CRITIQUE ON THE JAN. HORTICULTURIST. 



CRITIQUE ON THE JANUARY HORTICULTURIST 



BY JEFFREYS. 



Mr. Editor-"A long interregnum has passed since my pen laid aside its meddling with 

 your pages. Bodily ailments, a gouty limb — I do confess to a twinge of the gout, now and 

 then, with other infirmities — and some little necessary travelling, have prevented my re- 

 sponses to the frequent calls of your correspondents, to whom, I trust my random scrib- 

 blings have given less pain than pleasure. Should the former sensation at any future mo- 

 ment preponderate, or even a symptom of lassitude come over their spirits, in reading me, 

 exeunt omnes will, in the phrase of the play, shut my further intrusion from their sight. 



TTie Home Education of the Rural Districts. — This article speaks for itself — Major 

 Patrick included. " that /(not mine enemy,) could write a book." That book should 

 be on domestic education — not boarding-school dissipation, miscalled by the true term, in- 

 stead ! How I would score up the paltry, narrow pride of thousands of parents, who think 

 — and act upon the thought — that the education of their daughters is accomplished only 

 when they have taken a degree at some distant " Female Institute," fashionable "Semi- 

 nary," or other fantastic place, (the schools are not all so, however,) where girls are 

 spoiled in having all sorts of superficial nonsense put into their heads, instead of good, 

 sound knowledge, and every-day common sense, which should fit them to excel in the 

 sphere which Providence has marked out for them : and that of their boys, when sent to 

 some equally improper place, to learn that for which they have no natural taste; but in- 

 stead, do acquire notions that turn their heads all topsey-turvey, into exalted fancies which 

 they can never realize, and from thence graduate into professional offices, town trade, Ca- 

 lifornia, or to the , a nameless gentleman, where, in vulgar parlance, many an oth- 

 erwise clever boy, brings up at last. No, no, no, as Mr. Daniel Webster says; that is 

 not the rig/tf way. " But the world is progressing," says the kind, misjudging parent. 

 So it is, in steam-engines, railways, telegraph-wires, all sorts of domestic extravagance, 

 and French revolutions. But in the way of mind, and attention to the homely, agreeable 

 duties of life, I incline to the opinions of an old fashioned author, not much consulted in 

 these progressive days. I fear that " there is nothing new under the sun." I cannot 

 now go into this subject as I would; but to my thinking, they manage these things much 

 better at the south, and west, than they do at the north. There, Planters and Farmers 

 are not ashamed of their profession. Here, cultivators of the soil are. If we are not 

 thus ashamed, why not bring up our children to an honest, manly appreciation of our own 

 calling, instead of encouraging them to sneak away into everything else, reputable or not, 

 so long as they can make money by it, and thus shirk honest labor, and the true dignity 

 of agricultural life? 



Do, my kind, rural friends, read this chapter once a month for the coming year, and 

 practice upon its teachings. Your children will forever thank you for it, notwithstanding 

 a little domestic rebellion in the outset. 



The True Soldat Laboreur Pear. — Why is it that so many foreign pears come to us 

 under wrong names? Great confusion has been caused among our Pomologists in this way. 



Mr. Olmsted appears to have got hold of a good fruit, and I hope we shall hear from 

 it hereafter. A single bearing, however, is not always a correct test. He is considerate 

 enough to tell us the soil on which it grows, which is always important, to enable us to 

 of the quality of a fruit. A deep, clayey loam is the only soil on which accurately 



