new or recently introduced. 49 



long before they become generally grown and properly apprecia- 

 ted. Probably if as ranch attention had been given to the hybri- 

 dization of vegetables, as has been bestowed upon fruits, the va- 

 rieties would have been more numerous than they now are, and 

 their qualities far better; the method seems, however, to have 

 been but little practised in the culinary department. As the 

 taste for superior articles becomes more extended, the demand 

 will be greater, and gradually the old kinds will be discarded for 

 new ones; finally, the desire for still more excellent specimens 

 will induce cultivators to make more frequent attempts to procure 

 something new; the result will consequently be, as it has been in 

 other departments of gardening, the production of a race of new 

 varieties, far better than those previously known. 



We are glad to notice, in the various exhibitions of the past 

 year, which have taken place throughout the country, an account 

 of nearly all of which will be found at the close of the third vol- 

 ume, and in the commencement of this, that the cultivation of 

 vegetables is attracting the attention of the respective societies 

 before which they were exhibited. Liberal premiums have been 

 awarded for the most excellent and best grown specimens, and 

 the articles exhibited have been of much finer quality than those 

 heretofore grown. These have, indeed, in many instances, been 

 the produce of the gardens of private gentlemen and amateurs, 

 though, in some instances, of regular market gardeners. It is 

 with the gentleman and the amateur, however, that reform in cul- 

 tivation must begin: the market gardener will generally be the 

 last to adopt any new mode in growing a vegetable, or to make a 

 trial of a new variety: when he sees that gentlemen are produc- 

 ing for their tables a much better article than his own, and thus, 

 through a circle of acquaintances, preparing the public to better 

 appreciate what is superior, he will be induced to make some ef- 

 forts to supply himself with the best; but not till then will he, in 

 scarcely a single instance, be persuaded that it is for his interest, 

 as well as for the benefit of the public, to cultivate new and su- 

 perior varieties. 



We have introduced this article, for the purpose of making 

 better known new varieties, with the hope that cultivators, par- 

 ticularly market gardeners, may see what there is that is new, and 

 what has been proved to be worthy of general growth, to the ex- 

 clusion of old kmds. We shall endeavor to introduce, annually, 

 the names of all that may be reported to possess excellent merits; 

 and those that we know, from experience or from the advice of 

 friends, on whom we can rely, to be first-rate, we shall make no 

 hesitation in so recommending. Those which may be merely 

 mentioned one season, will the next, if they have been tried, be 

 noticed at length, and their qualities commented upon. 



The past year there has not been many new varieties of vege- 



VOL. IV. NO. II. 7 



