MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE. 117 



our native vines and trees ; and from tlie very nurseries from which we 

 made importations twenty years ago. 



Closely connected with this, is the manufacture of wine. A single house 

 in this city, from the common wild grapes collected in this vicinity, makes 

 twenty thousand gallons annually. The State of Connecticut made 

 200,000 gallons last year. Ohio, Missouri and California manufacture 

 immense quantities, and have already commenced the exportation. One 

 vigncron at Los Angelos makes sixty-six thousand gallons, or nearly two 

 thousand barrels per year, from his own vineyard. 



Thirty years ago, greenhouses and glass structures for the growth of 

 fruits and flowers were confined to a few wealthy gentlemen in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of large cities; but they have now become the frequent ap- 

 pendages of our market and other gardens. Then foreign grapes grown 

 under glass could be obtained only a few weeks, and as a luxury for the 

 opulent, or a cordial for the sick. Now they are to be seen in our shop 

 windows, and are offered for sale in our stalls at all seasons of the year ; 

 and it is estimated that not less than forty thousand pounds, or twenty 

 tons, of foreign grapes are produced annually within thirty miles of Boston. 



At the formation of the Society, the strawberry was of very limited culti- 

 vation. Most of those in the market were gathered from the fields and pas- 

 tures, and not a single American variety had then been produced by artifi- 

 cial impregnation. Now we have hundreds of new varieties, many of 

 which are of merit and standard worth, and with which the markets of our 

 cities are most abundantly supplied. As an evidence of fertility and im- 

 portance of this crop, it may be stated that Hovey's Seedling, the first pio- 

 neer in this enterprise, has yielded 165 bushels per acre, and have been 

 sold at the rate of more than thirteen hundred dollars per acre. 



Similar results might be adduced in relation to the apples, of which 

 thousands of barrels have been received the last autumn from the West, 

 and from trees planted many years since the establishment of the Horticul- 

 tural Society. The apple has become an important article of commerce. 

 One hundred and twenty thousand barrels were exported from this port 

 during the fall of 1858 and winter of 1859, most of which were Baldwins. 



Other beneficial influences of this organization are to be seen in the 

 almost endless variety of ornamental trees, shrubs, and flowers, and in land- 

 scape gardening. 



At the organization of this Society, there were not more than three or 

 four nurseries' of any note in New England, and these were small com- 

 pared with those of the present day. Now we number them by hundreds 

 upon a scale of princely magnitude, — most of them, directly or indirectly, 

 owing their origin to the spirit infused into the community by the efforts 

 and enterprise of this Association, in dispensing originally the scions, 

 seeds and plants received from foreign correspondents. 



If the first seed planted by man Avas the first effort of civilization, 

 then no stronger evidence of the progress and ben^fits of such civilization 

 can be furnished than what is contained in the foregoing results. True, 

 Agriculture provides us with the necessaries of life, but Horticulture 



