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cultivation of the apple called the Northern Spy, by David 

 Roberts, Esq., Samuel P. Fowler, Mr. Ives and the chair, 

 which elicited much information. The chair thought such 

 essays as those we had listened to exceedingly well adapted 

 for the evening sessions and appropriate as coming from the 

 Horticultural Department of the Institute. He believed 

 that a widely diffused and increasing taste for gardening had 

 been fostered by the attempts of the Society to promote it, 

 in its annual and other Exhibitions, and tliat the long cher- 

 ished wish of the distinguished Manning often expressed to 

 him in private conversation was about to be realized, " that 

 the young men of Salem should learn to cultivate fruit trees, 

 and make such cultivation a matter of scientific study." 



The following paper was read by S. P. Fowler, Esq. : — 



Ornithology of the United States, its Past and Pres- 

 ent History. Ornithology has had in every age and country, 

 many enthusiastic admirers. But in New England, during 

 a period of more than one hundred years from its settlement, 

 very little notice was taken of our birds. Indeed there was 

 but a small amount of correct knowledge upon the subject 

 of American Ornithology, previous to the appearance of the 

 great work of Alexander Wilson. There were a few birds, 

 that early attracted the notice of the first settlers of the 

 country, and there were others, to which their attention had 

 been called by the Indians, those close observers of nature. 

 Most of the knowledge of our Natural History, previous to 

 the nineteenth century, is to be found in scattered portions 

 of the civil history of America, WTitten chiefly by travelers 

 and journalists, who possessed very little taste for the study 

 of the natural sciences. Capt. John Smith, who visited New- 

 England in 1616, has. furnished us the following list of birds, 

 viz : " Eagles, Grips, divers sort of Hawks, Cranes, Geese, 

 Brants, Cormorants, Gulls, Turkies, Dive Dippers, Sparrow- 

 Hawks, Goshawks, Falcons, Ospreys, Blackbirds Avith red 

 shoulders. Herons, Dotterells, Oxeyes, Parrots, Pigeons, 

 Thrushes, Wrens, and divers sorts of small birds, some red 

 and some blue." Thomas Morton in his " New-English Ca- 

 naan" published in 1632, when speaking of the abundance 

 of our water birds at that early period, says : " there are 



