National and Educational Interests. 



The year has been an eventful one in general discussions of 

 horticultural interest. Perhaps the most general attention has 

 been attracted to the preparations for an horticultural exhibit 

 at the Columbian Exposition, particularlyto the proposed sched- 

 ules or classifications of horticultural industries. 1 This discus- 

 sion of schedules has been of the greatest importance, since it 

 has necessarily resolved itself into a debate as to what horticul- 

 ture really is. The discussion has revealed the fact that there 

 still exist the vaguest notions as to the legitimate province of the 

 subject. Etymologically, horticulture means the cultivation 

 of a garden (hortus, garden, cultura, cultivation); and as all in- 

 telligent cultivation rests upon many scientific principles, 

 both the art and science of garden cultivation should be in- What is 

 eluded in the definition. The scope of the definition turns ture? 

 upon the meaning of the word garden. This word comes di- f 

 rectly from the Anglo-Saxon gyrdan, to enclose, and is allied 

 to the verb to gird ; and indirectly it is allied to the Latin 

 hortus, which originally related to an enclosure. Garden-cul- 

 ture or horticulture has always been used in distinction to the 

 cultivation of extensive tracts, many of which, in former 

 times, were not enclosed, or were indefinite in outline or ex- 

 tent. The enclosed area may have been many acres in ex- 

 tent, and yet have been called a hortus or a garden. The 

 Latins sometimes used the word hortus for a villa or a coun- 

 try-seat;* and in England, to-day, the word garden has a wide 

 application, being applied to large lawns and pleasure- 

 grounds, as well as to small enclosures, and in this sense the 



*The following note upon the original use of hortus is given me by my colleague, Pro- 

 fessor W. G. Hale : "I find that hortus is nowhere used iu classical Latin in the sense of 

 villa. But Cicero, Varro and Festus mention that among the (to them) ancients it had that 

 sense. In the fragments of the Laws of the Twelve Tables (450 B. C.) it is so used. Latin 

 literature proper, however, does not begin till two centuries later, and in this literature, 

 hortus means only a small cultivated garden." 



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