THE NEW HORTICULTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



How I became a Horticulturist. 



IN looking back over the past, nothing strikes one more 

 forcibly than the fact that most of us are literally crea- 

 tures of circumstance. The most trivial incidents often 

 break in upon our plans, changing the whole course of our 

 lives. Never was there a more complete illustration of 

 this truth than the apparent accident which drew my atten- 

 tion to horticulture, and finally resulted in developing a most 

 intense interest, where before there was complete indiffer- 

 ence. It is an old saying, that the boy is father of the man, 

 but in many cases, nothing could be farther from the truth. 

 I am sure I can, and doubtless many of my readers can, recall 

 instances among their friends, where the future man or wo- 

 man has turned out to be absolutely no kin at all to the boy 

 or girl, in all the peculiarities and traits that went to form the 

 future character. 



My own is a case in point, for as a boy, and in fact up to 

 a certain day in April, 1866, when a young man, I had not 

 the remotest idea that an ardent love for every form of horti- 

 culture was slumbering within, which needed but the slightest 

 spark to kindle. I cannot recall that the sight of any orchard, 

 garden or flower, in my whole previous life, ever excited the 

 slightest desire in me to own or grow one like it, or in any 

 way to work the ground, my whole attention being entirely 

 devoted to trading in cotton and real estate, until the morn- 

 ing alluded to in April. Being an ideal spring day, a party 

 of us concluded to spend a few hours fishing from the wharf 

 here in Galveston, and, seeing a rusty-looking old chap near 



