DECENNIAL. 



THE HORTICULTURIST. 



ROBABLY there have been few periodicals of its limited 

 circulation that have had around it a more attached and 

 select list of readers. It was pojmlar, in the truest sense, 

 from the moment it was known ; though it never at- 

 tained a very large patronage in comparison with some 

 works of similar price, it found at once an apprecia- 

 tive audience all over the country. Like a new railroad 

 through a not over populous tract, it made its own cus- 

 tomers, if we leave out of view the few who were found 

 ready-made ; but the latter were not numerous. As 

 time progressed, the tract settled, the passengers in- 

 creased, and, with every rolling year, those numbers 

 Itiplied. It was undertaken with a view to the public 

 t it was never very successful, in a commercial view, till the 

 4, from which period its increase of readers to a reason- 

 ing point may be dated. 



amber was issued on July 1, 1846, just ten years since ; it 

 ged from the press ; its plan has been adhered to with 

 iation ; its topics are much the same as they were at first ; the 

 progress of knowledge that has been made by cultivators, is regularly 

 marked in its pages ; in some things, on which the ideas of many were crude and 

 unformed, principles have been established ; the writers themselves have made 

 progress ; false notions have given place to correct views ; in rural architecture, 

 the best lessons have been taught, and are largely practised. In some matters, 

 the standard is so well established, that it would be useless to dwell any longer 

 upon them, while new topics are constantly coming forward, where, indeed, the 

 topics are Inexhaustible. 



In Pomology, and all the branches of fruit culture, the Horticulturist has been 

 a pioneer ; aided by the best minds in the country, this topic early attracted 

 attention, and its founder, in this pursuit, was an acknowledged master, under 

 whose direction the subject was safe. The strides made in this department are per- 

 fectly astonishing. And yet this ten years has been a period of a most desperately 

 fought battle, in which it is to be regretted that the pomologists have been very 

 partially the conquerors. The armies and implements em})loyed for the siege have 

 been pigs, poultry, and mallets; for powder, lime and sulphur; tree quaking and 

 shaking, and the whole paraphernalia of deadly weapons have not routed the 

 enemy, who, from the crescent-shaped puncture he makes in our fruits, is called 

 " The Turk," Most heroically has he stood the siege, looking down upon his 

 enemies with an equanimity and contempt highly creditable to his stoicism. The 

 curculio has been a more " fruitful" topic of this work than any other ; it is quite 

 curious to trace in its pages the progress of the war ; the bulletins, proclamations, 

 sieges, mines, syringings, hard knocks, and anathemas, that have been expended 

 in vain ; he remains very much master of the field, not having been alarmed in 

 the least by the committee appointed to blow him up, or the secret remedy which 

 has been held so long in tcrrorum over his head. He is the wealthiest enemy ever 

 attacked, being worth millions of plums! 



Vol. VI.— July, 1856. 



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