BOSTON AND VICINITY. 83 



but gross handiworks." "No one," said Daniel Web- 

 ster, " is too polished to see its beauty, nothing too 

 refined to be capable of its enjoyment. It is a con- 

 stant field where taste and refinement may find oppor- 

 tunity for gratification." Said Mr. Winthrop : " Horti- 

 culture is in its most comprehensive sense, one of the 

 fine arts of common life. It distributes its productions 

 with equal hand to the rich and the poor. It decorates 

 the dwelling of the humblest laborer with undoubted 

 originals by the oldest masters, and places within his 

 daily view fruit pieces such as Van Huysum never 

 painted, and landscapes such as Poussin could only 

 copy." 



So thought Cyrus when he boasted of having planted 

 his trees with his own hands; so Maxiniillian, "If you 

 could see the fruits I cultivate with my own hand, you 

 would not talk to me of empire." And so thought our 

 own Pickering, Lowell, Colman, Dearborn, Downing, 

 and others of our own time, who have retired from the 

 scenes of city life that they might enjoy the rich gifts 

 which bounteous nature bestows on the culture of the 

 soil. 



Thus we have, as briefly as possible, traced the his- 

 tory and progress of the horticulture of Boston and 

 its vicinity for the last two hundred and fifty years, 

 from the time when William Blaxton planted his 

 orchard on our Capitoline Hill, from the time when 

 Endicott, Winthrop, and the colonists of Massachusetts 

 Bay brought with them the seeds and stones from 

 which, primarily, arose the taste for fine fruits, beauti- 

 ful flowers, and the ornamental culture which has made 

 our region so distinguished in the annals of terracul- 

 ture. Slowly, but positively, has this taste been 

 gradually improving, until Boston and its vicinity 

 have become beautiful and eminent for horticultural 



