74 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
long leases would be in all respects as much for the interest of the pro- 
pi ietor as of the farmer. 
As the estate which I own is very extensive. I have not hesitated to set 
apart from my regular rotation of crops, about two hundred and fifty acres 
of land of middling quality, which had every year been manured equally 
with my best lands, but which had yielded but poor returns. This great 
extent of land is now laid down to grass, and serves as a pasture for my 
cows, oxen, and sheep; each year I break up one-fifth part of it, and sow 
it with oats, rye, or barley, and ‘he following year, re-establish it as a 
grass land. I am convinced that this land would never have repaid me for 
the expense attendant upon raising from it successive crops of grain, roots, 
and legumes. 
OUTLINE OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF HORTICULTURE. 
BY JOHN EINDLEY, F. R. S., &C. 
Preface. 
It has long been thought bv intelligent men that it would tend essen¬ 
tially to the advancement of horticulture, if the physiological principles 
upon which its operations depend for their success, were reduced to a se¬ 
ries of simple laws that could be readily borne in mind by those who might 
not be willing to occupy themselves with the study, in detail, of the com¬ 
plicated phenomena of vegetable life. 
The importance of these laws is so great, that there is not a single prac¬ 
tice of the gardener, the farmer, or the forrester, the reason of which, if it 
relates to the vegetable kingdom, can be understood without a knowledge 
of them. 
It has happened, indeed, that many very interesting facts in horticul¬ 
ture, agriculture, and arboriculture, have been discovered fortuitously; 
and that improvements in them still continue to be occasionally the result 
of accident; but it cannot be doubted that these discoveries or improve¬ 
ments would have been long anticipated, had the exact nature of the laws 
from which they necessarily result, been earlier understood. 
There can, moreover, be but little mental interest in watching the suc¬ 
cess of operations of which the reasons are unknown, compared with that 
which must be felt when all the phenomena attendant upon practice can 
be foreseen, their results anticipated, or the causes of failure exactly ap¬ 
preciated. 
It must also be manifest, that however skilful any person may become 
by mere force of habit, and by following certain prescribed rules which 
experience has, or seems to have, sanctioned; yet that much more success 
might be expected, if he acted upon certain fixed principles, the truth of 
which has been well ascertained, instead of following empirical prescrip¬ 
tions, the reason of which he cannot understand. 
It is not, however, to be understood from this last observation, that rules 
of cultivation are to be neglected because they cannot be physiologically 
explained. On the contrary, the mere fact of a given mode of culture 
having been followed for a length of time by persons deeply interested in the 
success of their operations, and of much experience, ought to give it very 
great authority; for it is well known that there are many important facts, 
the reason of which is either extremely obscure, or altogether unintelligi¬ 
ble. This may be owing either to the defective state of our knowledge 
of the exact nature of many of the phenomena of life, or to the great dif¬ 
ficulty of appreciating every circumstance connected with the fact in 
question, or to constitutional peculiarities in particular species, which, like 
animal idiosyncrasy, form exceptions to the ordinary laws of nature and 
baffle all philosophy. 
It is in the writings of vegetable physiologists that is to be found what 
is known of the relation of botany to the cultivation of plants; but it is al¬ 
ways so mixed up with other matter, that an ordinary reader is unable to 
tell what bears upon horticulture, and what upon other subjects. 
I am not aware that there is at present, in any language, a work exclu¬ 
sively designed to separate that part of vegetable physiology, which relates 
to the science of cultivation, from what appertains to pure botany, or to 
other subjects; nor can I learn that such an undertaking is in contempla¬ 
tion. 
I am, therefore, induced to lay the following little work before the pub¬ 
lic; first, by a persuasion that it is better that the attempt should be made 
imperfectly, than not made at all; and, secondly, by the very favorable 
reception that has been given to a few hasty ideas upon this subject which 
I ventured to sketch out for a work* published some months ago. 
The following propositions are prepared upon the same plan as those of 
an elementary work upon Botany,f originally drawn up for the use of the 
Botanical class in the University of London. 
A similar object has here also been kept in view. My intention has not 
been to write a work on the philosophy of horticulture; but simply to 
point out in the briefest manner consistent with clearness, what the fun¬ 
damental principles of that philosophy have been ascertained to be. 
The application of these principles has been necessarily, in all cases, 
* Guide to the Orchard and Kitchen Garden, by George I.indley, C. M. H. 
8. 8vo. 1831. 
t Outline of the ?irst Principles of Botany 18mo. 2d Edition. London, 
1831. 
very concise; but there will be no disadvantage if the work acts as an ex¬ 
ercise of the reasoning powers, as well as a guide to practice. 
It may, perhaps, be thought that several points have been omitted, 
which it would have been desiiabie to introduce, such as the influence 
upon vegetation of electricity, manures, pruning, training, and the various 
modes of grafting. 
But it is possible that a little consideration may show that these sub¬ 
jects do not strictly come within the scope of the following pages. 
In the first place, a distinction must be drawn between the A t and the 
Science of horticulture; the former teaches the manner, the latter the 
reasons of cultivation; and it is to the latter only that these propositions 
apply. Secondly, the plan of this sketch excludes every thing that is 
merely speculative, or that is incapable of being reduced within certain 
fixed principles. 
Electricity is a power of which we know almost nothing certain with 
reference to vegetation; if many things have been written about it, it must 
be admitted, at least, that very little has been proved. 
The same may be said of manures: the theory of theiraction is explain¬ 
ed at paragraphs 19, 262, and 266. 
Pruning and training are a part of the Art of cultivation, dependent up¬ 
on a great variety of physiological laws, the brief explanation of which is 
the object of this work. A tew hints upon the subject will, however, be 
found in chapters III. IV. VI. and VIII. 
The various modes of grafting are also a part of the art of horticulture ; 
and are deduced from laws explained in the XIVth chapter. 
To conclude; the reader should above all things bear in mind that ho 
ought not to form his opinion upon any point from the mere consideration 
of one or two isolated propositions, but of the whole of the phenomena 
which it i3 the object of the following pages to explain. For he will find 
that the vital actions of plants are so dependent upon each other, and of so 
complicated a nature, that, while the whole can be only understood by a 
study of the parts, neither can any of the parts be exactly understood, 
without a knowledge of the whole. 
I. GKNF.RAL NATURE OF PLANTS. 
1. Horticulture is the application of the arts of cultivation, multiplica¬ 
tion, and domestication to the vegetable kingdom. Agriculture and Arbo¬ 
riculture are branches of Horticulture. 
2. The vegetable kingdom is composed of living beings, destitute of 
sensation, with no powerof moving spontaneously from place to place, and 
called plants. 
3. Plants are organized bodies, consisting of masses of tissue that is per¬ 
meable by fluids or gaseous matter. 
4. Vegetable tissue consists either of minute bladders, or tubes adher¬ 
ing by their cont guous surfaces, and leaving intermediate passages where 
they do not touch. 
5. Tissue is called cellular when it is composed of minute bladders, 
which either approach the figure of a sphere, or are obviously some modi¬ 
fication of it, supposed to be caused by extension or lateral compression. 
6. When newly formed it is in a very lax state, and possesses great 
powers of absorption; probably in consequence of the excessive permea¬ 
bility of its membrane and the imperfect cohesion of its cells. 
7. Cellular tissue, otherwise called parenchyma, constitutes the soft and 
brittle parts of plants; such as pith, pulp, the spaces between the veins of 
leaves, the principal part of the petals; and the like. 
8. Succulent plants are such as hare an excessive development of cel¬ 
lular tissue. 
9. It may be considered the most essential kind of tissue, because, while 
no plants exist without it, many are composed of nothing else. 
10. Tissue is called waoily fibre when it is composed of slender tubes, 
which are conical and closed at each end, and placed side by side. 
11. Woody fibre is what causes stiffness and tenacity in certain parts of 
plants; hence it is found in the veins of leaves, and in bark, and it consti¬ 
tutes the principal part of the wood. 
12. Vascular tissue is that in which either an elastic tough thread is 
generated spirally within a tube that is closed and conical at each end; or 
ro vs of cylindrical cellules, placed end to end, finally become continuous 
tubes by the loss of their ends. 
13. The most remarkable form of vascular tissue is the spiral vessel, 
which has the power of unrolling with elasticity when stretched 
14. Other kinds of vascular tissue are incapable of umolling, but break 
when stretched 
15. Spiral vessels are not found in the wood or bark, and rarely in the 
roots of plants. 
16. Vascular tissue of other kinds is confined to the root, stem, veins of 
leaves, petals, and other parts composed of leaves. It is not found in 
bark. 
17. The common office of the tissue is to convey fluid or air, and to act 
as the receptacle of secretions. 
18. Cellular tissue conveys fluids in all tiirections, absorbs with great 
rapidity, is the first cause of the adhesions that take place between con¬ 
tiguous parts, and is the principal receptable of secreted matter. 
19. Adhesion will take place at all times during the growing season, 
when ths cellular tissue of two different parts, or of two different plants. 
