AMERICAN VERSUS BRITISH HORTICULTURE. 



throw upon the growing taste for gardening among us. A gentleman who is himself 

 ignorant of gardening, establishes himself at a country seat. He engages the best 

 gardener he can find. The latter fails in one half that he attempts, and the proprietor, 

 knowing nothing of the reason of the failures, attributes to the difficulties of the thing 

 itself, what should be attributed to the want of knowledge, or experience of the soil 

 and climate, in the gardener. 



A case of this kind, which has recently come under our notice, is too striking an il- 

 lustration not to be worth mentioning here. In one of our large cities south of New- 

 York, where the soil and climate are particularly fine for fruit-growing — where tho 

 most delicious peaches, pears, and apricots grow almost as easily as the apple at the 

 north, it was confidently stated to us by several amateurs, that the foreign grape could 

 not be cultivated in vineries there — " several had tried it and failed." We were, of 

 course, as incredulous as if we had been told that the peach would not ripen in Per- 

 sia, or the fig in Spain. But our incredulity was answered by a promise to show us 

 the next day, that the thing had been well tried. 



We were accordingly shown : and the exhibition, as we suspected, amounted to this. 

 The vineries were in all cases placed and treated, in that bright, powerful sunshine, just 

 as they would have been placed and treated in Britain — that is, facing due south, and 

 generally under the shelter of a warm bank. Besides this, not half provision enough was 

 made, either for ventilation or water. The result was perfectly natural. The vines were 

 burned up by excess of light and heat, and starved for want of air and water. We 

 pointed out how the same money, (no small amount, for one of the ranges was 200 feet 

 long,) applied in building a span-roofed house, on a perfectly open exposure, and running 

 on a north and souths instead of an east and west line, and treated by a person who 

 would open his eyes to the fact, that he was no longer gardening in the old, but the 

 new world — would have given to7is of grapes, where only pounds had been obtained. 



The same thing is seen on a smaller scale, in almost every fruit garden that is laid 

 out. Tender fruit trees are planted on the south side offences or walls, for sun, when 

 they ought always to be put on the north, for shade ; and foliage is constantly thinned 

 out, to let the sun in to the fruit, when it ought to be encouraged to grow thicker, to 

 protect it from the solar rays.* 



But, in fact, the whole routine of practice in American and British horticulture, is, 

 and must be essentially diff"erent. We give to Boston, Salem, and the eastern cities, 

 the credit of bearing off the palm of horticultural skill ; and we must not conceal the 

 fact, that the superiority of the fruits and flowers there, in a climate more unfavorable 

 than that of the middle states, has been owing, not to the superiority of the foreign 

 gardeners which they employ — but to the greater knowledge and interest in hor- 

 ticulture taken there by the proprietors of gardens, themselves. There is really a na- 

 tive school of horticulture about Boston, and even foreign gardeners there, are obliged 

 to yield to its influence. 



* If we were asked to say whnl praclice, founded on principle, had been most beneficially introduced into our hor 

 — \vc j^houki answer mulching — niulcliing suggested by the need of moisture in our dry climate, and 

 preserving it about tlic rools of plants. 



