2.V2 AMERICAN HORTICULTURE. 



opportutiitv for Jolinny Bull to show liis estimate of his "cousins across the Avave ?" 

 It is true, we admit, in regard to a certain class of our population, that "their 

 pursuit of the almighty dollar is too passionate and intense to admit of interrup- 

 tion from the recreations of horticulture," hut it is 7iot true of all. As we have 

 already said, Ave are all active and busy — we have few idlers. We have in America 

 verv few hereditary estates or fortunes ; every man here must make liis OAvn fortune. 

 Hence it is that we have so few that embark in horticulture to kill time and to 

 make an outlet for their surplus Avealth. But let any candid man survey the sub- 

 urbs of our cities and towns, let him canvass our country villages, and say whether 

 the pursuit of the dollars has destroyed the love of the beautiful. Let us take Bos- 

 ton as an example. How many of the active merchants, professional men, and me- 

 dianics of that city devote themselves to their gardens, and produce results that the 

 whole country feels proud of. Whore in Great 13ritain can such a wealth of garden- 

 ing, genuine out-door gardening — we do not speak of green-house gardening — as the 

 Boston shows present ? Let us take Marshall P. Wilder, as the most prominent 

 example of a large class. The good he has done by his gardening labors will com- 

 pare favorably with that of the Duke of Devonshire or the most illustrious benefactors 

 of horticulture in the most advanced gardening country in the world. We may take 

 our own little town of Rochester, 400 miles from the sea coast and not over forty 

 years old, with a population of about 40,000, and even here we can point out a very 

 lar^e number of men closely devoted to commercial or professional pursuits who enjoy 

 the pleasures of a garden. Small it may be, but well filled with the best of fruits 

 and the most beautiful trees and shrubs and. roses, that the world, can produce. We 

 have in our mind a friend, who is at the same time a busy lawyer and an active poli- 

 tician, who has a fruit garden, that for its size might challenge all Scotland, and. his 

 roses are the newest and best that can be purchased. He was able to show his neigh- 

 bors the famous Geant dcs Batailles, Chromatella, and. other famous varieties, while 

 they were yet n'ovelties in Europe. We could point to many of similar taste, and we 

 could go through every town and village in the country and show that such men and 

 such tastes are far from being rare. 



Is there another country under heaven where there are so many gardens? — 

 Scarcely a sober, able-bodied man in America, out of the large cities, but can boast of 

 a garden. And that garden is not a mere tenement — it is his own ; and Avhen he 

 plants his trees, and shrubs, and flowers, he feels that no human being has any right 

 or title to them but himself and his family. What a small proportion of the popula- 

 tion of Great Britain can rejoice in such a feeling. How few ]:>ritish subjects can go 

 into their gardens with the same manly indifference, or can feel the same love and 

 attachment to their homes, or have such inducements to m.ake them comfortable and 

 beautiful! How much of that which is squandered on the mammoth princely garden 

 establishments of Great Britain is wrung from the enslaved million who never know 

 what it is to taste even the luxury of a fresh salad — who cannot once a year buy a 

 bunch of poor radishes, or a half withered rhubarb from the "green market" 

 are never permitted to gratify the sense of smell with the perfume of a rose 



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