THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



HORTICULTURE. 



JANUARY, 1847. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. A Retrospective Vieto of the Progress of Horticulture 

 in the United States during the year 1846. By the Editor. 



It has not been our good fortune, since our first annual 

 summary of Horticultural Improvement, in 1838, to record 

 such a general interest and wide spreading taste in Horticul- 

 tural and Rural pursuits, as at the present period. The rapid 

 changes in national prosperity from 183.5 to 1845, a period of 

 ten years, were attended with equally great fluctuations in 

 the tastes and pursuits of large classes of the community, and 

 until the last year or two, it can scarcely be said that a 

 rapidly progressing zeal has been manifested in Horticultural 

 and Rural occupations. 



But a better day seems to be dawning : alive to the im- 

 portant benefits which result from a more thorough knowledge 

 of the art of cultivation, we find a more active interest taken 

 in every thing which relates to gardening. He who possesses 

 a spot of ground, even if his taste has not been cultivated 

 sufficiently to fully appreciate it, feels it no less his duty than 

 his pride to go forward in the march of improvement, and 

 plant trees, either for profit or ornament, that they may be 

 valuable at a future day, if not at the present moment. It is 

 not an individual taste which impels the public now, but a 

 general cooperation to carry out impro-jrements which have 

 too long been left neglected or abandoned. Such a state of 

 prosperity is cheering to every cultivator, and it should be 

 the aim of all interested in a pursuit so conducive to the 

 morals and happiness of a people, to encourage and foster so 

 laudable a zeal. 



VOL. XIII. NO. I. 1 



