72 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



stands as perhaps the most advanced center of garden interest in 

 the United States. 



It is not my intention today to call your attention to the best 

 books, so much as it is to direct it towards a consideration of the 

 tendencies of contemporary garden writings and publications, in an 

 effort to measure up our possessions and our needs. 



The literature of gardening and horticulture in this country dates 

 back but a little over a hundred years, for it appears that the first 

 purely American book written from an American point of view was 

 Squibb's Gardener's Kalendar for South Carolina and North Carolina, 

 Charleston, 1799, which ran into several subsequent editions. 

 This was followed in 1804, in Washington, by The American Gar- 

 dener, of John Gardiner and David Hepburn. This volume also 

 had several editions. But prior to this latter there was published 

 in Boston an edition of Marshall's Introduction to the Knowledge 

 and Practive of Gardening (1799). The bad example here set of 

 republishing a foreign work has continued to this day and has, I 

 believe, had much influence in confusing the home gardener and 

 hindering real appreciation in garden work. To the professional 

 gardener or horticulturist, these books are decidedly useful; but 

 for the amateur gardener, they have been somewhat of a handicap 

 because he was not in a position to interpret them in the light of 

 reason. Thus the very effort to promote popular interest in gar- 

 dens has at times reacted to its disadvantage. 



A glance over the bibliography of horticulture in America re- 

 veals curious and interesting developments; and through it we see 

 reflected the progress of gardening to the present day marked 

 revival, — or shall I say evolution? — into a real garden spirit that 

 we all recognize. The garden proper is an enclosure, an intimate 

 part of the home surroundings, and with the early settlements 

 came the old-world desire to develop this appurtenance of the home. 

 But economic conditions soon made their influence felt and the 

 garden idea quickly gave way to that of broader, more open cultiva- 

 tion of crops in fields and orchards. As a consequence, horti- 

 culture in its broader sense came to be the dominating character. 

 Attention was concentrated on the utilitarian aspect rather than 

 upon the aesthetic. Fruit growing overpowered everything else 

 and, indeed, became so dominant that the word horticulture is 



