16 HORTICTJLTORE, 



his " digging " to some less adventurous pioneer, and tacklincf thu 

 wagon of the ■wilderness, migrates once more. , 



It must not be supposed, large as is the infusion of restlessness 

 in our people that there are not also large exceptions to the general 

 rule. Else there would never be growing villages and prosperous 

 ■towns. Nay, it cannot be overlooked hj a careful observer^ that 

 the tendency "to settle" is slowly but gradually on the increase, 

 and that there is, in all the older portions of the country, growing 

 evidence that the Anglo-Saxon love of home is gradually developing 

 itself out of the Anglo-American love of change. 



It is not difficult to see how strongly horticulture contributes to 

 the development of local attachments.' In it lies the most powerftil 

 philtre that civilized man has yet found to charm him to one spot 

 of earth. It transforms what is only a tame meadow and a bleak 

 aspect, into an Eden of interest and delights. It makes all the 

 difference between "Araby the blest," and a pine barren. It gives 

 a bit of soil, too insignificant to find a place in the geography of the 

 earth's surface, such an importance in the eyes of its possessor, that 

 he finds it more attractive than countless acres of unktiown and un- 

 explored "territory." In other words, it contains the mind and soul 

 of the man, materialized in many of the fairest and richest forms of 

 nature, so that he looks upon it as tearing himself up, root and 

 branch, to ask him to move a mile to the right or the left. Do we 

 need to say more, to prove that it is the panacea that really "settles'' 

 mankind ? 



It is not, therefore, without much pleasurable emotion, that we 

 have had notice lately of the formation of five new Horticultural 

 societies, the last at St. Louis, and most of them west of the AUe- 

 ghanies. Whoever lives to see the end of the next cycle of our 

 race, will see the great valleys of the West the garden of the world ; 

 and we watch with interest the first development, in the midst of 

 the busy fermentation of its active masses, of that beautiful and quiet 

 spirit, of the joint culture of the earth and the heart, that is destined 

 to give a tone to the future character of its untold millions. 



The increased love of home and the garden, in thejalder States, 

 is a matter of every -day remark ; and it is not a little curious, that 

 just in proportion to the intelligence and settled character of its popu- 



