ANNIVERSAKT ADDREgS 75 



more carefully the requisites of soil and climate, and in this 

 manner to bring to great perfection specimens which under less 

 favorable circumstances would be dwarfed and sickly. 



I have always considered that science achieved one of the 

 greatest triumphs in the grafting of the fruit tree ; by this won- 

 derful, yet, simple expedient, a barren fruitless stock is made 

 productive, and nature herself is forced to bend obedient to the 

 will of man. 



It is said that observation of the crossing and growing together 

 of two branches of different trees in a crowded forest, first led 

 to the art of grafting, and it is precisely such facts as these, 

 when communicated from man to man, and especially when 

 diJBFused through the medium of such societies as the American 

 Institute, that tend to increase the great sum of human knowledge 

 and to lead in the end to the most valuable discoveries. 



I doubt not that the intelligent cultivators of fruit, who have 

 attended this exhibition, with their beautiful productions, have 

 each and all learned something new and interesting from being 

 thus brought together, that they have communicated to each 

 other the results of their personal experience, and that in this 

 respect at least, their attendance has not been unprofitable. 

 There is an important interest, and it becomes more and more 

 80 every year. Fruit is one of the necessaries of life, and at 

 certain seasons is deemed essential to health ; the demand for 

 fruit in this great metropolis and in its surrounding cities, is 

 enormous, and Europe furnishes a ready market for any surplus 

 of those hardy varieties which will bear transportation. The 

 cultivation of fruit in the neighborhood of our large cities where 

 land is held at high rates, offers great inducements to enterprize, 

 and seems to be a far more profitable employment than the at- 

 tempt to raise cereals in vain competition with the cheap and 

 fertile prairies of the West. 



It is a matter of public concern, then, that the American In- 

 stitute has taken this subject seriously in hand, and it is to be 

 hoped that this display of fruit, superb as it is, will be but a 

 beginning of a truly praiseworthy and useful movement. 



If the utilitarian should condemn this part of our exhibition, 

 I should have no difficulty in bringing his censorious remarks to 

 an end by filling his mouth with some of these delicious fruits, 

 and calling his attention to their great improvement in beauty, 

 richness and flavor, but it may, perhaps, seem to be more difficult 



