8 A Retrospective View of the Progress of 



expectation that out-door grape culture can be pursued suc- 

 cessfully in the Eastern States, we have forborne occupying 

 room with the details necessary to a thorough understanding 

 of this branch of Horticulture. 



Turning on the other hand to the growth of the foreign 

 grape, we are glad to report so much progress. A few years since, 

 beyond the neighborhood of Boston, but few houses for the 

 culture of the grape under glass were to be found. Now, 

 however, they are almost a necessary appendage to every gar- 

 den of any extent. It having been satisfactorily shown that 

 the growth of the choice table grapes, to any degree of ex- 

 cellence, is next to impossible in the open air, structures, 

 either with or without heat, are springing up in all parts of 

 the country, even as far west as Kentucky. We feel no little 

 pride in this, for a glance at the seventeen volumes of our 

 Magazine will show how we have labored to produce this re- 

 sult. The collected articles upon the culture of the grape by 

 the most successful cultivators in the country, in those vol- 

 umes, would fill at least two of them, amounting to more 

 than a thousand pages. 



We need not recapitulate the many excellent papers under 

 this head which have appeared in our last volume, and which 

 may be seen at a single glance at the table of contents. 



The Massachusetts Horticultural Society, with the liberal 

 means afforded them by the munificent donation of Mr. Ly- 

 man, have not only offered, and already given, handsome prizes 

 for the best cultivated fruit gardens, to be inspected from 

 time to time by an appropriate committee, but they now pro- 

 pose to offer additional prizes for the finest collections of the 

 pear, to be shown at their annual exhibition. We do not 

 doubt it will have a good effect, and that the public will be 

 greatly benefited. It will induce zealous cultivators to add 

 all the varieties of reputed merit to their collections, and after 

 having fruited them the specimens will be shown and exam- 

 ined, — their qualities tested, and the results spread before the 

 public. It is certainly a source of the highest gratification 

 to every pomologist to see how much good can be accom- 

 plished through the instrumentality of such a fund as that of 



