46 



NEW ENGLAND F A R xM E R , 



AUG. la, 1840 



ANn HOKTICULTUKAI, R GrSTER. 



Boston, Weonesdav, Aogust 12, 1840. 



the tables of the rich, who cnuld afford the expenses of' i odors. The more closely they are examined the more 

 hot liouses and garden frames. Now, the ait of culti- | are we compelled to admire their perfection and adore 



HORTICULTURE .— N x I. 



We wish we could say on this sulijeel what we-feel ; 

 but as there are many cases in which superlatives seem 

 idle, so the most extravagant tfial we could use would 

 not half express our sense of the value of this ait; 

 and the duty of men of taste and public spirilto advance 

 it. 



Agriculture comprehends the cultivation of great 

 crops. Horticiillure enibiaces the iiiliivalion of the 

 finest e.sculent vegetables, the most delicious fruits and 

 Ihe most magnificent and beautiful flowers. 



A few years since, and a few ordinary potatoes and 

 turnips and some coarse drum-head cabbages, consli- 

 luted Ihe whole of the farmer's winter supply. Now, 

 if he chooses, he may with little trouble supply himself 

 with a large variety of vegetables of the finest descrip- 

 tion. A few years since, and a few coarse apples, some 

 of which perchance might be eatable, though oftener 

 execrable, were laid in for an occasional winter resource. 

 Hundreds and hundreds of farmers, after the season of 

 gathering had passed, never saw an apple in their hous- 

 es until the harvest came round again. Now, farmers 

 begin to come to the resolution of cultivating the best 

 apples and the best pears, that fruit may be found in 

 their cellars every month in the year. The niuliiplica- 

 lion of graperies and peacheries, and the cultivation of 

 the most delicious plums, are continually extending 

 themselves, and placing within reach of an industrious 

 and careful man, at even a moderate outlay of expense 

 which few men would find burdensome, if they are not 

 too indolent and selfish to exert themselves, the most 

 delicious luxuries which the appetite can crave. Fruit, 

 said a quaint old friend of ours, was the food of paradise. 

 We know nothing is more conducive to health than 

 ripe fruit of any and every kind. In proportion as we 

 substitute it, especially ff.r young people, in place of 

 meat, we are not certain that, as some very intelligent 

 minds conjecture, we shall not do something towards 

 mending or securing their morals ; but we know that 

 we shall do much for their health and innocent luxury. 

 We want to say something of the cultivation of flow- 

 ers, but we have not room. We shall not pass over 

 the subject, however, for our heart is in it; and wu can- 

 not express in too strong terms our grateful sense of thi* 

 public spirit and public and substantial beneficence of 

 those gentlemen in Boston, Salem, Dorchester, Water, 

 town, Brifihton, Roxbury, and other places in (he com. 

 monwealth, who have introduced among us the most 

 splendid and magnificent plants, and are laboring with 

 a most commendable zeal to promote this delightful 

 taste and ficilitate its cultivation and gratification. 

 July 16. H. C. 



H O R T I C U L T U R E .-No. II. 

 Wc have spoken of this beautiful and mi»st useful 

 art as the means of supplying our tables with the finest 

 esculent vegetables and the most delicious fruits. We 

 remember well when the sweet corn was not known 

 among us; the tomato is comparatively of recent inlro 

 duction, one of the most salutary as well as agreeable 

 vegetables ; and what a delicious treasure has been pre. 

 sented us in the Canada and the luscious vegetable 

 marrow squash. The Horticultural bean and Ihe Lima 

 bean are modern an<l valuable acquisitions. Head let. 



vating (hem is diffused, and no farmer is so poor, unless 

 he be bankrupt in all spirit and enterprise, but that his 

 table may be covered with very little care and labor, 

 with these valiiab'r; productions in their seastm, and, if 

 ho pleases, out of season. Believing, as we do most 

 strnnglv, it: the conducivenessof vegeiable diet to health, 

 especially to the health of children and young [jersons, 

 regarding much meat as the fonndaiinn nf ininy diseas- 

 es, and ofientiuies in iis moral tendencies perniciou-, as 

 forcing to premature developemenl the apjietites and 

 passions of the young, wc consider the increa-e and 

 miiUiplicalion of fine esculent vegetables and their moie 

 general introduction upon the tables of our farmers, as a 

 signal good. We are not anchorites ; or in the more 

 familiar language of the day, Grakiimites, though we 

 have no hesitation in saying, that we regard Mr Gra- 

 ham as having rendered eminent and permanent bene- 

 factions to the community. We have no inclination to 

 renounce or denounce entirely the use of cooked meat ; 

 (raw meat or half cooked meat, or blood, we look upon 

 as only fit for cannibals.) but the general habits of the 

 country are, in this respect excessive. Meat thiee times 

 a day on many tables in the country, is certainly twice 

 too often. Three times a week would be quite frequent- 

 ly enough, where there could be substiluied an abun- 

 dant supply cf the best well cooked esculent vegetables. 

 Health would be essentially promoted, and very serious 

 drains upon the purse would be cut off. 



The introduction of fine fruits is another of the debts 

 which we owe to the public spirit of gentlemen of the 

 Horticultural Society among us. We have no doubt 

 that with the increasing wealth which industry and en- 

 terprise have brought into our community, and the im- 

 provement of the public taste, which has sprung from 

 extended means of education, the culture of fine fruits 

 and attention to ornamental gardening, would likewise 

 have advanced. But it cannot be doubted that the pub- 

 lic spirited efforts of the Honicultural Society, their ad- 

 dresses, their premiums, their weekly and annual exhi- 

 bitions, have carried forward the art among us more in 

 ten years than without their labors would have been 

 done in thirty years. The finest fruits produced in any 

 countiy and capable of being naturalized in our latitude, 

 or forced by artificial heat, are introduced among us, 

 and, as far as practicable, liberally extended. Hot 

 houses and green houses, and extended peacheries and 

 graperies, were a few years since regarded as the ex- 

 clusive and almost inaccessible luxuries of the very 

 rich. Now they are not an infrequent appendage of the 

 establishment of many a man in moderate circumstan- 

 ces, wlio justly deems them oniy a reasonable indul- 

 gence. We have in our mind's eye an enterprising 

 farmer, who, disregarding all ornament and embellish- 

 ment, taking advantage of the southern aspect of a high 

 rock on his grounrls, at an expense of fifty dollars in 

 rouirh boards and old sashes erected a building, which 

 gives him early plants, and an abundant supply of grapes 

 and peaches. 



We promised to say something of horticulture, as em- 

 bracing the cultivation of ornamental trees, shrubbery, 

 and flowers. " Behold, says a divine authority, the 

 lilies of the field, how they grow; and yet Solomon in 

 all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Doth 

 Gnd clothe these flowers of the field ? '— Ofall the forms 

 of beauty which this earth presents — so multiplied in 

 number, so diversified ill form, so exquisite in perfec- 

 tion, there are nono more striking, next to those of the 

 human countenance, than are presented in the vegeta- 

 ble creation ; in the lorm of their stems and leaves and 



luce and (he fine early cabbages could appear only on , flowers ; and in their diversified tints and coloring and 



the unutterable skill of the Divine Artist. 



Now we say there is no taste which indicates higher 

 natural refinement nf mind than a tasie for flowers; 

 there is none more innocent in its indulgences ; there 

 is no pursuit to which our hours of recreation, especial- 

 ly thnse (*f the fair sex, can be more properly devoted 

 than to their cultivation ; and there is n<t less expen- 

 sive or more beautiful embellishments, with which we 

 can surround our yards, our door ways, our piazzas, and 

 our gardens. In this respect we may congra(ula(e our- 

 selves that a highly improved taste is advancing all over 

 the country. Great pains are used in many towns in 

 the commonwealth to adorn the roads with ornamental 

 and shade trees ; and individual examples of a highly 

 improved taste in the cultivation of flowers and orna- 

 mental trees and shrubs, are to be met with numerous- 

 ly in all <mr villages, and in many of our less populous 

 towns iu (he interior, where we should least expect 

 them. Our well-conducted horticultural magazines 

 have done much tov.'ards this result ; and the patron- 

 age of the public-spirited friends of rural improvement 

 ought to be the more exerted to sustain the well-eon- 

 duc[ed and only surviving publication of this class, of 

 our friends the Messrs Hovey, which has done much 

 for this excellent cause. 



But how frivolous, say so ne men, is this taste for 

 flowers ; they are only to look at, and why should we 

 not devote our lime to the cultivation of that which is 

 substantial and suited to sustain life. There is an abun- 

 dance of time for both these objects. Attention to the 

 one, where the time is well arranged and the habits ar^- 

 industrious, need not interfere with the other. The 

 multiplication even of Ihe most beautiful and splendid 

 rural embellisliinenls around our houses, will demand 

 but small attention, for many of them are of a perennial 

 character and require only a slight occasional attention. 

 Rendering our houses more beautiful, we render tlieiu 

 more attractive and valuable. Rendering them moie 

 attractive and beautiful we multiply and strengthen the 

 domestic ties which bind us to them ; and there is a 

 rich and grateful pleasure and as pure as the virtuous 

 mind can enjoy, in contemplating the results of our own 

 labor and liiste in embellishing '.he little spot of earth 

 which for a while we are permitted to call our own ; 

 aud in rendering it an object of delightful gratificatiou 

 to every passer by. 



But the " flowers are designed only to please the eye,' ' 

 and why should not the eye be pleased .' What pleas- 

 ures more pure, more exquisite, more warming to the 

 heart, more improving to the mind and the affections 

 than those which come through the eye .-' what may be 

 more enjoyed without injury to the moral taste.' and 

 where shall we read more luminously displayed the per- 

 fections of (he Creator, than in the heavens over our 

 heads, the earth under our feet, and (hose muldplied 

 departments in his works of visible glory lo which the 

 eye alone gives us access. H. C. 



July 18. 



MASS, HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 

 At a meeting of the Massachusetts Horticultural So. 

 ciety held Saturday, August 8lh, 1840, the fidlowing 

 "entlemen were ch'>sen a Committee of Arrangemenig 

 for the annual exhibition of fruits and flowers the ensii- 

 in" autumn ; — Sam'l Walker, Win. Oliver, Isaac P. Da- 

 vis, L. P. Grosvenor, Thos. Lee, Marshall P. Wilder, 

 Isaiah ."^tickney, Edw'd 1\I. Richards, J. J. Low, Jno. I^ 

 Russell, Benj. V. French, Robcit Treat Paine, Chas. M. 

 Hovey, Wm. T. Eustis, John Towne, Sam'l Downer, 

 J. E. Teschemacher, Otis Johnson, David Haggerston, 

 W. H. Cowan, Rob't Manning, J. M. Ives, George 

 Brown, M. P. Sawyer, Cheever Nevvhall, Joseph Breck, 

 Wm. M'Lellan, Wm Kenrick, Jona. Winship, Henry 



