JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



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(PIX and a half years ago the plan of The Horticulturist was matured and 

 ^ brought before the public. Many of its supporters and subscribers have been so 

 from the commencement, and are famirar with its history ; and all know the melan- 

 choly fatality which renders its removal expedient. It now goes into other hands, but 

 its mission and its sphere are unchanged. We bid it not adieu ; for we trust to meet it 

 often — and greet it as a powerful co-laborer in the cause of rural improvement. It 

 has begun a good work, and got strong hold on the good will of all who have been 

 familiar with its pages. 



The Horticulturist was a pioneer work, and has held its ground almost without 

 competition. It has formed a taste for the scientific pursuit of Horticulture in all its 

 branches, and has exerted no inconsiderable influence in placing the arts of taste upon 

 a new basis. The design of this Journal has proved to be one of those happy thoughts, 

 which come only now and then, and lead one to wonder why it had not occurred be- 

 fore — a thought which, though new, strikes favorably upon public sentiment, and soon 

 becomes as common property, as though it never had an originator. The extent to 

 which the editorials in The Horticulturist, have been copied, and the high eulogiums 

 which have everywhere been passed upon them, prove this to a demonstration. The 

 united voice of the country has uttered no unmeaning to tribute to the memory of 

 Mr. Downing. Every one felt that a tongue, eloquent of beauty, and a pen power- 

 ful of good, wei'e motionless, and all became more fully conscious of the influence 

 which had silently but surely been exerted on them, and discovered numerous ways 

 in which this influence had wrought out improvement and added to the sum of hap- 

 piness. Such sad occasions afford epochs from which one dates back and reaches for- 

 Avard, anxious to gather, in the teachings of the past, hope and encouragement for the 



is said that he who rescues a principle from oblivion, or starts a new one 



Dec. 1, 1852. 



No. XII. 



