252 Extending a Knowledge of 



lessons that history teaches. I am not aware that any attempt 

 has been made to purchase the property, or to ascertain from 

 the family how it could be purchased. There is, at present, a 

 good deal of attention to agricultural interests, which has resulted 

 in the formation of a national society; if the situation of the 

 estate, soil, and other circumstances, are such that an agricultural 

 school could grow up there, it would seem to me worthy of 

 consideration; for we find that the love of the country, its 

 pursuits and amusements, held a prominent place in Washing- 

 ton's dispositions and tastes. He was educated where the oc- 

 cupation of a planter was not only the most respectable, but (if 

 I may say so) the most aristocratic, manner of life ; this tended 

 to give it a character and desirableness which it does not pos- 

 sess among a more mercantile community, and which, under 

 ordinary circumstances, would have resulted in its rapid progress 

 as a science and art. Washington, in a letter to Sir J. Sinclair, 

 1796, says, one advantage that Pennsylvania possesses over 

 Virginia and Maryland is, "that there are laws there for the 

 gradual abolition of slavery, which neither of the two states last 

 mentioned have at present, but which nothing is more certain 

 than that they must have, and at a period not remote." Political 

 and military pursuits are perhaps as engrossing as any others, 

 but Washington, amid his toils and anxieties, found time to 

 direct his various agricultural, horticultural, and ornamental 

 projects. We find him, after he left the army, resuming his old 

 habits with ease and pleasure, leaving them for the presidential 

 chair with reluctance and regret, and again returning to them 

 with increased delight, to spend his last days in the pursuits and 

 amusements of his early life. It becomes an interesting specu- 

 lation, as to the influence that this love of nature, and this facility 

 for finding occupation and pleasure, may have had upon his 

 whole life, and in directing him to the true uses and ends of 

 power, rather than to its consequence and excitement to himself. 

 Cincinnati^ Ohio, 1 8 41. 



Art. III. On extending a Knowledge of and Taste for, Horticulture. 

 By Peter Mackenzie. 



More than 150 times have I read that part of the titlepage of 

 the Gardener s Magazine which has the appearance of rays of 

 glory, and reads, " Register of Rural and Domestic Improve- 

 ment." Much intended for the benefit of the rural population 

 has been registered in the volumes of your Magazine; but I am 

 afraid that a large portion of the good meant for them resembles 

 the light of the distant suns which astronomers tell of, but which 

 has never yet reached our planet. Among all the horticultural 



