218 
HORTICULTURAL DEPARTMENT, 
^ortirultural JD-epartment. 
BY L. F. ALLEN. 
PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 
Every man who lives in the country, wheth¬ 
er a farmer, a professional man, or an occa¬ 
sional resident for the summer months, should 
be more or less of a horticulturist. To the 
farmer, horticulture is the fine art of his vo¬ 
cation, besides being, if properly managed, the 
most profitable branch of his cultivation; and be¬ 
yond all these, there is no part of his estate, and 
no portion of his time that yields so much lux¬ 
ury to his table, and so much enjoyment to his 
family and friends, as the bounties gathered 
from the fruit, the vegetable and the flower 
garden. A well-studied economy directs him 
to have a large and well-supplied kitchen gar¬ 
den. Household comforts, and the well-timed and 
healthful luxury of good fruits, in which he may 
most properly indulge, stimulate his pomologi- 
cal efforts; while the innocent pleasures and 
contemplations to be gathered from the care and 
admiration of those beautiful “ day stars,” and 
“ floral apostles ” of Horace Smith, which adorn 
his flower garden, will add a grace and charm 
to his female household, which all other produc¬ 
tions of his farm, without them, would not yield. 
The professional man, if he be a man of busi¬ 
ness in his line, requires hours of relaxation 
from the oftimes severe labors in which he is 
engaged. What recreation so delightful, so 
peaceful, so perfectly restoring to the overwork¬ 
ed energies of the mind and body, as the garden 
or the orchard ? Lord Bacon, the most profound 
moral philosopher of his age; John Milton, 
whose name is to perish only with his language; 
Sir William Temple, the most accomplished 
diplomatist of England’s most difficult period, 
all sought their purest relaxations among their 
fruit trees, and amid flower borders. These 
names are but illustrious selections from the 
long catalogue of great and good men, to say 
nothing of the Hannah Moores, the Jane Porters, 
and others equally celebrated among the gentler 
sex, who have sought their choicest pleas¬ 
ures in the garden which their own hands care¬ 
fully tended. Such names show conclusively 
that horticultural pursuits—and they are but 
corroborations of the sentiment of still earlier 
and equally illustrious examples—are among the 
most excellent and refined that can be sought 
for our recreation, as well as for our employ¬ 
ment. 
It is a gratifying incident that among the 
wonderful physical progress—the moral pro¬ 
gress we lay aside for the present—which the 
civilised world has for the past forty years 
achieved, that, prominent among other labors, 
horticulture has received its due share of atten¬ 
tion. The intelligent and well-directed labors 
of scientific men have introduced many choice 
varieties, both of fruits and flowers, into notice, 
within the present century, and improved meth¬ 
ods of propagation and treatment have develop¬ 
ed qualities and features in both, to which our 
fathers were strangers. Obedient, also, to the 
grand organic law of man’s fallen state, that 
“ by the sweat of his brow” he shall eat his bread, 
with our progress in developing the choicer 
fruits, have the encroachments of their enemies, 
disease, and blight, and insects followed in their 
train, taxing our ingenuity and patience in an 
equal degree, that their production and proper 
cultivation have done. These last, equally with 
the production of the fruits themselves, demand 
the attention of cultivators; and as we have 
given so prominent a position to this branch of 
American agriculture, we shall devote several 
pages of our periodical hereafter, to the pomo- 
logical and horticultural department, and by 
thus doing, make our pages more interesting if 
possible, to our suburban friends of the cities 
and large towns of the country. 
BARKBOUND TREES. 
Some over-wise people have an idea that when 
a tree gets mossy and barkbound—the latter 
but another term for the want of growth, and 
weakness, consequent upon neglected cultiva¬ 
tion—it is only necessary to slit the bark up 
and down the stem with a jacknife, and it will 
at once spread out and grow. This is sheer 
nonsense. Dig about and cultivate the roots, 
and the bark will take care of itself, with a 
scraping off of the moss, and a washing of the 
stem with ley or soap suds, or chamber slops, 
which last is quite as good. The increased 
flow of the sap, induced by a liberal feeding of 
the roots, will do its own bursting of the “ hide¬ 
bound ’■’ bark, which is simply its enfeebled con¬ 
dition as a consequence of its poverty of root. 
No one thinks of turning out a bony, half-starved 
calf in the spring, into the clover field with the 
skin on its sides all split through with a knife 
in order to add to its growth. And this last 
proposition is quite as sensible and philosophi¬ 
cal as the other. Nature takes care of itself in 
these particulars. Sap in plenty is what the 
blood is to animals. Its vigorous flow reaches 
every part of its composition, and gives to each 
its proper play and function. We can show 
