1880. 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



349 



interested in building up the farm and garden 

 interests in any special degree I should begin by 

 urging that these wasted water powers should 

 run into mills and factories, and then look to 

 these operatives to buy the faim and garden 

 produce, instead of sending it hundreds of miles 

 away. 



I have little doubt, however, that all this will 

 be perceived in time. Evidences of an increased 

 attention to these matters strike one near many 

 of the larger cities. It is indeed surprising that so 

 much has already been done. Only imagine a 

 country in which every dollar of money was 

 swept away ; houses and buildings torn down by 

 the war; scarcely a fence left standing; all the 

 businesses connected with the arts of peace ne- 

 glected, and those of war useless with the sur- 

 render. Possibly no people ever resumed the 

 great businesses of life under more depressing 

 circumstances. They have had to build them- 

 selves up again out of the ground; to grow up 

 again anew as the trees grow ; and have, like the 

 trees, to wait some years till the harvest of wealth 

 is ripe. 



The Shenandoah valley especially shows a 

 wonderfully revived spirit. Most of the farm 

 buildings and fences were absolutely destroyed 

 here, but now new and mostly tasteful buildings 

 and barns have been built, and scarcely a trace 

 remains of the fearful havoc and waste of fifteen 

 years ago. These new buildings are generally 

 surrounded by good gardens and orchards, and 

 one could not but feel that if so much has fol- 

 lowed so soon after absolute ruin, there is hope for 

 good gardening before many years roll by. 



The Gardener's Monthly for 1881. — As the 

 magazine is about to enter on its twenty-third 

 year the publisher would be favored by any as- 

 sistance its friends may give in making it known 

 to any of the newer votaries of the art of gar- 

 dening. The publisher is proud to believe that 

 there are very few persons in the United States 

 who have taken an intelligent interest in the 

 higher branches of gardening but are found on 

 the subscription books of the Gardener's Month- 

 ly; but there are always new additions to the 

 circle who would welcome the monthly visits of 

 the magazine, did they but know of its existence. 

 The agricultural papers with their horticultural 

 departments do grand service to gardening by 

 encouraging the growth of fruits and flowers in 

 a general way ; but there becomes a time when 

 gardening as an art and science, distinct from 



mere agriculture, becomes a passion and pur- 

 suit, and it is to this eclectic circle the Garden- 

 er's Monthly ministers. The members of this 

 distinguished circle are too far apart to be dis- 

 covered by the ordinary methods of advertising. 

 The Gardener's Monthly has to be made 

 known (outside of its business agents) chiefly 

 by the good will of its friends; and the publisher 

 hopes the forthcoming subscription season will 

 bring from his old well-wishers a good crop of 

 new friends. 



He Only Stole a Flower. — In Philadelphia, 

 there is what is called a "prison agent," who 

 goes through the penitentiary and has power to 

 procure the release of prisoners, or a shortening 

 of the time of those he may think deserving. 

 The report for the year is before us, and amongst 

 other items, we find the case of " two boys who 

 were accused of stealing flowers from a garden. 

 As the}' had only taken a flower, the agent em- 

 ployed counsel," by whose efforts they were ac- 

 quitted. Every once in a while we see some 

 newspaper paragraph reflecting severely on 

 some individual because he dared to prosecute 

 some "respectable person," who "only took a 

 flower," or an apple, or may be a bunch of 

 grapes ; and if perchance after spending perhaps 

 fifty dollars, besides time and vexation, in thus 

 protecting his property, and the thief gets sent 

 down to prison for thirty days or so, there are 

 stinging comments on the justice which sends a 

 person to prison for stealing a ten-cent bunch of 

 grapes, when he would perhaps have received 

 no more punishment if he had taken a three- 

 hundred dollar horse. 



It is strange that it should be necessary to 

 point out that laws are made as much to assert 

 and defend principles as to mete out measure 

 for measure. An able-bodied, useful man is of 

 more direct value to society than a babe. We 

 do not say it was " only a babe," and sentence 

 its murderer to a year's imprisonment, while we 

 hang the murderer of the useful man. On the 

 contrary, the law is presumed to protect more 

 energetically the weak than the strong, and for 

 this reason alone the fruit and the flower grower 

 should have more legal protection than the 

 owner of a horse. The latter has strong per- 

 sonal reasons for locking up his horse, and for 

 prosecuting when in spite of all care the horse 

 is stolen, — but the fruit man loses some to-day, 

 some to-morrow, and so on, till everyone on the 

 tree is gone. He cannot lock up his tree, or build a 



