10 A Retrospective View of the 



excellence of the fruit after being exposed to several frosts, is 

 becoming very popular, and has been extensively planted. 

 The Osage orange (iMaclura aurantiaca,) is now under ex- 

 periment as a hedge plant, at Mr. Cushing's, but it will not 

 be exposed to the winter, till it acquires more age: if it should 

 eventually prove hardy, by a constant course of heading down 

 and protecting for a few years, till the sleius become very 

 woody, it will be the most important plant that has been intro- 

 duced into New England. 



Public Gardens. 



No other instance of the formation of a Public Garden has 

 come to our knowledge, except the one in Boston. Since 

 last year, improvements have been made in the open ground, 

 and a great variety of shrubs and herbaceous plants have been 

 set out: some few trees have also been planted. The princi- 

 pal attractions, the past year, were the tulips and dahlias. In 

 the conservatory, the plants are flourishing, though, as we 

 long ago expressed ourselves, not so well as they would do in 

 a house better adapted to their growth. The whole is now 

 under the superintendence of an excellent gardener, lately from 

 the London Horticultural Society's garden, at Chiswick, and 

 another year, we shall expect to see many improvements in- 

 troduced. The number of visitors has not been so great as 

 was anticipated, but this has arisen from various causes, which, 

 we trust, will no longer prevent the public from taking a 

 greater interest in such enjoyments as an inspection of the 

 garden afibrds. 



Commercial Gardens. 



Commercial gardening is not in that flourishing state which 

 its friends could wish to see it; there has been a gradual in- 

 crease of nurseries and flower gardens, but the public taste 

 has not been sufficient to afford that encouragement which the 

 numerous establishments expected, and with which the labors 

 of the proprietors deserve to be rewarded. They look for- 

 ward, however, to belter times, and, meanwhile, are preparing 

 an abundant stock, to enable them to supply the wants of the 

 community with whatever they may wish. The progress of 

 gardening cannot be better estimated than by the steady and 

 uninterrupted sale of the commercial gardener's stock, for, 



