AMERICAN HORTICULTURE. 



people need to be taiiLjht not only liow to grow, but liow to use vegetables to 

 make them milritious, lieallliful, and palatable. The markets of our large towns 

 are in general well supplied. The market gardeners who pursue this as a profession, 

 are generally well qualilied for their duties, and perform them with a very creilitable 

 eflieiency, as their gardens and market stalls bear witness. The tables of gentlemen 

 wlio keep professional gardeners, are also no doubt well supplied ; but away from 

 laro-e towns, and among the masses of the people, the supply of vegetables is most 

 mea<Tre indeed. The most delicious esculents, such as asparagus, sea-kale, and celery, 

 are known only to a few ; and how rare is the garden where a regular succession of 

 radishes, salads, green peas, ttc., is kept up during the entire growing season. We 

 cannot now enter into illustrations or arguments, showing the economy of the use of 

 vegetables, as well as the benefit to health and comfort, but hereafter, in the course of 

 our labors, we intend to give the subject special attention, which we conceive it merits. 



"Wo now come to the ornamental department of horticulture. This ranks among 

 the luxuries or embellishments of life, rather than the necessities, and is, therefore, 

 compelled to wait, in its progress, for the acquisition of wealth and refinement of 

 taste. These are not acquired in a day, nor a month, nor a year ; and more espe- 

 cially taste, which is the more important element. Society, in a new country, has to 

 pass through several phases before it reaches that in which the means of refining and 

 cultivating taste are enjoyed to any great extent. Ilence it is that ornamental gar- 

 dening is confined, in a great measure, to the older States, and particularly to the 

 neighborhood of cities and villages. 



Landscape Gardening, which is the highest branch of the art, can o)ily be practiced 

 upon grounds of considerable extent, and as only a few individuals in this country 

 have the means, or disposition, to devote much to merely ornamantal purposes, we 

 have but few examples of what can, properly speaking, be called landscape gardening. 

 Besides, it requires in its execution, such a combination of skill and taste, as, it must 

 be confessed, only a few of those who profess gardening, in this country, possess. 

 There are two serious drawbacks upon the progress of landscape gardening, which we 

 will sometime take occasion to discuss. Much, however, may be done with such 

 means and materials as we do actually possess. No country in the world is blessed 

 with such natural facilities for attaining, at a very cheap rate, a respectable position in 

 this branch of horticulture. "Wherever we turn our face, except on the naked prairie, 

 we see fine natural landscapes, and the material of landscapes. Trees, and shrubs, 

 and plants, scattered everywhere with unspaiing bounty; lakes, rivers, quiet streams, 

 rapid torrents, and thundering cascades ; mountains and ravines, hills and valleys, 

 blended so beautifully together, as to make our country one stupenduous landscape. 



Among the agricultural population, and more especially in the older States, there 

 is a very large class, not perhaps wealthy, but in what is termed " easy circumstances," 

 abundantly able to improve their home landscapes in a manner becoming their pur- 

 suit, as well as their position in society ; but they are deterred from making any 

 attempt, from an apprehension of the cost. For this class of people, a simple and 

 inexpensive system of landscape improvement must be pointed out, and we invite the 





