322 Mr. Watterstoji' s Address before the 



house, within the sphere of its operation. The idea, he 

 said, of establishing a Horticultural Society in Washington, 

 had been suggested by a venerable citizen, who had devo- 

 ted several years of bis life to tbe cultivation of the native 

 and foreign grape, with no little success, and that it had 

 been eagerly embraced and carried into effect by a number 

 of public spirited men, who had been led to the undertak- 

 ing more with a view to benefit their fellow citizens than 

 themselves. He spoke of the wretched condition of horti- 

 culture and of the markets in this district, prior to the es- 

 tablishment of the Society: that scarcely any thing was 

 then seen but wild strawberries, often in a state of fermen- 

 tation ; black and yellow raspberries, inferior even to the 

 common blackberry; and apples, pears, plums and peaches, 

 altogether different from those which are now seen in the 

 markets of this city; that a taste for the cultivation of flow- 

 ers had also been created among the ladies of Washington, 

 and that there were but few now in the metropolis who did 

 not take great delight in the rearing of beautiful plants, in 

 pots, yards or gardens. He thought that if it were con- 

 tinued with its former spirit, it was impossible to say to 

 what extent the blessings, which the Society was calcula- 

 ted to afford, might not be enjoyed. He trusted that it 

 would yet be able to boast of the introduction of some new 

 and choice variety of fruit, vegetable or flower, by the skill 

 and industry of its members, who would thus have the 

 honor of transmitting their names to posterity. He said 

 that our country had already the glory of having intro- 

 duced some of the finest kinds of fruits, such as the Bald- 

 win apple, the Seckel, Gushing, Wilkinson, Lewis, Andrews 

 and L)ix pears, the Boston nectarine, the Bolmer Wash- 

 ington plum, the Downer cherry, &c. &c. 



He then spoke of the production of ameliorated fruit by 

 alternate planting and grafting, and cited the opinion of Van 

 Mons, that plants in a state of nature, remaining in their na- 

 tive soil, produced seed that never degenerated, but that in a 

 state of variation the case was different; for that he had 

 found by experiment, that the first seed of a pear tree, sown 

 consecutively for eight generations, taking the seed of the 

 best fruit, produced always more perfect fruit than the pre- 

 ceding generation ; that stone fruits, as the peach, &c. pro- 

 duced good fruit in the third generation, and the apple in 

 the fourth : that the tree, from each successive planting of 



