262 Review of the 



REVIEWS. 



Art. 1. The Young Gardener^ Assistant, containing a Cata- 

 logue of Garden and Flower Seeds, xviih practical directions 

 under each head for the cultivation of Culinary Vegetables 

 and Flowers. Also, directions for cultivating Fruit Trees, 

 the Grape Vine, ^c; to which is added a Calendar, showing 

 the work necessary to he done in the various departments of 

 Gardening, in every month of the year. Seventh edition, 

 improved. By Thomas Bridgeman. 1 vol. 12mo. 360 

 pages. New York, 1837. 



Whoever has watched the rapid strides which horticuhure 

 has made in this country within a few years, and felt interested 

 in its future prospects, must have noticed the httle attention 

 which has been paid to the department generally termed kitchen 

 gardening: while new fruits and new flowers and flowering plants 

 have been eagerly sought after, and introduced only at great ex- 

 pense, the products of the kitchen garden have been sadly ne- 

 glected. As important as the various articles are, and still more 

 important as are the new varieties which are yearly produced, 

 the market gardens of this country are greatly deficient in many 

 of the best. The old kinds are still grown, and, from the effects 

 of prejudice, in many instances, new varieties are discarded, and 

 not allowed a fair trial, to ascertain their respective merits. 



In the cultivation of vegetables the American gardener has yet 

 much to learn — much to acquire before he will be able to grow 

 plants to any thing like perfection; and as regards the quantity 

 of vegetables to be produced from a given quantity of ground, 

 with all his calculating powers, natural to a great portion of our 

 countrymen, he will have to practice gardening many years be- 

 fore he will gather as numerous crops as his transatlantic neigh- 

 bors. The proper rotation of crops, too, a subject of the first 

 importance, in market gardening, is but little understood, and 

 much less carried into practice. A judicious adaptation of ma- 

 nures to particular soils, and the art of improving poor and un- 

 productive ones, are, also, each, subjects which have not suffi- 

 ciently engaged the attention of the market gardener. 



But if we take a single glance at the progress of gardening 

 in this country, we shall see to what causes these defects are 

 to be attributed. The principal of them has been the want of 

 correct and useful information, gathered from the practice of our 

 own scientific men, upon the various departments, and the other 

 the wide diffusion of works, for the want of something better, 



