710 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



rous stock, that is destined to change its uncouth and thorny structure into a 

 symmetrical and graceful form ; and the fruit that is to be boruo upon its 

 boughs from the acrid and puckery, into the aromatic and melting pear, you 

 may sec of stalwart form, though of hut one summer's growth. Stop, and 

 praise her work ! Anon you may see its fellow, though yet in its youth having 

 attained to the stature and form of adolescence, that has already gladdened 

 hearts by its manly bearing. Give it your earnest commendation ! "While to 

 the venerable form that for years has been yielding its golden harvests, you 

 •will do well in heart felt respect if not in very deed, to uncover your head as 

 you walk beneath its branches. In the variety of forms which she imposes ou 

 these developing structures, there will be presented to the eye the most 

 uncouth and the most graceful. Here the perfect pyramid, and there the 

 most amorphous form, will proclaim her ability to please by variety ; and 

 hence on the one hand you will be delighted with the most symmetrical while 

 stransioly contrasting on the other, with the most refractory. If beauty is to 

 be found, as is claimed by the landscape, gardener, in the surface of the earth 

 as well as in foliage and verdure, in hills and valleys and in streams of water, 

 much more is it found in the gentle curve with which nature marks the outline 

 of those trees that JBirst are to delight the eye with the profusion of snow like 

 bloom, and then both the eye and the palate with their golden harvests. 



Artists and men of taste have long acknowledged the curved line, as the 

 line of beauty, and in the pear more especially, of all fruit bearing trees will 

 you confess nature has exerted her<elf to beautify the orchard. Could I trans- 

 port vou to-night to familiar grounds, not where the gentle swells and undula- 

 tions rise and melt away into one another, almost insensibly disappearing, 

 views so captivating to the lover of nature ; but to an orchard where your 

 eyes could take in at a glance the outline of the scene, with a stretch of ma- 

 jestic evergreens in the background, enchanting by their strange contrast ; 

 while constituting a defense against the rude vernal blasts on its northern and 

 western border ; you would acknowledge in the structure of the trees of the 

 orchard as well as in the evergreen picket line of defence, the power of the 

 beautiful over your hearts. So wonderfully diversified are nature's beauties, 

 that we know not where most to admire, nor how enough to praise. At a 

 distant view it is the whole, with its pleasingly contrasted yet beautiful out- 

 line. On a nearer approach it is the leaves with which they are clothed, so 

 strau'^ely diversified in form and color, with every shade from the shining rich- 

 ness of the tropical plant to the clearer softness of the cherry and apple ; and 

 the bud in its variation of size and form ; and the bark of the trunk and 

 branches, in their changes of color and habit. 



The di'^nity of a science is claimed for horticulture. If rightly so, there 

 must be modes of action in accordance with established principles, to lead the 

 euijineer to certain attainments, though varying somewhat as circumstances of 

 soil, climate and location may indicate. These principles upon which all suc- 

 cessful operations in the orchard depend, are often obscured l)y the undue pro- 

 minence given to a favorite mode of cultivation; a mode which under given 

 circumstances will secure success, unless other necessary conditions are entire- 

 ly ignored, if not actually condemned with the view of exalting unduly his own 

 favorite method. With one it is special manuring ; with another thorough 



