BOUNDARY BETWEEN HORTICULTURE AND AGRICULTURE. 



more familiar terms, is not greater than between " lotv^^ farming and " high" fann- 

 inir, as Mr. Mechi, the famous English farmer of " Tiptree Heath," would denominate 

 them. One, the " old-fashioned," slow and easy mode of our fathers ; the other, a 

 tliorough cultivation and manuring of the soil, stimulating it to the utmost power of 

 production, and consequent profit — the only successful mode of farming in a country 

 with a crowded population and a heavy consumption. " High" farming is, in fact, 

 horticultural cultivation applied to agriculture. There is no wall between these 

 two practices. It is the gradual and agreeable approach from the rough inequalities 

 of surface, in the broken, waste field, to the smooth and grassy turf of the luxuriant 

 meadow. 



Every farmer, who is a farmer, has his garden of a quarter of an acre and up- 

 wards. From this spot he obtains two to five times the amount of consumable vegeta- 

 bles and fruits that any other equal quantity of cultivated land on his farm produ- 

 ces. He knows it too, yet never asks himself the question whether to extend that 

 garden into area of five or ten acres, and put it into choice fruits and fine market ve- 

 getables, would not give him a greater profit than to keep the same surface in corn, 

 oats, or pasture, as before, and to do so would require no more skill than his own 

 brain can readily acquire, and his own ingenuity can look after, if he will only take the 

 pains to get a little information. Here, and here only, is the WALL between Agricul- 

 ture and Horticulture — the indisposition to read, examine, and practice for one's self. 

 Plain talk, we admit ; but it is also a plain subject to all who choose to understand 

 it. 



We have a desire that every American farmer should become, to a degree, a horti- 

 culturist — sufficiently so to supply his household from his own farm, with the choicest 

 vegetables and fruits ; by the proper disposition and cultivation of trees and shrubbery^ 

 and flowering plants, to create a taste and attachment in his family for all rural things, 

 which must add infinitely to their pleasure and their enjoyment, and aid them to reach 

 that destiny which God in his bounty intends for all whom he has placed beneath the 

 sunshine of heaven, and on this favored side of his foot-stool. The study of Horti- 

 culture, in what study it requires, is simply an episode in kind of the grand art of Ag- 

 riculture itself, requiring no extraordinary teaching, but only carrying out and extend- 

 ing, like algebra beyond arithmetic, the nice and more intricate details of the subject. 

 The pursuit of Horticulture requires only thought and attention — not intense at all — 

 but steady and consistent thought, coupled with close application. Every farmer may 

 thus become a Horticulturist sufficient for his own wants, the requirements of his 

 own family, and immediate profit to his estate, if markets, and the conveniences of 

 getting to them, favor him. Our subjects are all intended to be practical, each in 

 their kind ; to embrace the wants, the taste, and the fancy of all, from him who 

 " trucks" the product of his own cabbage garden at the nearest market, to the man 

 who erects his conservatories by the thousand feet in extent. Each, all, and every 

 one may find instruction suited to his wants, and by the aid of his own contributions 

 of thought and experience to our pages, he may also edify others in the same laudable 

 pursuit with himself. 



