STATE Ai\D PROSPERITY OF HORTICULTURE. 



abundant bill of fare within the daily reach of all Americans. The traveller abroad 

 from this side of the Atlantic, learns to value the tomatoes, Indian corn, Lima beans, 

 egg-plants, okra, sweet potatoes, and many other half-tropical products, which the 

 briciht sun of his own land offers him in such abundance, with a new relish — and put- 

 tinf these and the delicious fruits, w^hich are so cheaply and abundantly produced, in- 

 to the scale against the smooth lawns and the deep verdure of Great Britain, he is more 

 than consoled for the superiority of the latter country in these finer elements of mere 

 embellishment. 



In the useful branches of gardening, the last ten years have largely increased the 

 culture of all the fine culinary vegetables, and our markets are now almost every- 

 where abundantly supplied with them. The tomato, the egg plant, salsify, and okra, 

 from being rarities have become almost universally cultivated. The tomato affords a 

 singular illustration of the fact that an article of food not generally relished at first, 

 if its use is founded in its adaptation to the nature of the climate, may speedily come 

 to be considered indispensable to a whole nation. Fifteen years ago it would have 

 been difficult to find this vegetable for sale in five market towns in America. At the 

 present moment, it is grown almost everywhere, and there are hundreds of acres de- 

 voted to its culture for the supply of the New- York market alone. We are certain that 

 . no people at the present moment, use so large a variety of fine vegetables as the people 

 of the United States. Their culture is so remarkably easy, and the product so abundant. 



We have no means of knowing the precise annual value of the products of the or- 

 chards of the United States. The Commissioner of Patents, from the statistics in his 

 possession, estimates it at ten millions of dollars. The planting of orchards and fruit- 

 gardens within the last five years has been more than three times as great as in any 

 previous five years, and as soon as these trees come into bearing, the annual value of 

 their products cannot fall short of twenty-five or thirty millions of dollars. Ameri- 

 can apples are universally admitted to be the finest in the world, and our pippins and 

 Baldwins have taken their place among the regular exports of the country. In five 

 years more we confidently expect to see our fine late pears taking the same rank, and from 

 the great success which has begun to attend their extensive culture in Western New- 

 York, there can be little doubt that that region will come to be considered the centre 

 of the pear culture of this country. 



The improvements of the last few years in fruit tree culture have been A'cry great, 

 and are very easily extended. From having been pursued in the most careless and 

 slovenly manner possible, it is now perhaps the best understood of any branch of 

 horticulture in America. The importance of deep trenching, mulching, a correct sys- 

 tem of pruning, and the proper manures, have come to be pretty generally acknow- 

 ledged, so that our horticultural shows, especially, and the larger markets, to a certain 

 extent, begin to show^ decided evidences of progress in the art of raising good fruits. 

 Our nurserymen and amateurs, after having made trial of hundreds of highly rated 

 foreign sorts, and found but few of them really valuable, are turning their attention to 

 the propagation and dissemination of those really good, and to the increase 



