i2th March, A. D. 1891. 



ESSAY 



BY 



Mrs. FANNIE A. DEAN, of Edgartown. 



Theme: — The Columbian Discovery — Its Benefits To 

 Horticulture. 



As we approach the four hundredth anniversary of the 

 Columbian Discovery of America, it may not bft unwise to 

 consider its direct and indirect benefits to that department of 

 industry in which you who are gathered here to-day, are 

 especially interested. 



It is not our purpose to discuss any question as to who first 

 came to America, whether it was Heeli the Chinese, Ericson 

 the Norwegian, Madoc, the Prince of Wales, or Columbus the 

 Genoese ; but we do afiirm that it was through the voyages of 

 the last-named and distinguished individual, that our country 

 became well-known to the other nations of the earth. 



The American or Indian had not much idea of horticulture. 

 History tells us that his wife dug a few roots, or cultivated a 

 little maize, the latter of which she prepared for food by 

 crushing with the stone corn-cracker, or pounding in the stone 

 mortar. The indolent and erratic disposition of the Indian 

 was not favorable to landscape gardening, nor to the less 

 ornamental work of the kitchen garden. 



The forests, in all their stately grandeur were here ; the wild 

 flowers, in all their luxuriance, nestled at the bases of the grand 

 old monarchs of the forest, or trailed silently over meadow and 

 hill-slope ; the feather-like Bryopsis presented as beautiful a 

 green color as it waved under the blue sea, then as to-day, 

 and the porphyra or purple weed reproduced itself then by 



