19 



It would be delightful to trace, step by step, the 

 progress of cultivation as it has advanced on our 

 native land, with slow but certain course, strewing 

 the earth with beauty. But there are limits to the 

 patient endurance of long suffering, if there be no 

 boundaries to kind indulgence. Turning reluctantly 

 from the pleasant memories of the past, let us look 

 at the brightness of the present. 



Never before have the means and facilities of im- 

 provement been more easily accessible or more free- 

 ly diffused. In other centuries, philosophy was shut 

 up in cloistered cells, or held cold and formal exer- 

 cises in the halls of universities, or gave lectures in 

 solitary groves to her favorite followers. In our 

 own age, science has come down from her dignified 

 retirement, and walks abroad among the daily haunts 

 of men. The best treatises on horticulture are spread 

 wide open by the way sides, in the well ordered gar- 

 dens. The flowers hold weekly levees, and the 

 fruits deliver Saturday lectures, in the high places of 

 the metropolis, the central heart, circulating influ- 

 ences, for good or for evil, through the whole social 

 body. The lessons of experience are faithfully re- 

 corded by the pen of the poet of " Terrible Trac- 

 toration," and his able associates in the observation 

 of nature, or registered in the journals of those who 

 distribute good seeds for the mind and the soil. The 

 rich stores of two magazines, invite to those reposi- 

 tories where living beauty addresses the under- 

 standing. In the nurseries of the Winships, the 

 Kendricks, and of Manning, there are whole volumes 

 of examples : long lines of information are ranged 

 along their walks : and the interesting leaves of 



