INTEODUCTION. 13 



In the early periods of the history of our race, while 

 men were nomadic and wandered from place to place, 

 little attention was paid to any department of agricultural 

 improvement, and still less care was bestowed upon hor- 

 ticulture. Indeed, it can scarcely be supposed that, un- 

 der such conditions, either branch of the art could have 

 existed, any more than they are now found among the 

 wandering hordes of Tartars on the steppes of Asia. So 

 soon, however, as men began to take possession of the 

 soil by a more permanent tenure, agriculture and horticul- 

 ture also, attracted their chief attention, and were soon 

 developed into arts of life. With advancing civilization, 

 this has been successively more and more the case ; the 

 producing art being obliged to keep pace with the in- 

 creased number of consumers, greater ingenuity was re- 

 quired and was applied to the production of food for the 

 teeming millions of human beings that covered the earth, 

 and, as we find, in China, at the present time, the greatest 

 pains were taken to make the eartii yield her increase. 



High civilization demands high culture of the soil, and 

 agriculture becomes an honored pursuit, with every de- 

 partment of art and science coming to its assistance. At 

 the same time, and impelled by the same necessities, sup- 

 ported and aided by the same co-adjutors, horticulture 

 also advances in a similar ratio, and, from its very nature, 

 assumes the rank of a fine art, being less essential than 

 pure agriculture, and in some of its branches being rather 

 an ornamental than simply a useful art. It is not admit- 

 ted, however, that any department of horticulture is to be 

 considered useless, and many of its applications are emi- 

 nently practical, and result in the production of vast quan- 



