12 A Restrospective Vieiv of the Progress of 



and caprina, iSalvia patens alba, Dipteracanthus spectabilis, 

 6cc. Besides many new varieties of Fancy Geraniums, and 

 other kinds ; Lilliputian chrysanthemums, Verbenas, Fuch- 

 sias, &c., which have been noticed in our Floricultural 

 Gossip or will be in the next volume. 



Arboriculture. 



If our countrymen are backward in any department of 

 horticultural improvement, it is that connected with orna- 

 mental planting and landscape art. True it is, nature has 

 unsparingly lavished upon our country, throughout its whole 

 extent, varied scenes of picturesque beauty ; and this, to a 

 great extent, has relieved us of the necessity of creating them 

 by art. Yet they do not exist everywhere, and the hands 

 of our ancestors, — sometimes thoughtlessly and sometimes 

 necessarily, — too freely applied the axe alike to the saplings 

 and giants of the forest, and left bare regions of country, 

 which now, spanned by railroads, have become the busy 

 haunts of men, and are dotted over with cottage and villa, 

 unsheltered from the winter's cold and summer's heat, pre- 

 senting, with their whitened exteriors, a bleak and forbidding 

 aspect, and showing sadly the want of the planter's hand to 

 give a tone and finish to the picture. How many such vil- 

 lages New England contains, we leave to others to answer. 

 For though there are hundreds which are indeed models of 

 rural beauty, there are many which can lay no claim to 

 such a distinction, but show how important is the diffusion 

 of that information which shall lead to a better result. 



We have, in our last three volumes, devoted considerable 

 space to a full description of our most ornamental trees and 

 shrubs, more particularly in our last volume, in which the 

 characteristics, habits and principal attractions of more than 

 fifty of the most desirable trees for the purposes of shelter, 

 shade and picturesque effect, have been enumerated, together 

 with some remarks on forming plantations of trees, avenues, 

 &c. We shall continue to add, in the present and future 

 volumes, a similar account of other trees, particularly ever- 

 greens, which are best adapted to the purposes of the orna- 

 mental planter. 



