298 TREES. 



after year, with giving pretty much the same old schedule of pre- 

 miums for the best cherries, cabbages, and carnations, all over the 

 country till the stimulus begins to wear out somewhat like the 

 effects of opium or tobacco, on confirmed habitues. Let them adopt 

 our scheme of popularizing the taste for horticulture, by giving 

 premiums of certain select small assortments of standard fruit trees, 

 ornamental trees, shrubs, and vines, (purchased by the society of 

 the nurserymen,) to the cultivators of such small gardens sub- 

 urban door-yards or cottage inclosures, within a distance of ten 

 miles round, as the inspecting committee shall decide to be best 

 worthy, by their air of neatness, order, and attention, of such pre- 

 miums. In this way, the valuable plants will fall into the right 

 hands ; the vendor of trees and plants will be directly the gainer, 

 and the stimulus given to cottage gardens, and the spread of the 

 popular taste, will be immediate and decided. 



" Tall oaks from little acorns grow " is a remarkably trite 

 aphorism, but one, the truth of which no one who knows the apti- 

 tude of our people, or our intrinsic love of refinement and elegance, 

 will underrate or gainsay. If, by such simple means as we have 

 here pointed out, our great farm on this side of the Atlantic, with 

 the water-privilege of both oceans, could be made to wear a little 

 less the air of Canada-thistle-dom, and show a little more sign of 

 blossoming like the rose, we should look upon it as a step so much 

 nearer the millennium. In Saxony, the traveller beholds with no 

 less surprise and delight, on the road between Wiessenfels and 

 Halle, quantities of the most beautiful and rare shrubs and flowers, 

 growing along the foot-paths, and by the sides of the hedges which 

 line the public promenades. The custom prevails there, among 

 private individuals who have beautiful gardens, of annually planting 

 some of their surplus materiel along these public promenades, for 

 the enjoyment of those who have no gardens. And the custom is 

 met in the same beautiful spirit by the people at large ; for in the 

 main, those embellishments that turn the highway into pleasure 

 grounds, are respected, and grow and bloom as if within the inclosures. 



Does not this argue a civilization among these " down-trodden 

 nations " of Central Europe, that would not be unwelcome in thia. 

 our -land of equal rights and free schools ? 



