

WM jof Drogrfss in gunl fiistc. 





ij^O the men or women brouf^lit up in cities, an apple is 

 simply an apple; they have no other name for it, and 

 scarcely appreciate, if they distinguish its good or bad 

 qualities. To the same individuals one tree is much like 

 another; shade and grass are of the same quality, pro- 

 vided they are shade and grass. 



So it is in all matters; true education to the masses is 

 denied. To those who are only familiar with gardens, 

 and trees, and flowers, and grass, a star is a star; we have 

 about as much relish, perhaps, for the pleasures of the 

 astronomer, as the dweller of paved streets has for oiir favorite studies. These 

 considerations should teach us humility; because we know a little more than our 

 visitors, there should be no one who has lived long enough to learn o??e thing vrcll, 

 but would acknowledge his ignorance. 



The first step in rural adornment, we heard a lady remarlc, was to plant a hop- 

 vine or a gourd-seed; the progress to greater enjoyments is thus begun, but how 

 many in our great country live their whole lives without the true enjoyment which 

 Nature provides. "We dined once with a wealthy individual, who was his own 

 architect and designer, but who did not know the name, the species even, of the 

 fine tree under whose shadow he had built his costly mansion. The planting of a 

 hop-vine was to him an unknown problem. His gardener had all the enjoyment 

 of the employer's wealth, in this line at least. 



Schools should make a beginning in this matter; they do attempt to instruct 

 the tyro in astronomy and botany, but where is ■ the elementary book on horticul- 

 ture, or has any one ever known half a dozen teachers that have passed an exami- 

 nation at the High School, and who were going to devote a life to teaching others, 

 that could give the name of the most common plants and trees which surround 

 every rambler in the woods ? 



The next step to planting a hop-vine is the acquisition of a knowledge of the 

 fact that vinos yield shade ; a grape-vine follows, and delicious fruit rewards the 

 planter. Would that all the desolate looking farm-houses we have seen in the 

 course of many thousand miles of travel the past season, had even the luxury of a 

 hop-vine ! "We could wish that, in many places, a single tree had been planted 

 coevally with the erection of the house, or that some trees that did once exist had 

 been left to increase. It is a sorrowful fact, that in a very large extent of this 

 great Union, the very beginning of taste is not seen. The beautiful garden, or 

 even the single ornamental object, is the exception and not the rule, if we take 



YoL. VI.— Feb. 1856. 



