80 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMKRICAN INSTITUTE. 



manufactures require every foot of space which the dwelling- 

 house can dispense with, and gardening at the rate of two dollars 

 or more for every square foot of the land employed, is a luxury 

 which must necessarily be confined to the few. 



It has been proposed, that under the auspices of the American 

 Institute, a garden should be established which should be filled, 

 winter and summer, with the choicest and most beautiful flowers 

 and shrubs, where the public might have an opportunity, at a 

 small expense, to indulge this most refined and beautiful taste. 

 I think that such an institution would be a great public benefit, 

 that its influence would be most healthy, and that horticultural 

 fairs might thus constantly be held, the effect of which would not 

 only be to improve the cultivation of plants and flowers, but also 

 to refine and elevate the masses. 



With all our great energy of character and determined spirit, 

 qualities necessary to found empires, we need, to a great degree, 

 that refinement which is necessary to adorn and embellish them. 



Exhibitions of art and exhibitions of nature, side by side with 

 art, are the proper means of refinement, and it is to be hoped that 

 as time rolls on they will become more and more general among 

 us. 



The love of horticulture which the American Institute, through 

 this beautiful exhibition, has done so much to encourage, has 

 been a source of the highest enjoyment to some of the most emi- 

 nent men of our own and other lands, and of the present as well 

 as of the past ages. 



The Academus or public garden of Athens was the resort of 

 her philosophers and poets, and the fact that Socrates and Plato 

 taught among those groves shows that these great men were not 

 indiff'erent to the charms of nature. 



So great was Pliny's admiration for the beauties of landscape 

 gardening, that he not only contrived to view some portion of the 

 scene from every window of his Tusculan villa, but he even con- 

 structed a couch which had one view at the head, another at the 

 foot and a third at the back. 



Pope's villa, at Twickenham, and Sir Walter Scott's beautiful 

 Abbottsford are still proofs of the love which these two eminent 

 men entertained for horticulture ; a feeling which was shared by 

 one who would be deemed the most unlikely person to entertain 

 it, namely, by Lord Jeff'rey, the terrible critic of the Edinburgh 

 Review. 



