VEGETABLES. 41 



respective kinds of trees will take care of themselves, as formerly 

 obtained with orcharding for the production of cider ; but skill, 

 patience, and unremitting labor, only, can secure advantageous 

 results. If he has a fine grape vine trained on his barn or over 

 the door of his dwelling, he can hardly afford the time to its care 

 that its necessities require. If he turn his attention to these 

 branches of industry, he must contract his sphere of occupation, 

 and become the horticulturist rather than the agriculturist. Hence, 

 of necessity, the latter is not to be expected capable of appreciating 

 the department of the former ; and when fruits and flowers lend 

 their aid to deck the table at the farmers' show, they must be 

 regarded as accessories rather than solids and realities. 



It is desirable that good apples, good pears and other fruits 

 which grow upon trees, be enjoyed by the farmer's family, and that 

 beautiful flowers cluster about his household. No one can rear a 

 flower without being insensibly influenced for the better by so doing. 

 It is well, too, to offer premiums for a new grape, and gratuities 

 for a charming bouquet, if it should encourage a taste for a cheap 

 and wholesome delicacy for the table, or pleasure for the eye. But 

 let it not be forgotten that horticultural occupations are refinements 

 on agricultural labors ; and that it is mainly on the humbler produc- 

 tions of Ceres and Pomona that the farm is to depend. Mr. Fay, 

 in his excellent address of this year, spoke highly of the root cul- 

 ture, and urged its adoption more extensively ; a proceeding, how- 

 ever, which would need a study of the character and capabilities of 

 the soil to extensively justify. But the hint, he urged, is not to be 

 lost sight of, the more particularly as it appears to us in connection 

 with our present views. Why not encourage experiments and 

 attempts at vegetable culture, by appropriate premiums also ? 

 Why depend on Vilmorin of France, or the gardens of England 

 to produce, year after year, some new variety of root or kind of 

 grain ? Is not a good potato, relatively, as valuable as a new 

 grape ? Or a sunny cheeked and smiling pumpkin as important an 

 item of encouragement as a new peach ? 



Your Committee would not have been betrayed into this expression 

 of their feeUngs, perhaps, had they not been impressed with the unu- 

 sual satisfaction manifested in the show of vegetables ; many of which 

 were of a very attractive character. They could see no possible 

 reason why this department of agricultural industry should not be 



