W'" BlCEMlEl. 



A LAMENT FOR THE SEASON. 



There is no royal road to horticulture. If the seasons were uniformly 

 propitious ; if rain fell exactly when we desired it, and in no greater quan- 

 tity than were necessary for our crops ; if sunshine followed at our bidding, 

 and cheered and brightened and invigorated all living and growing things 

 exactly as man would engineer the business of weather-making, — what a 

 paradise in perspective the horticulturist would have ! There would be no 

 disastrous seasons to complain of, no late frosts to blast the early bloom 

 of our pet strawberries, no early ones to annihilate the grapes, no water- 

 spouts to rot either of them on the vines, no drought to shrivel them up into 

 unmerchantable nubbins, no mutual condolences among those who labor 

 in the fields, but every acre would become an earthly cornucopia, without 

 one presumptive weed intruding on the scene. If every one were success- 

 ful with his crops, it would seem reasonable that all would become rapidly 

 rich. But the probability is, that universal abundance of fruit would result 

 in a universal glut, under which prices would sink so low, that no one 

 would be adequately rewarded for his labor. It has uniformly been so 

 with wheat and cotton and tobacco, — the three great staples which govern 



