No. 5. 



Horticultural Address at Washington, D. C. 



159 



Horticultural Address— Washington, 

 D.C. 



We are indebted to J. S. Skinner, for a copy of his 

 Address before the Columbian Horticultural Society, 

 at Washington. D. C, delivered on the 5th of Tenth 

 month, last. We have enjoyed the reading of it, and 

 have selected from it the following paragraphs, calcu- 

 lated, as we think, to be really useful. — Ed. 



"Few sciences in this age of progress, 

 have made greater advances than horticul- 

 ture ; and that is evinced in nothing more 

 than in the melioration of the various fruits 

 and the multiplication of their varieties. 

 The new kinds produced within this centu 

 ry, by the skilful experiments and untiring 

 perseverance of such men as Knight, and 

 Van Mons, and Loudon, and others, far ex- 

 cel all previously known. The people of 

 New Jersey, as those south of it generally, 

 have probably acted on the persuasion that, 

 because they once had excellent peaches, 

 they had yet only to graft or bud from a 

 good old variety, on a thrifty looking stock, 

 to secure the continuance of that fruit in all 

 its excellence ; either forgetting, or not 

 knowing that, according to the opinion of 

 Mr. Knight and other distinguished natura 

 ists, 'confirmed,' as Kenrick says, ' by ex- 

 perience,' the different varieties of fruit 

 have their periods of existence fixed by the 

 immutable laws of Nature, and that after a 

 certain time come on their decline and final 

 extinction. Apples of the most exquisite 

 flavour, and a kind of pear quite equal to 

 the iSeckle, have within my memory, en- 

 tirely disappeared. If the people of New 

 Jersey, would regain for their State its 

 former character for the production of supe- 

 rior peaches, they must set themselves to 

 work to raise from the stone, by successive 

 plantations, until an inferior fruit is melio- 

 rated, which, as to the peach, experience 

 teaches may be done, and a new and supe- 

 rior variety established in the third genera- 

 tion ; and from this new variety so estab- 

 lished, they may go on to bud and graft 

 again at pleasure. Any nurseryman, who 

 could make it appear to the public satisfac- 

 tion, that his choice fruits had been thus, as 

 it were, created by himself, and who v/ould 

 keep a register of their births, would de- 

 serve preference over all competitors. It 

 would be well, too, probably, for the Jersey, 

 and all other people, to plant their orchards 

 on new sites, as distant as may be from the 

 old orchards; for it is not impossible, that 

 the old trees may have exhausted the land 

 of the ' particular juice,' as Lord Bacon 

 calls it, which contributes to the growth of 

 the peach. 



"It has been intimated to me by a gentle- 

 man, whose wide range of reading has em- 



braced the science of botany, and who is, in 

 his own walks, a close observer of the works 

 of Nature, that our crab-grass, which grows 

 so luxuriantly at this season, not only with- 

 out, but against all our efl^brts, and which is 

 so greedily devoured by all our graminivor- 

 ous animals, might be cultivated into a val- 

 uable material for highland meadow. Out 

 of how many less promising originals have 

 we derived some of the choicest fruits of 

 agriculture and horticulture I 



"The Washington market has wonder- 

 fully improved, within my recollection, in 

 the products of both the orchard and the 

 kitchen garden. As to flowers, when our 

 friend Buist, a host within himself, came 

 here a brawny young Scotchman, some 

 years since, he was frankly and honestly 

 advised to take his spade and go to rearing 

 cabbages. But, under all discouragements, 

 he has persevered. The taste has increat-ed 

 by what it fed upon, until now, it is highly 

 gratifying to be assured that the desire to 

 possess and to cultivate flowers, has fully 

 kept pace with the means of indulgence af- 

 forded b}?^ our skilful and industrious florists. 

 For the production of fruit, and ornamental 

 trees, and shrubs, and vines, the District and 

 neighbourhood are largely indebted to Mr. 

 Feirce. And as for the art of transplanting, 

 and after-management, and for skill and 

 success in all horticultural operations, Ma- 

 her seems absolutely to possess some power 

 of conjuration. His very touch is a life- 

 preserver. Exotic or native, evergreen or 

 deciduous, all alike live and flourish under 

 his management. 



" The public taste is yet to be cultivated 

 for the okra. Of the whole list of esculents, 

 I do not know one, the consumption of 

 which bears so little proportion in this com- 

 munity to its cheapness and its excellence. 

 For these recommendations, it may well 

 challenge a comparison even with the to- 

 mato, which, within my recollection, was 

 cultivated as a horticultural curiosity mere- 

 ly, so slow are mankind in proceeding from 

 the known to the unknown, in matters sus- 

 ceptible of the most agreeable demonstration. 



" I argue an ignorance of the great excel- 

 lence of this vegetable, and the absence of 

 what may, if you please, be called an ac- 

 quired taste for the use of it, from the fact, 

 that a gentleman, whose beautiful and well 

 cultivated grounds overlook the city, and 

 where I lately saw it in great quantity 

 goinor to seed, told me that his gardener had 

 declined sending it to market, as the price 

 would not warrant the trouble. Now, if 

 you will ask those who are familiar with it, 

 they will tell you that no vegetable mate- 



