712 MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



by any monument, but whose venerable pear tree yet survives 

 the lapse of seven generations of men, to bear living testimony 

 to his tasteful and benevolent industry. His example soon 

 found many followers, and even in the first hundred years of 

 New England history, all the fruits generally raised in English 

 gardens, were commonly cultivated here. Our horticulture 

 received an important accession on the arrival of the French 

 Huguenots in the early part of the eighteenth century, who 

 brought with them their national taste for fine fruits, and 

 introduced several, which yet stand at the head of the list of 

 our cultivated varieties. From that time to this day the culti- 

 vation of fruit of all descriptions has been generally extei^ded 

 throughout our most thickly settled districts, and many of us 

 can remember the time, when, in our most crowded cities, a 

 garden of greater or less extent was considered an indispensa- 

 ble appendage to every tenement of any value. 



Horticulture, if a less conspicuous and honored art then, 

 than now, was by no means a neglected one, and its rapid 

 advance of late years must certainly be owing, in no small 

 degree, to the broad foundation which had been effectually 

 though quietly laid by our predecessors. The advantages 

 which the community have derived from the unostentatious 

 labors and instructive writings of such men as Samuel G. 

 Perkins and Robert Manning, to forbear all mention of the 

 living, if difficult exactly to define, are not therefore to be less 

 gratefully appreciated. Nor can I forbear, in this connection, 

 to notice the recent loss of Mr. Downing, one to whom we 

 owe the most complete work on American Fruit Trees, if not 

 the only one, to which that title can fairly be given ;: a gen- 

 tleman whose extensive research and acute discrimination 

 rendered him a valuable counsellor to our greatest adepts in 

 gardening; while his clear and unostentatious common sense 

 and unafi'ected enthusiam enabled him to render that pursuit 

 easy and attractive to the most uninstructed. Few in. any 

 country have done more to promote the comfort and refine- 

 ment of rural life ; and happy and honored will be any man 

 who may worthily fill the void left by his deplorable death. 



I now proceed to the discharge of the duty specially as- 

 signed to me, by a few practical remarks on the cultivation of 

 the apple, although it is obvious that much which may be said 



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