290 THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST. [No. W 



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*-Ntime devise, we may well imagine that many disappointments were pa) 

 experienced, and that the progress in this branch of science was slow ^> 

 and uncertain. By constant attention and perseverance, however, ef- \ 

 fects were traced to causes, and in the gradual development of human 

 intelligence, laws were observed and defined which it was proved re- 

 gulated plants in their development 5 and from age to age, as other 

 branches of natural science progressed. Horticulture also advanced, — 

 The advantages which accrued from the facilities it afforded for the ex- 

 amination of the component parts of plants were most important, as 

 the vegetable kingdom contains so many essentials in human economy 

 that their character and composition was a most useful subject to en- 

 gage the attention of the student of nature. If we consult one of the 

 treatises on plants, published before Botany, as a science, began much 

 to be studied, we will find the most detailed accounts of the virtues of 

 such plants as came under the notice of the herbalist, there is not a 

 single individual but has had attached to it a long line of vertues al- 

 most entirely lost sight of at the present day, or cast in the shade by 

 some more powerful extract of a native of the tropics. The fact is 

 clearly perceptible, that tropical plants, in a living state, were little 

 known in English gardens in the days of Turner, who flourished in 

 the middle of the Sixteenth Century. As the science of Horticulture 

 is so closely connected with that of Botany, we may expect to trace 

 their cotemporary progress; and when we consider what even a cen- 

 tury has effected in making us familiar with tropical forms of vegeta- 

 tion, when we are now quite familiar with plants which a century ago 

 were known only by what were deemed fabulous accounts — when the 

 living plant from the most remote and inaccessible tropical forest can 

 now be inspected in our conservatories, we must admit that at least 

 something has been done. We cannot pretend to form an opinion as 

 to what may be achieved in the next century 5 but if we calculate by 

 comparison with the past, we must expect great things. The immense 

 structures of iron and glass which are now erected with no more dif- 

 ficulty than was some years ago experienced in constructing an ordi- 

 nary conservatory, afford us reason to hope for great things in plant 

 cultivation. Methods of heating such structures have also reached a 

 point of comparative perfection, and from what we have seen of plant 

 culture even in our own vicinity during the past season, we are led to 

 conclude that more difficulties will be attempted and overcome, Ma- 

 ny points m horticulture which were but a few years ago estimated 

 as difficulties, are now no longer considered so ; and many which now 

 occupy the same position in the minds of the majority of cultivators, 

 will ere long be classed amongst the common routine of operations. 

 In attaining these results, there is much perseverance and energy re- 



2 quired 3, and those who hope to share in the benefits and improvements 



39V . 



