Progress of Horticulture in the U. Stales. 7 



Washington has continued to advance in gardening, and the 

 exhibitions of the Cokimbian Horticuhural Society, which will 

 be found in another page, have been of the most interesting na- 

 ture. Fruits appear to have been less numerous objects at these 

 exhibitions than flowers; but this is naturally the case as we go 

 farther south, where, in some places, there are very few fruit 

 trees. In vegetables, however, the citizens of the district appear 

 to take much interest, and the specimens which have been ex- 

 hibited would have done credit to any society. The past year 

 has shown an improvement on previous ones, and undoubtedly 

 their progress will be onward. 



Charleston is yearly becoming more interested in the cultiva- 

 tion of fruits; and trees from the Middle and Eastern States have 

 been sent thither to embellish the gardens of her citizens. The 

 only knowledge we have of what has been done the past year is 

 from the report of the exhibition of the Charleston Horticultural 

 Society in our vol. III., p. 458. 



In the West and other parts of the Union there is a decided 

 interest felt in the subject, and another season we hope we 

 shall be able to record all that may have taken place. Large 

 numbers of fruit trees of all kinds have been sent from New York 

 and Boston to the West. In Cincinnati there is a nursery estab- 

 lished, and at St. Louis we believe one is about being formed. 

 These nurseries will be the means of disseminating the new fruits 

 throughout that portion of the country. 



Floriculture. — This branch of gardening receives a great deal 

 more attention than horticulture in every section of the country; 

 not perhaps that the latter is not as interesting a pursuit, but be- 

 cause the limits of most gardens will not allow of the introduc- 

 tion of fruits to any extent, while a very small space allotted to 

 flowering plants affords great gratification; and where there is a 

 green-house attached, this gratification is doubly enhanced, by 

 its contributing, in the gayness of its flowers, to our pleasure and 

 recreation through our severe winters. 



Within a short period there has been great improvement in the 

 building of green-houses, both as regards the mode of heating and 

 the finishing of such structures. Formerly they were shells, con- 

 structed without any reference to beauty, without proportion, and 

 of the most inferior materials : the mode of heating adopted 

 was by brick flues alone. Now, architectural proportions in 

 building are taken into consideration, and the modes of heating 

 various, though mostly confined to brick flues and hot water. 

 As specimens of the style of houses lately erected, we may men- 

 tion those of J. P. Cushing, Esq., Belmont Place, Watertown, 

 and of N. Biddle, Esq., Philadelphia. Both are on a very large 

 scale, but others have been built of great elegance. Two of them 

 have been before noticed in our Magazine; they are those of 



