of the tops of apple 

 trees are involved — the entire new and some 

 inches of the old wood, black and dead. 

 People will tell you that a " worm " has done 

 this ; but I fear it is one about as tangible as 

 the " insects that cause cholera " — an undis- 

 covered elemental influence. 



I did wish to say something about hedges, 

 in which praise-worthy interest our own per- 

 severing Professor Turner, is doing more 

 good to his kind, and more credit to his ovra 

 great abilities, than when he was hammering 

 the " dead la7iguages " into " dead heads,^* 

 in Illinois college. But as I have sent off 

 four sheets of this paper, (I never copy,) I 

 may repeat what I have already said, and 

 shall certainly tire you, if not your readers. 



Northjield, August Hlh, 1850. 



"A PEV/ "WORDS TO BEGINNERS." 



BY WSI. BACOX. RICHMOND, MA8S. 



I was exceedingly pleased with an article by 

 Mr. Beeciier in a late number of the Hor- 

 ticulturist, entitled " A Few Words to Be- 

 ginners," and would recommend that it be 

 read again and again by every one of your 

 readers ; and then let the publisher of every 

 country paper give it a conspicuous place in 

 his hebdominal, and if it does not, in this 

 way, reach every family, (we do not know of 

 a single family in which there is not some 

 member who may profit by its contents,) let 

 it be posted conspicuously in every garden, 

 at the corner of every street, where flower- 

 mongers and would-be flower-growers are 

 •wont to pass or to congregate, that they may 

 read as thoy run, an:l profit without cost. 



Mr. Beeciier's article is fall of truths, to 

 which every observer must ninst heartily re- 

 ^yiond. Spring comes with its gentle gales, 

 its soft showers, and warm sunbeams. Vege- 



tation awakes under its influence into life, 

 and arrays the forest and the field, the hill- 

 side and the meadow, in freshness and beauty 

 unsurpassed. Trees of foliage of varied 

 forms, and flowers of hues more various than 

 their names, greet the eye, then the mind, 

 and arouse the sensibilities, wherever the eye 

 wanders, or the soul seeks new fountains of 

 delight, or the warmer emotions of the soul 

 are awake to the noble and beautiful in na- 

 ture's workmanship. It is no wonder that in 

 such a season, when inspiration is abroad in 

 everything, that her soft breathings enter into 

 the soul of man, and warm it up in the ardor 

 of aifection. It is no marvel that, as he sees 

 the trees and shrubs dressed in the freshness 

 of beauty, and the flowers smile forth in the 

 morning light, arrayed in all the gaudy pen- 

 j cilings that nature can invent, that he is 

 anxious to gather all these treasures around 



