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THE GENESEE FAEMER. 185 



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33iirtiriiltitral Jtjiartmmt, 



CONDUCTED BY P. BAEET. 



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TSe propagation and culture of fruit trees in tte nursery, and tlie production of fruits in 

 the garden and orchard, at the present time occupy the attention of a very large numbci 

 of persons in the United States, and constitute a very important item in the genera] 

 industry. To the majority of those embarking in it the business is entirely new, and 

 they have everything respecting it to learn. The more experienced, even, have much 

 more to learn than they imagine. It is by no means a simple thing — the work or study 

 of a few weeks or months — that will make a nurseryman, or a fi'uit-grower, even. We 

 not imfrequently hear people say they would like to send their sons to a nursery for a 

 few months, to learn the business ; and a man embarking largely in fi-uit culture, will 

 sit down and address a dozen inquiries to a horticultural journal, expecting replies that 

 will at once enable him to prosecute the matter successfully. Now, we wish to draw 

 attention to these errors ; the sooner people are undeceived in these matters, the better 

 it will be for themselves and the community. We are an apt people, to be sure ; still 

 we have to learn our alphabet before we read, and a certain length of time is necessary 

 to learn the simplest mechanical art. Agriculture and horticulture present a much 

 wider field for study, and a much more embarrassing one, than any mechanic ait ; and 

 yet, strange enough, few people are willing to believe that they can not at once leave 

 the work-shop or the counting-room, and become successful farmers, gardeners, or nur- 

 serymen. How many are every year awakened from this delusion, by dear bought 

 experience. A few succeed : they are those who appreciate their want of knowledge, 

 and go to work as* zealous and earnest students, — like a man who finds himself in a 

 foreign country, ignorant of the language spoken, and conscious that he can not prose- 

 cute his travels with either pleasure or profit, until he has learned it. Such is exactly 

 the position of the man who becomes a tiller of the soil, a grower of wheat or corn, a 

 breeder of stock, a propagator of trees or plants, without previous study and preparation. 

 Nature speaks to him in an unknown tongue ; he is continually mistaking one sound 

 for another ; blunder after blunder confuse him ; and he soon finds he must either leave 

 her and return home to his old pursuit, or at once bend himself down, with dictionary, 

 grammar, and " first lessons," to a study of her language. 



" Oh, you are exaggerating ! " says a friend. " What mystery is there in farming ? 

 Who is so stupid as not to know how to buy himself a farm ; a few horses, cows, and 

 implements ; plow the land, scatter the seed, and harvest the crops ? What simple 

 operations!" Pardon us, dear friend, for suggesting that you ought to have some 

 knowledge of the qualities of soils; or you may buy just such land as some one may be 

 glad to get rid of, but will not suit your purposes. You ought to know something of 

 animals ; or you will certainly stock your farm with a collection in which every fault 

 known will be represented. You ought to know something of the feeding of farm stock, 

 and their diseases ; or half your animals will die before you are aware of their sickness. 

 You ought to know something of the comparative value of the dift'erent varieties of 

 grains and vegetables, that you may plant that wdiich will best suit your market and 

 your soils. There are a thousand other matters you ought to know of, and that you 

 must learn by experience before farming will be profitable. So in gardening; — you 

 will find it unpleasant not to know either how or what to plant. And here the opera- 

 tions are more difficult, because much more numerous, and more minute, and less gen- 

 erally understood. The propagation and culture of trees^nd plants is a great study — 

 not to be learned in a few months. After some sixteen years' daily and hourly experi- 



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