NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



PUBLISHED BY GEO. C. BARRETT, NO. 52, NORTH MARKET STREET, (at thk Aouic -ui.turai. IVarkhoose.)— T. G: FESSENDEN, EDITOR. 



VOL. XII. 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, AUGUST 21, 1833. 



NO. 6. 



N. Y. IlOUTlCULTl'RAl SOCIETY. 



Was read and ordered to lie published, the fol- 

 lowing interesting, and, it' its suggestions shall be 

 carried into practice, important letter from Alex- 

 ander Walsh, Es.q. to the Horticultural Society of 

 this city. The enterprising citizens of New York 

 will not let the present opportunity of obtaining a 

 suitable place to consign their departed friends 

 pass unimproved. 



Lansingburgh, June 10, 1833. 



Gentlemen, — I have your kind letter of last 

 month, informing me that I have been elected an 

 honorary member of the New York Horticultural 

 Society. 



In the objects embraced by your society, with 

 several members of which I have the pleasure ol 

 a personal acquaintance, I feel a deep interest, and 

 will gladly contribute whatever may be in my 

 power to promote its views. 



Your society is, I believe, the first of its des- 

 cription instituted in the United States. 1 trust it 

 will continue to maintain a first rank in useful- 

 ness : it has certainly at present attached to it, ma- 

 ny of the most skilful florists in our country. The 

 numerous benefits it has conferred on the Stale, 

 its happy influence on the markets of the city of 

 New York, evidenced by the improved quality, 

 the increased supply and extended variety of escu- 

 lents, including many naturalized exotics, the taste 

 it has inspired for the cultivation of plants, both 

 of the useful and ornamental, with which the par- 

 terres and grounds of the citizens are now so gen- 

 erally stocked, and so industriously tended by the 

 fairest of florists, the rivalry produced by exhibi- 

 tions, and premiums, enlisting at once the pride 

 and interest of competitors, the effect of example 

 not confined to the city, but spreading its influence 

 widely into the interior: these surely must be 

 pleasing results of our labors, they command the 

 admiration of foreigners, while on the citizens at 

 home devolves the acceptable duty of casting over 

 your institution the sweet^owers of gratitude. — 

 Must not I feel proud in being admitted into an 

 association, with persons thus capable, and thus 

 desirous, to add to the comforts and happiness of 

 the human family. I beg you will convey to the 

 society my high sense of the honor they conferred 

 on me. 



The favored territory, comprised within the 

 United States, presents a soil, and is blessed with 

 a climate suitable to perhaps all the varied vegeta- 

 ble productions of our planet. It is supposed 

 there is not an exotic of whatever climate that 

 could not find a congenial soil in some part of our 

 extensive country, and be therein successfully cul- 

 tivated. The indigenous plants of America have 

 an interesting claim on attention ; they exceed in 

 number, iu variety, in beauty, and in usefulness, 

 those of the other portions of the globe, and draw 

 hither the naturalists of other countries, who eag- 

 erly seek an acquaintance with, and cull largely 

 from them. How enviable our situation ! It is 

 doubtless a fact that art, aiding nature, and directed 

 by science, is capable of rendering the state of 

 New York the prettiest spot of what may be made 

 the most beautiful garden of the earth. 



The skill and enterprise of our citizens are not 



exceeded, perhaps unequalled, by those of any 

 other people: they fearlessly penetrate the forest 

 to its utmost extent, and visit <5very foreign shore. 

 Through such men, through the government and 

 commercial .agents residing abroad', opportunities 

 r.'Fer of procuring seeds arid plants, to an extent 

 almost infinite, and in value incalculably bene- 

 ficial. Of the readiness of individual citizens to 

 advance the honor and the interest of their coun- 

 try, there are instances too numerous for detail. 

 Div Perrine, U. S. Consul at Campeaehy, address- 

 ed letters some time ago to the Chairman of the 

 Committee of Congress, on the" subject of Horti- 

 culture, urging with much force and correctness 

 the establishment of a Nursery tit or near Cape 

 Florida, for the purpose of acclimating useful trop- 

 ical plants. Many of these, or the seeds thereof, 

 might possibly be subsequently transferred to our 

 and other States, and successfully cultivated. — 

 The subject desel-ves the attentive consideration of 

 the Horticultural Society. 



All Europe is filled with admiration at what we 

 have done for literature, not making it the special 

 privilege of the great, but extending it to the hum- 

 blest resident of the humblest cottage; but we 

 seem, in too great a degree, to have left to others 

 the instruction of the agriculturist: yet the farmer 

 is, and peculiarly so in our land, the main-stay of 

 all that is truly valuable. The same steel that 

 makes his plough, makes also bis sword, and this 

 again his plough ; he supplies our markets in 

 peace, and repulses our enemy in war; he is lit- 

 erally the bone and sinew of the State ; he is the 

 State itself: as a writer justly and forcibly ob- 

 serves, " God has made the breasts of those that 

 labor in the earth his peculiar deposit for substan- 

 tial virtue ; the focus in which be keeps alive the 

 sacred fire, which otherwise might escape from 

 the face of the earth." 



The connection ol' agriculture and horticulture 

 with literary education is a design winch is daily 

 becoming popular. The subject has been before 

 the last session of the New York Legislature, on 

 the memorial of the State Agricultural Society. — 

 The principle was favorably received, and reports 

 in accordance were made by committees in each 

 house. The impression was so decided, that no 

 opposition would have been made to a liberal ap- 

 propriation for the establishment ofa State Agri- 

 cultural and Horticultural School. The memorial- 

 ists had, however, no design to avail themselves of 

 the ciisis, and an intimation was made that they 

 sought for no measure that would not decidedly 

 appear to have the deliberate sanction of the pub- 

 lic opinion ; the subject of course lay over, but will 

 piobably be again before the next ensuing session 

 of the legislature, and is worthy of your patronage. 



A very interesting letter of Dr. Pascalis, on the 

 culture of the Mulberry tree, appears among the 

 printed works of your society. I am satisfied 

 that silk of domestic manufacture will, at no very 

 distant day, become the common wear of our citi- 

 zens, particularly of females. We want the prop- 

 er reeling machinery ; with this, it would, consid- 

 ering its superior durability, not be much more ex- 

 pensive than cotton or linen. I send you a favor- 

 able specimen of Massachusetts raw thrown Silk. 



The Grape is a native of our country, and it is 



easy to add to our assortment, by importations. 

 What but a little application to the subject can 

 prevent our having wine as good and cheap as the 

 French or Portuguese, and raisins are easily man- 

 ufactured. 



It is reasonable to expect that horticulture 

 would, like many other arts, produce more scien- 

 tific discoveries, under the control of a society, 

 having no seltisb view to subserve, than it could 

 under the management of an individual cramped 

 by the necessity of drawing from its profits the 

 means of self support. This position cannot be 

 overthrown by mere instances of some cases oper- 

 ating otherwise. It may also be observed, and 

 with still more force, that societies can do but 

 comparatively little, unless they enter directly into 

 the practical part of that which they would enforce 

 on others. Of this your society seems to have been 

 aware. 



An effort was made, a few years ago, by the 

 New York Horticultural Society, to obtain from 

 the Trustees of Columbia College a lease of the 

 Botanic Garden, for the purpose of entering prac- 

 tically into the objects it was laboring to promote. 

 It is unnecessary now to enter into a detail o( 

 causes which led to a failure, over which science 

 then wept, but which may in its result be even 

 propitious. 



The landscape garden of Mr. Parmentier, in the 

 town of Brooklyn, was full of all promise that taste 

 and skill, enterprise and enthusiasm, could be- 

 stow, but it want! ..' what no individual enterprise 

 can confer — it wanted the essential of permanence. 

 Parmentier died, and the garden, beautiful and use- 

 ful as it is, but escaped the fate of its enlightened 

 projector. Let death but hurl another dart, and 

 the Parmentier garden may sink into pristine in- 

 significance — the place of the rose, the olive, and 

 the grape, be usurped by the thistle. 



The obtaining of the Botanic Garden, or any 

 other ground, on lease, would be but a step in ad- 

 vance of the Parmentier Garden. It must be 

 abandoned on the expiration of the lease, uulesB 

 the leaser would grant a renewal, which no pru- 

 dent person would rely on. A society having a 

 perpetual succession of members and managers, 

 and laboring on its own fee simple estate, can 

 alone provide for permanence, so far as human in- 

 stitutions can effect that object. 



It would appear from publications made under the 

 sanction of your society, that the gentlemen who 

 delivered the Anniversary Addresses were gener- 

 ally under the impression that the society was des- 

 tined to give to its operations, a wide range in ev- 

 ery subject that could, to every reasonable extent, 

 come within its purview. Ornamental Gardening 

 on grounds belonging to the society was the theme 

 of several of them. Doctor Mitcbill went further, 

 embracing a considerable catalogue, manuscript 

 records, printed publications, a library, topograph- 

 ical maps, a garden, an herbarium or hortus siccus, 

 entomology, manures; botany, schools, &c. Mr. 

 Carter dwells enthusiastically on the indispensi- 

 bleness of " a large public garden, suitable for 

 conducting experimentson a more extensive scale." 

 The extending of ornamental gardening to squares, 

 promenades, public avenues, &c. is not new. — 

 Mr. Carter, and I think others, would apply it to 



