322 



PRINCIPLES OF HORTICULTURAL OPERATIONS. 



manipulation of the gardener's art, and much experience in 

 all the little accidents which are scarcely appreciable by the 

 most observing cultivator, with which the mere man of sci- 

 ence can necessarily have no acquaintance, but upon which 

 the success of a gardener's operations often mainly depends ; 

 which are to the cultivator signs as certain of the issue of 

 his experiments, as to the mariner are the almost invisible 

 changes in the appearance of the heavens by which the wea- 

 ther is prognosticated. 



Deeply impressed with a persuasion of the justice of the 

 foregoing observations, and sincerely regretting that there 

 should be no present expectation of such a task being under- 

 taken by any one fully competent to it, the Editor of this 

 work ventures to throw himself upon the indulgence of the 

 public in attempting, not to carry into effect such a plan him- 

 self, but to sketch out, in regard to the Fruit Garden, what 

 he thinks the method should be upon which a more compe- 

 tent-person would do well to proceed. 



IMPROVEMENTS IN VARIETIES. 



All our fruits, without exception, have been so much ame- 

 liorated by one circumstance or another, that they no longer 

 bear any resemblance in' respect of quality to their original. 

 Who, for instance, would recognise the wild parent of the 

 Coe's or Green Gage Plum in the savage Sloe, or that of 

 the RiDstpn and Golden Pippin Apples in the worthless acid 

 Crab ? Or what resemblance can now be traced between 

 the delicious Beurre Pears, whose flesh is so succulent, rich, 

 and melting, and that hard, stony, astringent fruit, which 

 even birds and animals refuse, to eat? Yet these are un- 

 doubted cases of improvement resulting from time and skill 

 patiently and constantly in action. The constant dropping 

 of water will not more surely wear away the hardest stone, 

 than will the reason of man in time compel all nature to be- 

 come subservient to his wants or wishes. But it would be 

 of little service to mankind that the quality of any fruit should 

 be improved, unless we found some efficient and certain 

 mode of multiplying the individuals when obtained. Hence 

 there are two great considerations to which it is, above all 

 things, necessary that the attention of the cultivator should 

 be directed, viz. AMELIORATION and PROPAGATION. 



Amelioration consists either in acquiring new and im- 

 proved varieties of fruit, or in increasing their good qualities 



