HORTICULTURAL REPOSITORY. 



261 



brought their enterprizing cultivators many thousands 

 of dollars. They are sold in our markets at an aver- 

 age price of from two to four dollars per bushel. 



It may be entertaining to the inhabitants of this 

 country, to know that the average price of the best 

 peaches in Covent Garden market, London, in the 

 month of August, is twelve shillings sterling per do- 

 zen, which is equal to two dollars and sixty-six cents. 

 Allowing each peach to fill the measure of half a pint, 

 a bushel would contain 12S, which at one shilling 

 sterling each, amounts to the sum of near twenty- 

 eight and a half dollars. During the three following 

 months their price is two thirds less. But in July it 

 is double, and upon a very moderate calculation, we 

 may conclude that the price of the best peaches in 

 London is from three to four times higher than the 

 best in this country ; and when we take into consid- 

 eration the superior flavour which the cheering rays 

 of our summer sun imparts to this delicious fruit by 

 ripening it to great perfection on standard trees ex- 

 posed to the free open air of the most congenial 

 clime, we think we may well employ our public pen 

 to elucidate the true value of those natural advantages 

 which a kind Providence has so liberally granted 

 us. 



Our Pears, our Cherries, our Plums, and a great 

 variety of small fruits, are generally excellent and 

 abundant, and sold at as proportionally low prices as 

 our apples. They are cultivated extensively with 

 little trouble, and brought to our markets from all 

 quarters, where they generally meet a ready sale, and 

 although sold at low prices, they well repay the in- 

 dustry of their cultivators. 



There are several other kinds of fruit whose value 

 entitles them to be particularly mentioned in this 

 sketch, but we shall at present only notice the me- 

 lon (Cucumis melo of Botanists.) This fruit is rank- 

 ed by Loudon in his Encyclopedia of Gardening, 

 page 747, paragraph 4723, as one of the three first 

 fruits in the world, and in his judgment so far we free- 

 ly coincide, and are proud to contemplate that con- 

 geniality of American climate by which this interest- 

 ing plant extends her fruitful vines over every field 

 where faithful man bestows the care of simplest cul- 

 ture. The quantities of this most delicious vegeta- 

 ble production the earth ever bore, and with which 

 our markets are supplied in the months of August and 

 September, is astonishing, and the ease with which it 

 is cultivated, enables its growers to sell the fruit at 

 an average price of twelve and a half cents a piece, 

 and I have myself sold many a cart load of Murray's 

 pine apple and other first rate sorts of melons at six 

 ■cents each. The average price of a single melon 

 in Covent Garden market in the month of August, i9 

 rive shillings sterling. In the two following months 

 ''hey sell for three shillings each, but in July they 



bring from five to fifteen shillings. At a moderate 

 calculation, six times higher than with us, although 

 in point of flavour far inferior to ours. This I have 

 frequently heard acknowledged by gentlemen of this 

 city, who have had the opportunity of testing the qua- 

 lities of those of both countries, and which the obser- 

 vation of every sagacious hortuculturist of experience 

 might enable him to account for, from the circum- 

 stance of those of this country being grown and 

 brought to maturity in the open air, whereas those in 

 England have to be grown and generally matured by 

 the aid of glass, even during the warmest periods of 

 their short lived summers. In some of Loudon's 

 works I lately saw an account of some melons which 

 were ripened in a more exposed position than usual, 

 and which was said to have resulted in the improve- 

 ment of their flavour. The sentiments too, of Mr. 

 Knight seem to be in accordance with the idea of 

 fruits being improved by an increase of its exposure 

 to the open air. In Loudon's Encyclopedia, page 

 715, paragraph 4497, is the following : " Final plan- 

 ting — The peachis almost universally planted against 

 walls in Britain ; in some few warm situations thev 

 have been tried as dwarf standards — antf Knight, 

 'lort. Trans, vol. ii. p. 219,) "thinks they may be 

 grown in some cases as low as espalleirs covering 

 with mats in spring to protect the blossom. In eve- 

 ry warm season there can be no doubt the fruit of the 

 hardier sorts so grown, would be higher colored and 

 of superior flavour." 



Very little attention has as yet been paid to the cul- 

 tivation of the grape vine for the supply of our mar- 

 kets, although very fine samples of various kinds cul- 

 tivated in Europe, are produced in many places, and 

 the universal distribution of our native sorts all over 

 the country, exhibit the clearest evidences of the 

 practicability of the United States being made the 

 most abundant wine country in the world. 



ART. 1G.2. — Landscape Gardening Answers 



by VVm. Wilson to the Queries put to him by 



"Anti Indigenous Conceit." 



Query 1st. " What are the European limited rules 

 alluded to ; and in whose writings are they to be 

 found?" 



Answer. — They are those that are generally (but 

 not always) bounded by the limits of an individual 

 gentleman's country residence, unconnected by any 

 intermediate continuation to that of any other, and 

 are to be found in the writings of Loudon, in his En- 

 cyclopedia of Gardening, at page 1006, as follows ; 

 " When artificial scenes join other artificial scenes, 

 nothing can be easier than by the reciprocal continua- 

 tion of avenues, strips or masses, so far to unite the 

 two seats as to conceal the boundaries of each while 



