25 



It has been recently stated, that the average vahie of 

 the plants in a single horticultural establishment of Lon- 

 don, is estimated at a million of dollars. And oh, before 

 this magnificent result had been reached, from the com- 

 paratively trifling beginning, of a few centuries ago, what 

 infinite care and cost must have been expended ; v/hat 

 love for the generous science must have been fostered and 

 encouraged ; what distant and unknown regions had been 

 visited and rifled of the glories of the plains and woods ! 

 From solitary Lybian wastes and those paradises of Per- 

 sia, the Land of Roses, so eloquently described by Xeno- 

 phon; from 



Isles that crown th' ^gean deep, 



to the boundless expanse of this bright heritage of ours ; 

 from Tartarian deserts to prairies of perpetual bloom; 

 from the fertile breadth of fields, beneath the southern 

 skies, to the strange continents of foreign seas and verdant 

 islands of the ocean, 



* * * whose lonely race 



Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds. 



Combined with this adventurous spirit of modern dis- 

 covery, is another principle, which has proved eminently 

 favorable to the interests of horticultural science. The 

 higher social condition of those softer companions of our 

 garden- walks and labors and gentle cares ; the more 

 liberal position awarded them, under the influence of 

 advancing civilization : our deeper interest in their moral 

 and intellectual culture, and our more generous regard for 

 their innocent gratification, have interwoven a thousand 

 graces and refinements, once unknown, amongst the 

 coarser texture of social life. Never, indeed, do they 

 enter so intimately into our joys, and griefs, and aff*ec- 



