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The Canadian Hokticui.iurist. 



HORTICUI/rLRI': AX .WCIICNT IXDL'STKV. 



" Tlius far of tillage ami of heavenly signs, 

 Now sing, my Muse, the growth of generous vines. 



Some trees their birth to Kounteous Nature owe ; 

 For some without the pains of planting grow. 

 These ways of planting Nature did ordain ; 

 I'or trees and shruhs and all the sylvan reign. 

 But various are the ways to change the state 

 (ii plants : to hud, to graft, and to inoculate. 

 'Tis usual now an inmate graft to see, 

 With insolence invade a foreign tiee. 

 Thus pears and quinces from the crab-tree come, 

 And thus the ruddy cornel bears the plum. 

 Then let the learned gardner mark with care, 

 The kinds of stock and what each kind will bear : 

 K.xplore the nature of each several tree, 

 Ami, known, improve tlieaitfid Iti(/u^fri/." 



li L'S wrote Virgil almo.st two thousand years ago. And 

 wliat \'irgil enjoined the ancients to do, in the two last lines 

 quoted, is just what the Canadian Horticulturist and the 

 Ontario Fruit Crowers' Association are endeavoring to in- 

 struct the people of this age and of this land in doing. To 

 explore the nature of each several tree and with the know- 

 ledge gained to improve the artful — and we hope profitable as well — industry 

 of fruit culture. In ])erusing Virgil, especially through his second Ceorgic, one 

 is amazed at the knowledge the ancients had of the arts of horticulture. It is 

 enough to take some of the nineteenth century conceit out of us when we come 

 to contemplate that without the advantage of our-day literature, or the fruit 

 growers' associations, there was no art in horticulture unknown to the ancients 

 that we know and practice in this age. In some respects it would seem that 

 they were more successful in their arts than we are on this continent of America, 

 fur N'irgil, after describing all the methods and minutiae of cutting, tipping, lay- 

 ering, budding, grafting, etc., he says: 



" The mastful beech the bri.stliiig chestnut bears. 

 And the wild asii is white with blooming pcais. "' 



Though often tried, the efforts to make the mountain ash prt)duce a crop of 

 blooming pears have not met with mut h success in this age and climate. The 

 ancients were no less skilled in the value and a])i)lication of fertilizers than in the 

 arts of hybridizing, for we hear them recommended to 



" Sprinkle sordid ashes all around, 

 Aiu\ load with fattening ilung the fallow ground." 



