HORTICULTURE 



HORTICULTURE 



im 



other. Some of the hiter books have more nearly caught 

 the right point of view. 



The earliest separate grape book was published in 

 Washington in 18'J3, by the prophetic Adlum,"A Memoir 

 on the Cultivation of the Vine in America." This went 

 to a second edition in 1828 (see Adliim and Plate II). 

 Before this time (180G), S. W. Johnson had devoted 

 much space to the grape in his "Rural Economy," pub- 

 lished at New Brunswick, N. J., and he pnblislied tin- 

 first pictures of grape training (Fig. 1085), Adhim'^ 

 book was followed in 182(3 by the 

 "American Vine Dresser's Guide," 

 by the unprophetic Dufour. This 

 work also gave pictures of grape 

 training, one of which is reproduced 

 in Fig. 1086. The larger part of the 

 grape literature appeared before 

 the close of the Civil War, although 

 the lareer part of the development 

 of the subject has taken place since 

 that time. 



General RE^tAUKS on Frutt- 

 Growinu. — Horticulture, in its 

 commercial aspects, was nothing 

 more than an incidental feature of 

 farm management at the opening of 

 the century, lu fact, it is only in 

 the present generation that the tield 

 cultivation of horticultural crops 

 has come to assume any general im- 

 portance in tlie rural economy of 

 the nation. And even now, horti- 

 cultural operations which are pro- 

 jected as a fundamental conception 

 of laud occupation are confined to 

 few parts of the country. It is still 

 the original or first couce]>tion of 

 the farmer's boy, when he pro- 

 poses to occupy land of his own, 

 that he raise grain and hay and 

 stock, and add the fruits and other 

 horticultural crops by piecemeal. 

 It is only in particular parts of the 

 country that the farmer starts out 

 with Horticulture as a base, and 

 with grain and stock and hay as 

 accessories ; and even in these 

 places, the best horticulturists are 

 still drawing their practices and 

 the reasons for them from tin- 

 operations of general mixed agricul- 

 ture. There was practically only 

 one general horticultural commod- 

 ity, at least in the northern states. 

 a hundred years ago, and that was 

 the apple. Pears, peaches, cher- 

 ries, quinces and some other fruits 

 were common, but there was little 

 thought of marketing them. Even 

 the apple was generally an acci- 

 dental crop. Little care was given 

 the trees, and the varieties ^eri'. 

 few, and they were rarely selected 

 with reference to particular uses, beyond their adapta- 

 bility to cider and the home consumption. 



Thacher, writing from Plymouth in 1821, says that 

 "the most palpable neglect prevails in respect of proper 

 pruning, cleaning, and manuring round the roots of 

 trees, and of perpetuating choice fruits, by engrafting 

 from it on otlier stocks. Old orchards are, in general, 

 in a state of rapid decay; and it is not uncommon to see 

 valuable and thrifty trees exposed to the depredations 

 of cattle and sheep, and their foliage annoyed by cater- 

 pillars and other destructive insects. In fact, we know 

 of no branch of agriculture so unaccountably and so 

 culpably disregarded." Were it not for the date of 

 Thacher's writing, we should mistake this picture for 

 one drawn at the present day. 



If one may judge from the frequent and particular 

 references to cider in the old accounts, it does not seem 

 too much to say that this sprightly coinmodity was held 

 in greater estimation by our ancestors than by our- 

 selves. In fact, the cider barrel seems to have been the 



chief and proper end of the apple. Of his thirty chap- 

 ters on fruit-growing, (loxe (1817) devotes nine t<. 

 cider, or 42 pages out of 25;{. John Taylor's single epis- 

 tle devoted to horticultural matters in the sixty and 

 more letters of his "Arator" is upon "Orchards," but it 

 is mostly a vehement plea for more cider. "Good cider," 

 he says, "would be a national saving of wealth, by ex- 

 pelling foreign liquors; and of life, by expelling the 

 use of ardent spirits." In Virginia, in Taylor's day, ap- 

 ples were "the only species of orchards, at a distance 



1085. The earliest American picture of Grape training (1806). 



from cities, capable of producing sufficient profit and 

 comfort to become a considerable object to a farmer. 

 Distilling from fruit is precarious, troublesome, trifling 

 and out of his province. But the apple will furnish 

 some food for hogs, a luxury for his family in winter, 

 and a healthy liquor for himself and his laborers all the 

 year. Independent of any surplus of cider he may spare, 

 it is an object of solid profit and easy acquisition." As 

 early as 1647, twenty butts of cider were made in Vir- 

 ginia by one person, Richard Bennet. Paul Dudley 

 writes of a small tuwn near Boston, containing about 

 forty families, which ma<le nearly 3,000 barrels of cider 

 in the year 1721 ; and anotiier New England town of 200 

 families, which supplied itself with "near ten Thousand 

 Barrels." Bartram's Cider Mil], as it exists at the pres- 

 ent day, is shown in Fig. 1087. It was not until well 

 into the present century that people seem to have e^- 

 caped the European notion that fruit is to be drunk. 



There are evidences that there have been several 

 marked alternations of fervor and neglect in the plant- 



