84 The Garden. 



Art. II. The Garden. By the Hon. J. Buel, Albany, 

 Conductor of the Cultivator. 



I CONSIDER a good garden not only as contributing largely to 

 the sustenance and health of the family, but as a pretty good in- 

 dication of the taste, comfort and refinement of its inmates. 

 Nothing is more conducive to health and rational enjoyment than 

 fresh fruits and vegetables, gathered or plucked at maturity from 

 one's own garden. They are luxuries that cannot be purchased. 

 Desirous of contributing my mite to their extension and improve- 

 ment, I send you some remarks, principally quoted from high 

 authority, on the vernal management of the fruit department, 

 which deservedly holds a high rank, both as a source of pleasure 

 and of profit, in this branch of rural labor. 



The varieties of the pear now in culture furnish a succession 

 of fine fruit for the table through the whole circle of the year. 

 Trees planted by the father comfort and enrich his children to 

 the third and fourth generation, and serve to carry down his name 

 to a grateful posterity. They are delicious for family use, and 

 always command a good price in the market. The Virgoulouse 

 of the valley of the Hudson is usually sold at two to three dollars 

 the bushel, and I have seen them sold at fiifteen to seventeen dol- 

 lars the barrel; and other varieties, equally luscious, need but be 

 better known to command an equal price. The plum and the 

 peach, where the latter can be grown, are equally desirable for 

 family use, and profitable for the market. The same remark 

 holds good as to the grape, with the further advantage, that this, 

 as well as the plum, may be preserved fresh and fine for winter 

 use, by alternating them in stone jars, with cotton batting or dry 

 saw-dust. The smaller fruits, as the strawberry, raspberry, cur- 

 rant and gooseberry, are all easily multiplied from a succession 

 of delicacies for the table for two or three months, and are more 

 or less promotive of health. All these fruits may be enjoyed by 

 the farmer in superior excellence, without seriously abstracting 

 from the labors of the farm. They may be most of them kept in 

 a dried state, for family use or for market, during the year; and 

 when beet sugar becomes as abundant here as it is now in France, 

 an event which I expect ere long to see realized, preserved 

 fruits may become as common with our farmers, and be made to 

 contribute as largely in our bills of fare, as they now do in some 

 parts of the eastern continent. 



The season for transplanting, and for propagating by grafting, 

 layering, and by cuttings, being at hand, some remarks upon 

 these processes will not be considered impertinent, and I trust 

 not unprofitable. 



