AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
ADAPTED TO THE 
ITaiTii, Garden, and H ouselio Id. 
AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL , THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN -WA8HINGT0H. 
©RANdE J IT I) 35, A. M., 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. 
ESTABLISHED IN 1842, 
$1.00 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
SINGLE NUMBERS lO CENTS. 
VOL. XIX.—No. 9. NEW- YORK, SEPTEMBER, 1860. [NEW series— No. i 64. 
ggpl'sl'ice at 189 Water-st., (Near Fulton-st.) 
tents, Terms, Ac .,011 yagfes 284-88. 
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1860, 
by Orange Judd, in the Clerk’s Office of the District 
Court of the United States for the Southern District of 
New-York. t^-N. US.—Every Journal is invited freely 
to copy any and all desirable articles, if each article or 
illustration copied be duly accredited to the American 
Agriculturist. dRANGE JUDD, Proprietor. 
American Agriculturist in (German. 
The AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST is published in 
both the English and German Languages. Both 
Editions are of the same size, and contain, as 
nearly as possible, the same Articles and Illustra¬ 
tions. The German Edition is furnished at the 
same rates as the English, singly or in clubs- 
“ Autumn paints 
Ansonian hills with grapes, whilst English plains 
Blush with pomaceous harvests, breathing sweets. 
0 let me now when the kind early dew 
Unlocks the embosomed odors, walk among 
The well ranged files of trees, whose full-aged stores 
Diffuse ambrosial steams, than myrrh or nard 
More grateful, or perfuming flowery bean ' 
Soft whispering airs, and the lark’s matin song 
Then woo to musing, and becalm the mind 
Perplexed with irksome thoughts. Thrice happy time, 
Best portion of the various year, in which 
Nature rejoiceth, smiling on her works, 
Lovely to full perfection wrought I”— Philips. 
The capacities of our soil and climate for fruit 
growing have been greatly under-estimated. They 
are by no means now fully tested, and our best 
pomologists hardly comprehend the whole truth 
in this regard. It is not until within the last 
twenty years that horticulture has received any 
scientific and systematic attention in this country. 
There were individual fruit growers, gentlemen 
of intelligence and wealth in our cities or their 
suburbs, who had the leisure to plant gardens 
and orchards, and to study the wants of trees and 
shrubs bearing fruit. But these pioneers labored 
under very great disadvantages from the fact 
that there were ho horticultural publications and 
no associated effort to promote the science and 
practice of horticulture. The extent to which 
new fruits may be originated by hybridizing and 
by planting seeds, was not well understood. Only 
a very few were enabled to avail themselves of 
the labors of European pomologists, and the in¬ 
troduction of a new ornamental tree or shrub, or 
a new fruit, was of rare occurrence. There were 
very few intelligent nurserymen, and if a new 
fruit was procured from abroad, or originated at 
home, it was a very long while before it became 
generally known. Every one pursued his inves¬ 
tigations almost wholly alone, and the knowledge 
he attained, often perished with him, or was con¬ 
fined to his immediate neighborhood. 
The disabilities under which fruit growers la¬ 
bored, are sufficiently shown by the fact, that 
the Pinneo pear, one of the finest fruits of its sea¬ 
son, was grown in eastern Connecticut fora cen¬ 
tury before it was brought out by an Eastern nur¬ 
seryman, and baptized with a new name, when it 
received a premium from the Mass. Horticul¬ 
tural Society as a new seedling ! Even now, with 
all the researches of Pomologists and the multipli¬ 
cation of societies extending over twenty years, 
we are continually finding fruits of great merit, 
little know’n except in the limited districts where 
they originated. Go into almost any of the towns 
in New-England, and you shall find good seedling 
apples that have been known in the vicinity for 
several generations, and yet are not found in the 
books. If an apple like the Baldwin, the Roxbury 
llusset, or the Rhode Island Greening happened 
to spring up on the farm of a gentleman inter¬ 
ested in fruit growing, it was disseminated. If it 
originated upon the farm of a man whose ambi¬ 
tion ran solely to corn, oats, potatoes, and grass, 
it would never be multiplied, even upon his own 
farm. We find farmers by the hundred, even in 
New England, who never attempted to graft or 
bud any kind of fruit. If they have any fruit upon 
their farms, it is on chance trees that have sprung 
up by the walls or in the edges of woods and 
bush pastures, and have escaped the innumerable 
croppings of animals. There are many more 
whose only fruit trees are the recently planted 
products of the nursery. 
It is even more recently that the vine has re¬ 
ceived any attention. People are still found by 
the thousand who have never tasted any thing 
better than a wild grape, and whose ideal of a 
good grape is an article of strong foxy odor, of 
the size of bullets, pulp tough as rubber and half 
seeds at that, with six berries to the bunch. 
They honestly believe that these are better than 
the cultivated varieties, and adorn their walls 
with wild seedlings from the swamp. In no de¬ 
partment of pomology have we made more satis¬ 
factory progress than in grape growing during the 
last ten years. A dozen or more new varieties 
of great promise have been introduced, and some 
of them quite generally distributed. Where the 
ideal of high culture has been to plant a vine in 
common garden soil and let it take care of itself, 
thet;e have of course been failures, and a very 
poor opinion formed of the capacities of our soil 
and climate for vineyards. But where a suitable 
border has been prepared, well drained, and made 
rich in bones and compost, and the vines laid 
down in Winter and well trained in Summer, the 
most satisfactory results have been obtained. In 
the back yards of city and village dwellings, where 
the vine has the advantage of protection from 
winds and frost and an abundant supply of soap 
suds, the Isabella and Catawba, though later 
than the newer varieties, have generally done 
well. 
The proper training of the vine and the making 
and treatment of the border, are not yet perfectly 
understood. The methods of our most success¬ 
ful amateurs, if published, are not distributed very 
widely among the people, and are probably thought 
to be too laborious and expensive to be generally 
adopted. But the results reached at Croton 
Point, at Iona Island, and other places where the 
trial has been thorough, fully justify the opinion 
that good table and wine grapes may be grown 
economically in all parts of the country south of 
Albany, and perhaps still further north, in favored 
localities. 
Every Autumn, with its multitude of fairs in al¬ 
most every county and city, brings very satisfac¬ 
tory evidence of the healthful progress of horti¬ 
culture. Fruits rare ten years ago are now wide¬ 
ly distributed, and make their appearance upon 
the Fair tables from Maine to Georgia. While 
the varieties that flourish equally well in all parts 
of the country are exceedingly limited, every 
section has its native fruits that leave little to be 
desired. Even the South, which entered laler 
than the North upon horticultural improvement, 
has a large list of native apples of surpassing ex¬ 
cellence. The display of fruits from North Car¬ 
olina at the meeting of the American Pomologi- 
cal Society in this city two years since, was a 
marked feature in the exhibition. The great West 
teems with its new apples, pears, grapes, plums, 
and cherries, and the vineyards along the Ohio 
are every year spreading over a larger territory. 
On the whole, as we look forward to the bien¬ 
nial session of our National Pomological Society 
the present month, we improve the occasion to 
congratulate our readers upon the healthful pro¬ 
gress of fruit culture in all parts of the land. 
Good fruit adapted to his soil and climate, is now 
within reach of every intelligent land holder in 
the country. At a trifling expense he can learn 
the best varieties for his location, and how to 
plant and tend them so as to make success cer 
tain. Almost a complete treatise upon fruit 
culture could be made from any one of our own 
annual volumes. They gather up the ripe expe¬ 
rience of amateurs, and convey information only 
learned by years of trial and multiplied lossqSj 
