292 



NKW ENGLAND FARMER, 



HORTICULTURE. 



The followins extracts on Ihe subject of Horlicultuie, 



weroei..b.ace.i i.. a letter which ai.pearedson.e time since 

 in the New Yoik Farmer, from Mr Alexander \J alsh ot 

 Lansinchurg, lo the corresponding secretary of the Al- 

 bany Hoiticnltuial Society, acknowledKms the honor 

 conferreil upon him, by constituUni; hira one of its com- 

 mittee of correspondence ; 



"The knowledge acquired by individual horti- 

 culturists in our country, is undoubtedly consid- 

 erable. There is, however, wanting a combination 

 of action and correspondence of sentiment, so 

 essentially necessary to general intelligence 

 utility. It is not only the highly cultivated mind 

 that can bestow interest on the subject ; we are all 

 laborers in the great garden in which wisdom, 

 more than human, has placed us; the humblest 

 digger in it may possibly add something, although 

 biu'a mite, towards the maturing of nature's plan, 

 the perfection of a science indispensable to human 

 happiness, so supcreminent that professions claim- 

 ing superiority, are in many respects, dependent 

 on°it. The healing art owes no small share of its 

 power, to the laborious research of the botanist ; 

 die gardener and farmer are the pioneers of the 

 mineralogist; the sacred desk finds,in.the reflections 

 that arise in the cultivation of the eai-th, materials 

 to enforce and elucidate sacred truths. 



« The portion of knowledge conferred on the 

 brute creation, as necessary to their support, was 

 given at once, and admits of no improvement. 

 The house of the beaver has undergone no change, 

 'in its architecture ; it is now, as at first, unchanged 

 in shape, size, or convenience. Man alone has 

 the capacity to impro-e and to alter everything, 

 so as to suit every change and purpose. The ca- 

 pability to improve is then wortliy of man's special 

 regard, and is more particularly the concern of 

 those engaged in the raising of plants and the sow- 

 ing of seeds ; for these pursuits are not only the 

 most natural, but also the most necessary. 



" Oiu- country is comparatively new, its resour- 

 ces and caijabilities but imperfectly explored or 

 unkno\vn ; even the iininodiate tiller of the soil 

 knows not the wealth that its surface produces, or 

 is capable to sustain. For this there is a remedy 

 within our reach, and it is worthy of the citizen 

 and the philanthropist to apply it. 



" It will not derogate from us as a nation, to 

 take lessons from other countries, where there is 

 aught worthy our imitation or adoption with which 

 we are unacquainted, or which we have not prac- 

 tised ; it will do us honor if we come up to them 

 in skill ; it would be still more to our honor, should 

 we outstrip them by our improvenients. 



" The Horticultural Society of London is a re- 

 markable instance of industry and intelligence. 

 The British people, on other occasions, sufficiently 

 tenacious of personal r.tnk and distinctions, have 

 on this, submitted to the equality which nature 

 recocnises ; rank, weahh, and talent, the lord, the 

 mechanic, and the laborer, unitedly, constitute 

 more than three thousand members. By their 

 members and agents, almost every portion of the 

 globe contributes to increase the stock of plants 

 and seeds ; these arei cultivated in the grounds of 

 the Society and distributed throughout the island 

 and the colonies, and with an honorable liberality, 

 sent into various foreign nations ; our ow|ii partak- 

 ing of this noble generosity. While we should be 

 grateful for such and all similar kindness, it is suf- 

 ficiently evident that the benefit to be thus derived, 

 must continue toe limited for our wants and too 

 slow in its progress. We must set ourselves to 



work at home, if we would arrive at any extensive 

 degree of usefulness. 



" The cultivation of indigenous plants, deserves 

 a first place in the consideration of every people. 

 The principle a])plies forcibly to our country, 

 where, owing to its great extent, variety ol clime 

 and general fertility, the diversity of products is so 

 extensive. The great facility of communication 

 daily on the increase, removes every dilHculty 

 that nature would oppose to the transmission of 

 plants, flowers and seeds, to any of our horticul- 

 and I tural societies, where a scientific exaiuination of 

 their qiiality, or a practical experiment of their 

 n-rowth and produce, could best decide on their 

 value and the propriety of recommending their 

 general cultivation. This should not, however, 

 be acted on to the exclusion of exotics, few of which 

 of any coimtry would not find a congenial soil and 

 clini;ue in the United States. No country has an 

 opportunity equal to ours, for collecting valuable 

 exotics at so cheap a rate ; our commerce is co- 

 extensive with every sea ; our merchants are so in- 

 telligent and enterprising, that no port or haven is 

 left unvisited by their ships. 



" What multitudes of sources have we to trans- 

 plant to our country, whatever is valuable in other 

 climes ? Every merchant should be united to our 

 associations, every commander of a sea vessel, 

 whether national or private, and be an actual hon- 

 orary member of our societies; through them, in 

 a few years, could be collected such a variety of 

 (^\otic plants, vegetables, flowers, fruit, and seeds, 

 as no one nation ever owned ; and that no nation 

 but ours is capable of collecting and naturalizing. 

 Horticulture and Botany should in some degree 

 enter into the education of children, in all our pri- 

 mary schools ; where practicable, small allotnisnts 

 of land should be' attached, that boys might have 

 practical illustrations of the theory. By paicellin 

 the ground among fhe young students, and lioldin 

 out premiums for superior cultivation and produce, 

 a most useful rivalry might be excited. One or 

 two hours thus daily occupied, would soon tend to 

 the promotion and preservation of health, and use- 

 fully relieve the tedium of unvarying apjilication 

 to letters. 



" Every college and extensive seminary should 

 have its professorship of agriculture, horticiihiirc, 

 and botany, with its garden for practical illustra- 

 tions and experiments. 



"Among our periodical literature, we have the 

 New York, New England and the Genesee Farm- 

 ers, and the Southern Agriculturist ; all of which 

 are doing much towards increasing a taste for the 

 cultivation of the soil, but their circulation is too 

 limited, and measures should be taken to have 

 them better known ; our horticultural and agricul- 

 tural societies ought to pay part of their premiums 

 in these valuable publications. 



" To complete the great scheme of improvement, 

 an annual convention to consist of County dele- 

 gates, should be held alternately in each of the 

 four great districts of our State ; it would be in 

 the power of such an assembly to provide for a 

 State school, where horticulture in all its depart- 

 ments, would be taught theoretically and practi- 

 cally. 



" Out of such a system a taste for the useful 

 and the ornamental would gradually grow, iinti 

 not only the gardener and farmer, the professional 

 florist and the nurseryman, but even those, who 

 like the writer of this, are engaged in diflerent 

 pursuits, would become from choice, or perhaps, 



because it was the fashion, gardeners and botan- 

 ists ; until every dwelling would have its garden, 

 its parterre, and its nursery; until our country 

 would prcsait but one general scene of all that 

 would be agreeable to the taste, or fascinating to 

 the eye." 



We 



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 



nnex a part of an ailiclc from the New England 



Ma<'-.izine, which is worthy of the consideration of our 

 friends in the country. 



Our houses are too "large for comfort, conve- 

 nience or beatify. The consequence of erecting 

 them of such dimensions is, often, that they remain 

 untinished and incomplete ; and, instead of the 

 neat rural villa, which almost every farmer might 

 own and enjoy, we see huge houses, the original 

 cost of erecting which, too often, has entailed up- 

 on its tenant a load of debt which he can never 

 remove during his life ; and he lives on toiling to 

 kecj) down the accumulating interest of the money 

 thus expended, for what he c;mnot enjoy ; with a 

 consciousness every year, that his chance of re- 

 demption is becoming less, and that his children 

 must, ere long, yield their paternal acres to some 

 straiiijer, who will enter to enjoy it, if he cat), tlie 

 mansion for which the tenant has sacrificed the 

 best years of his hfe and the best hopes of his . 

 family. 



This weakness is, if we mistake not, a peculiar- 

 ity of New England and New England men. We 

 should look in vain for such an idle expenditure 

 of money, among the thrifty descendants of the 

 Dutch and Germans, in New York or Pennsylvania. 

 They luiderstand these things better. Whatever 

 they exiiend in the way of buildings, is put to ac- 

 tual use. They have large barns an<l large gran- 

 aries, because they can fill them, and if thc.y know- 

 not the luxury of a fine house, they know the 

 comfort of a full and warm one ; and never think, 

 while thus enjoying ease and competence, of vol- 

 untarily becoming the tenants of a griping land- 

 lord, and paying rent in the form of interest, for 

 money expended in enlarging their dwelling 

 houses, and contracting their means of enjoyment. 

 It has so often been our misfortune to aace the 

 progress of a farmer or a mechanic, who has, in- 

 discreetly, run into debt to build or purchase a 

 larger house than he has had occasion to put into 

 actual use, that we can almost infallibly tell at the 

 first sight, the precise stage of his career of ruin. 

 Here might very easily be formed a jiretty accurate 

 scale, by which we could determine the condition 

 of a stranger by the external marks, that meet the 

 eye of a traveller while passing by bis dwelling 

 bouse. If we see a large house, with Jiere and 

 there a tattered garment to sujiply the places of 

 broken panes of glass, we expect soon to see the 

 shingles and clapboards loose, the doors with bro- 

 ken hinges, the fences broken down or carried 

 away for fuel ; and we soon look for the last step 

 in his downward scale, a sheritT's flag hanging 

 from the premises, to tell the passers-by that tlie 

 tenant's etpiity of redemption in those premises, is 

 about to be sold to pay a store debt or settle a tav- 

 ern score. We might point out, too, the marks of 

 this progress of j)overty, with the doors of such 

 an estate'; but^ the dv.clling soon becomes too 

 desolate, and the wife and children too strongly 

 marked with the seal which ruin has set upon 

 them, 10 make such a spectacle anything but pain- 

 ful and melancholy. 



Let no man imagine that this is a fancied pic- 

 ture. It may be seen in almost every town in New 



