4 OBSERVATIONS ON FLORICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE. 



" I feel that I run some risk of exposing myself to the charge of 

 presumption in undertaking to speak on the subject of gardening, in 

 the presence of an audience so thoroughly acquainted with the art, 

 and who have given such conspicuous proofs of the ability and 

 success with which they have cultivated it. But as the office is one 

 which I have not taken upon myself, and as an individual who possesses 

 no great practical knowledge of the mysteries of a science may yet 

 know enough of it to be able to set forth its advantages and plea- 

 sures — one point at least on which I can speak from experience — I 

 have, without hesitation, acceded to the request made to me, that I 

 should address you on the present occasion. The art for the pro- 

 motion of which your society has been formed has been held of 

 importance by every civilized nation in every age. It is practised 

 alike for pleasure and for profit, and can be made subservient both 

 to private use and enjoyment, and to public recreation and advantage. 

 It gladdens the heart of the peasant, whose little plot may contain, 

 as Horace Walpole expresses it, merely ' a gooseberry bush and a 

 cabbage;' and it is numbered among the choicest luxuries of the 

 rich and noble, whose flower-gardens, and hot-houses, and orchards, 

 are enriched with the productions of every climate and quarter of 

 the world. The cultivation of this pursuit is not only conducive to 

 health and repose of mind, but, moreover, has a direct and powerful 

 tendency to form pure and simple tastes, and to call forth and 

 strengthen the best and noblest feelings of our nature. 'Our first 

 most endearing and most sacred association,' observes a well-known 

 authoress, ' are connected with gardens ; our most simple and most 

 refined perceptions of beauty are combined with them ; and the very 

 condition of our being compels us to the cares, and rewards us with 

 the pleasures attached to them.' 'Gardening,' says Sir William 

 Temple, ' has been the inclination of kings and the choice of phi- 

 losophers.' It is associated with the names of many of the most cele- 

 brated philosophers and poets, from Bacon to Cooper and Scott, 

 and has exercised the talents of as numerous and brilliant an assem- 

 blage of distinguished writers as any one subject can boast of. It is 

 the delight of boyhood in every rank and condition of life, and a 

 well known statesman, after sixty years' experience, affirms, that the 

 love of gardens is the only passion which augments with age. The 

 duty of ' considering ' the flowers of the field is enjoined upon us by 



