2 Retrospective View of the 



fill building in the Grecian style, which will be completed 

 and opened for its exhibitions by the ensuing spring. It was 

 through the exertions of this Society, while General Dearborn 

 was at its head, and to whose zeal and taste much of its 

 early success is to be attributed, that Mount Auburn was pur- 

 chased for the purposes of a Cemetery and an Experimental 

 Garden. The latter object was abandoned, as it should have 

 been, as an undertaking involving too much expense ; and 

 the income resulting from the former, agreeably to the provis- 

 ions of the charter, has enabled the Society to erect a building 

 where its weekly and annual exhibitions can be held, in a 

 hall, ample in its dimensions to accommodate the increasing 

 taste of the public. 



The diffusion of a greater taste for trees and shrubs is man- 

 ifested in the general desire to plant trees by the sides of 

 public roads, in burial grounds, and for objects of shade and 

 shelter ; this last is even extending among the enlightened 

 farmers, who are reading as well as practical men, and the 

 result will be a better appreciation of the beauties of land- 

 scape scenery, and a desire to ornament their grounds by 

 plantations of trees and shrubs. 



But it is in practical knowledge that we may particularly 

 note a decided improvement. In the various modes of cul- 

 tivation and propagation, — in the production of seedlings by 

 hybridization, and in the general management of flowers, 

 fruits, and. ornamental plants, there is a great increase of 

 knowledge. Beautiful specimens are becoming objects of 

 greater attention, and the time we trust is close at hand, 

 when these will rather be subjects deserving prizes, as they 

 are in Great Britain, than those that are merely new and 

 rare. The introduction of new fertilizing substances is 

 another aid in scientific cultivation, already ascertained to be 

 of great importance in the growth of plants. 



To our last volume we must refer for details of cultivation 

 and general management ; our object now is, as usual, to re- 

 capitulate some of the more important subjects discussed, and 

 to impress more particularly, upon many of our readers, hints 

 and suggestions from which useful results may follow. 



The season of 1844, like that of the preceding one, was 

 exceedingly dry. The winter was very cold, and considera- 



