■-^i'^^^M 



HORTICITLTURE. 



HORTICULTURE. 



jjY J. J. i^MiTir, riiii,Ai)i;i.riiiA, i-a. 



Tf tlioro be two topics most likely to occiqiy deservedly the attention and rcp^rds of 

 Anierioans beyond all others, those topics will be found to be Agriculture and Horti- 

 culture. Our tastes, and our wants, will require us to cultivate the earth ; when 

 ))olitics fail to interest the active, when merchandising has produced its results, or 

 when age makes us retire into ourselves and seek innocent resources from ennui, the 

 garden is a sure resource, provided we have not neglected the opportunities so lavishly 

 bestowed, and have kept pace with what is going on around us. To do this, it must 

 be confessed, we must read occasionally, and study a little the books and periodicals 

 devoted to the farm or the garden ; these we shall mention as we proceed in our article 

 — at least such as we are prepared by experience to recommend. 



A man without a taste for gardening, is deprived of one of the very greatest enjoy- 

 ments of life. "Whether this taste can be acquired at a late period has been 

 doubted; and therefore it is that at school city children should always have some 

 instruction on the subject ; and when it is practicable, a jilot to cultivate under the 

 stimulus of emulation. 



As an example of the effects produced on a congenial mind, we will cite the instance 

 of an extensive merchant, whose modesty will not allow the use of his name. He 

 will know, however, whom we mean, by our thanking him, thus publicly, for a most 

 superb basket of fine pears late in January from his own dwarf trees, planted, trimmed, 

 and cared for by his own liands. In his school days he was so fortunate as to have 

 a little garden spot " of his own ;" there he toiled when Virgil and the conic sections 

 were learned, and there he acquired his love. Loudon and Downing have since been 

 his constant companions, and you may see him in spring and summer, as he leaves 

 his counting-house, and walks with an animated step to the steamboat that is to convey 

 him to his beloved garden, pick up — not the political newspapers of the day, though 

 of these he has his portion, too — but the ^^ Horticulturist,^'' or the '■'■Cultivator ;^^ on 

 the road he hastily peruses these, and when he entei*s his premises of a few acres, all 

 under fine cultivation, with what enjoyment does he greet his children ; all are his 

 children, from the romping little curly heads to the curled celery and savoys ; his 

 dinner is ready, but he must stop as he ascends the path to give a little relief to a 

 favorite vine or carnation, or snatch a strawberry, larger than any previous product, 

 to display to his wife at the desert. Dinner is rather hastily despatched ; with a child 

 in each hand, behold him take the round of the green-houses, the graperies, the 

 chicken-houses, and the little orchards and paddock. See him meet his gardener I 

 There is no talk of copper mine stocks, or the money market. Dry goods are forgot- 

 ten in the progress of the asparagus, and the crusade against the curculio ; the apricots 

 are inspected, and proper attention given to the promising cherries ; the pruning 

 knife is judiciously applied to the dwarf pears to give them the result we have 

 indicated as so acceptable to ourselves ; there is a little pinching off of the too luxuri- 



