'14 AMERICAN POMOLOGY. 



tities of human food of the most valuable kind. This 

 pursuit always marks the advancement of a community. 

 As our western pioneers progress in their improvements 

 from the primitive log cabins to the more elegant and sub- 

 stantial dwelling houses, we ever find the garden and the 

 orchard, the vine-arbor and the berry-patch taking their 

 piaces beside the other evidences of progress. These 

 constitute to them the poetry of common life, of the 

 farmer's life. 



The culture of fruits, and gardens also, contributes in 

 no small degree to the improvement of a people by the 

 excellent moral influence it exercises upon them. Every- 

 thing that makes home attractive must contribute to this 

 desirable end. Beyond the sacred confines of the happy 

 hearthstone, with its dear familiar circle, there can be no 

 more pleasant associations than those of the garden, 

 where, in our tender years, we have aided loved parents, 

 from them taking the first lessons in plant-culture, gather- 

 ing the luscious fruits of their pfanting or of our own ; 

 nor of the rustic arbor, in whose refreshing shade we have 

 reclined to rest and meditate amid its sheltering canopy 

 of verdure, and where we have gathered the purple ber- 

 ries of the noble vine at a later period of the rolling year ; 

 nor of the orchard, with its bounteous supplies of golden 

 and ruddy apples, blushing peaches, and melting pears. 

 With such attractions about our homes, with such ties to 

 be sundered, it is wonderful, and scarcely credible, that 

 youth should ever be induced to wander from them, and to 

 stray into paths of evil. Such happy influences must have 

 a good moral effect upon the young. If it be argued that 

 such luxuries will tend to degrade our morals by making 



