THE CULTIVATOR. 
115 
ADDRESS, 
Delivered before the Horticultural Association of the 
Valley of the Hudson, at Niblo's Garden, in the City 
of New-York, September \"Sth, 1839, by William Em- 
erson, Esq. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen —Did I regard only my 
own want of acquaintance with the subject which has 
united you together, I should have declined the honor of 
addressing you this evening; but having twice been called 
upon by you to perform this duty, on the second call I 
could not hesitate to forget all personal considerations, and 
to cast myself upon your indulgence, while I offer you 
some remarks on Horticulture, the object of our common 
regard. 
Horticulture, or the business of gardening, is no trivial 
or visionary pursuit, but one which commends itself to the 
calm and respectful attention of every intelligent man. 
As an art, it is coextensive and coeval with human civili¬ 
zation. So long as men roam at large, pitching their t e nts 
now here, now there, as some green spot may invite their 
stay, they are mere barbarians; but when the rude Arab 
or fierce Tartar first plants a palm, or scatters a few grains 
of wheat, and is content to abide in the chosen spot till 
his family gather the dates, and grind the corn, then has 
the civilization of his tribe begun. In the beautiful pic¬ 
ture which the pencil of the sacred historian has drawn, 
of the earliest scene in the education which Providence 
vouchsafed to man, the human pair are represented in a 
garden, filled with rich and tempting fruit, and watered 
by pleasant streams; and when they transgressed the com¬ 
mand that was laid upon them, the severest part of their 
punishment was, that they were banished from Eden, ex¬ 
pressed with how much force and beauty by the English 
poet, in words uttered by the mouth of Eve: 
“ 0, unexpected stroke! worse than of death, 
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise ? thus leave 
Thee, native soil; these happy walks and shades, 
Fit haunt of gods ! Where I had hoped to spend, 
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day 
That must be mortal to us both! O, flowers, 
That never will in other climate grow, 
My early visitation, and my last 
At even, which I bred up with tender hand 
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names, 
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank 
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount? 
How shall we breathe in other air, 
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits!” 
I direct your attention to this ancient picture of the 
delights and loveliness of Paradise, so splendidly re¬ 
touched and adorned by the genius of Milton, only as 
furnishing a striking illustration of the strong natural 
bias .there is in mankind, toward horticulture; I say, 
in mankind, for it is not in one or a few nations only, 
that this inclination is observable; the earliest fables in 
all literature, are full of gay and gorgeous stories of plea¬ 
sant gardens. The Greeks told of the garden of the Hes- 
perides; these were young virgins, living on a distant 
island of the western ocean, guarding trees loaded with 
golden apples, and so valuable was this precious fruit, that 
the damsels were aided in their charge by a hundred head¬ 
ed dragon. It was one of the labors of the mighty Her¬ 
cules to bring away this costly fruit; he killed the dragon, 
and the fair gardeners fled, on which the hero seized the 
apples, and brought them to his task-master. Other sto¬ 
ries record, that these tempting apples were presented by 
the Earth to Juno, the mother of the gods, on her nup¬ 
tials with Jupiter, aud afterwards adorned her gardens. 
Another story tells that three of these very apples were 
dropped by Hippomenes, on finding that the beautiful and 
fleet-footed Atalanta was gaining on him in the race, and 
while the fair one stooped to secure the tempting fruit, 
Hippomenes reached the goal. 
Ancient historians dwell with enthusiasm on the marvels 
of the hanging gardens of Babylon, which are said to have 
been massive piles of architecture, adorned with the rarest 
and most beautiful plants, and which presented to the eye 
of a distant observer, the appearance of lofty pyramids of 
trees. They were counted among the wonders of the world. 
The Romans, when they became the masters of the 
world, indulged their taste in the most beautiful and sump¬ 
tuous gardens, where nature and art vied with each other 
in delighting the beholder. 
In those fanciful narratives, the Arabian Nights’ En¬ 
tertainments, we have the most lively descriptions of gar¬ 
dens filled with trees, whose branches were loaded, not 
with common apples and figs, but with precious stones, of 
the size of the finest fruits, glittering with all the hues of 
the rainbow. Besides the fables of these costly fruits, 
which even the most craving would not wish to grow on 
every tree, other stories occur, of all that is attractive and 
pleasing in a well planned garden, in those soft climates 
where the orange, the myrtle, and the olive abound. In¬ 
deed all poetry and all literature are full of the beauties 
and delights of the garden. Boccacio, Chaucer, Ariosto, 
Tasso and Milton, no less than Horner and Virgil, dilate 
in eloquent prose or verse, on the charms of the garden, 
and confirm the truth of the remark, that a taste for hor¬ 
ticulture, is universal among civilized men. For the great¬ 
est poets and philosophers are but voices which utter the 
common sentiments of mankind; and when the ancient 
poets describe the calm enjoyments of departed spirits in the 
fields and groves of Elysium; or when Mahomet tells 
of the pleasures in store for the faithful among the cool 
shades and sparkling fountains of Paradise, what do they 
but speak to the universal taste? And why is the love of 
a garden common to all men ? Because, first, gardening 
is a useful pursuit; it ministers to the daily necessities of 
life; it supplies, and that bountifully, those comforts and 
luxuries which the savage does without, but which are now 
commonly enjoyed by every civilized nation. It gathers 
from every clime whatever vegetable substance is or may 
by cultivation become nutritious or palatable to man or 
beast; it acclimates them in almost every region, from 
Petersburgh to the Cape of Good Hope, and so supplies 
wholesome food, suited, each in its kind, to old and young, 
to the hearty and the delicate, the well and the sick, and 
to each domestic animal that depends on man for nourish¬ 
ment. For these ends, the apple and the pear, the cur¬ 
rant and the gooseberry, have been brought out from the 
European forests, and softened and multiplied, and varied 
into the thousand different species we possess; the Ro¬ 
man generals arc believed, in their triumphal march from 
conquered Asia, to have introduced the cherry from Pon- 
tus; the plum from Syria; the peach and the grape from 
Persia; the quince came from the woody island of Crete; 
and melons are supposed to have come originally from 
eastern Asia. Of the vegetables which require some pre¬ 
paration before they are fit for food, the pea is thought to 
be a native of southern Europe, and the bean of Egypt; 
the turnep and the cabbage tribes are supposed to have 
originated in northern Europe; the carrot and parsnip 
are indigenous in Great Britain, while the beet was first 
found on the shores of the Mediterranean; asparagus 
is a native of the damp soil of northern Poland and 
Russia ; the onion is commonly supposed to be the 
growth of Spain; squashes and pumpkins, or (as Eng¬ 
lish writers generally class them,) gourds and pompi- 
ons, and cucumbers also, were brought from the far east; 
Africa has furnished us with the egg-plant; and our own 
continent claims two vegetables among those in daily use, 
which will probably yield to no other two in value, the 
potato and the tomato. 
From these few articles which have been mentioned, out 
of the long list of garden productions, it may be seen how 
untiring have been the perseverance and the research de¬ 
voted to find out, and to appropriate, whatever in the bo¬ 
tanical kingdom could be made subservient to animal life. 
This is the gardener’s peculiar province, and as it is his 
object to increase the number, variety and excellence of 
edible plants, and so to promote the health and lengthen 
the life of man, and of his brute servants, his occupation 
may rightly claim to be classed among the most useful of 
human pursuits. 
Another cause of the universal love of gardens is, that 
horticulture is an innocent and rational pursuit. In some 
of the occupations that men engage in, how many bad 
passions break forth ! How much strife and selfish ambi¬ 
tion are continually exhibited! The occupations of the 
garden, on the other hand, are peculiarly quiet and peace¬ 
ful. I do not mean to say that those who devote them¬ 
selves to horticulture, are exempt from human faults and 
passions. What I would say is, that this pursuit is one 
eminently gentle in its character, and is usually observed 
to have an ameliorating effect on those who follow it. 
They are aloof from the rancor of party politics, the bit¬ 
terness of sectarians in theology or human science; from 
-“ the vain low strife 
That makes men mad; the tug for wealth and power; 
The passions and the cares that wither life, 
And waste its little hour.” 
If they have any war of extermination to wage, it is not 
against their fellow men, but against some pestilent insect 
tribe; and the timely use of preventive means, will gene¬ 
rally obviate a cruel destruction even of insect life. For 
the most part, he who occupies himself with horticulture, 
pursues, in quiet industry, the even tenor of an innocent 
and happy course, engaged in adding to the sum of the 
world’s comforts and luxuries, while at the same time, all 
the genial influences of nature are dispensed upon him. 
The dome of the heavens is above him, and around are 
the woods and fields and waters, breathing their gentle 
fragrance upon him, and wafting the sweet music of sing¬ 
ing birds into his senses. The work before him is suited 
to every capacity. To one who is contented to go on in 
the old paths, the daily care of the common fruits and 
flowers, is a pleasing and sufficient employment, while 
the most capacious memory may task itself without ex¬ 
hausting the stores of botanical and physiological science; 
and the utmost stretch of the inventive faculty may be 
usefully employed in discovering the habits of plants, the 
qualities of soils, the adaptation of each to the other, and 
the operation of the countless causes of fertility and bar¬ 
renness, on the vegetable kingdom. Nay, by the process 
of hybridising, the horticulturist seems more nearly to ap¬ 
proach to an exertion of creative power, than man achieves 
by any other employment of physical agents, of which I 
have any knowledge. 
I need hardly say, that gardening is a healthful pursuit. 
While the operatives in manufacturing towns are confined 
for their whole lives to a monotonous occupation in crowd¬ 
ed, stove-heated rooms, and very many among those who 
follow the mechanic trades, are shut up, with little respite, 
in narrow and ill ventilated shops, the horticulturist breathes 
the sweet pure air of heaven; if he is wise, the earliest 
blush of the morning glows on his cheek, and a course of 
constant labor, which is no task, but as it proceeds, is con¬ 
tinually bestowing its reward, is ever encouraging his ef¬ 
forts, and diffusing a cheerful calm over his system. His 
frame invigorated by daily exercise in the open air; his 
mind animated by a generous emulation to excel in bring¬ 
ing out from nature’s bosom her good gifts, and disciplined 
by inquiries and experiments eminently scientific, yet nei¬ 
ther dry nor abstruse, the horticulturist, enjoying and dif¬ 
fusing enjoyment, lives on to a green old age, neither 
broken in spirits by the fluctuations of business, nor ener¬ 
vated or diseased by the sedentary habits of city life. I 
confess, when I pass through the streets of this great city, 
where the senses are continually assailed by noisome va¬ 
pors, I am filled with wonder that thousands, who are not 
necessarily and exclusively confined to the city, do not 
habitually escape from its crowded streets and stifling air 
as soon as the business of the day is done, and place them¬ 
selves and their families in some pleasant cottage or state¬ 
lier mansion, as their taste or means shall dictate, where 
they might breathe the perfume of flowers, and the new 
mown hay, and look forth upon the beauty and majesty of 
nature. Happy will it be, not only for the health, but al¬ 
so for the morals and intellectual character of our fellow- 
citizens, when this practice shall become much more ge¬ 
neral than it is. Independently of the benefits resulting 
from the healthful labors of the garden, there is a subli¬ 
mity and purity of thought, produced by the daily coritem- 
plation of natural scenery, which is highly favorable to 
the development of the best qualities of mind. He who 
habitually looks upon the starry, silent sky, on the dark 
waving woods, the silver line of the river, or the bound¬ 
less expanse of the ocean, can hardly fail to be a wiser and 
better man than he who fritters away his golden moments 
among the frivolities of the promenade and the ball room. 
The business of gardening, again, is a worthy and ho¬ 
norable pursuit. Many are there, high in the world’s es¬ 
teem, its princes and kings, who have devoted themselves, 
of their own accord, to the cultivation of a garden. The 
Roman Lucullus, after carrying the arms of the republic 
into the distant east, returned laden with spoil to Italy, 
and devoted his immense wealth to the formation of de¬ 
lightful and extensive gardens, on the promontory of 
Misernin, and there imitated, for the first time in Eu¬ 
rope, the luxurious magnificence which eastern princes 
often lavish on their pleasure grounds. The ambition of 
the emperor Charles Y. of Spain, for many years disturb¬ 
ed the peace of Europe; to the amazement of all the po¬ 
liticians, in the 56th year of his age, this powerful and 
energetic prince voluntarily resigned the sceptre of his 
vast dominions into the hands of his son, and retired on 
the income of a private gentleman, to a little valley in Es- 
treinadura, where his chief amusement was the cultivat¬ 
ing of his garden with his own hands. We are so apt to 
be led away with the prestige of what is called a great 
example, that we might hastily imagine our favorite art was 
raised to higher consideration for being practiced by the 
self-same hands that had swayed the sceptre of both the 
Indies. But horticulture gains no importance from such 
examples. It is an honorable employment, not because 
the magnificent Lucullus lavished his eastern treasures on 
the elegant gardens of Baice, or because the historian Sal¬ 
lust devoted his Numidian wealth to forming the most vo¬ 
luptuous pleasure grounds for the future emperors of Rome; 
not even because the eloquent Tully and the tasteful Piiny 
passed their elegant leisure in the gardens of their classic 
villas, or that the philosophic Bacon composed essays on 
the subject of gardening; still less do I call the garden¬ 
er’s an honorable employment, because the self-s J yled 
grandees of the earth, the princes and lords of all Chris¬ 
tendom, and well nigh all heathendom, too, combine, with 
a remarkable unanimity, in the encouragement of this 
beautiful art; not for these things, but because it is an in¬ 
dustrious and honest calling; because it tends to strengthen 
the body and ennoble the mind ; because it. enlarges the 
boundaries of science, and ministers to the life, health and 
comfort of man and beast; because it turns the desert into 
a scene of verdure, and beauty, and abundance. These 
things constitute the true importance of the gardener’s art, 
and, in my humble judgment, the imperial Charles was 
more honorably, more respectably, employed in cultivating 
the little garden of the monks of St. Justus, than when he 
sat on the throne of Spain and Germany, and thousands of 
his fellow mortals were the annual victims of his ambition. 
Thus, gentlemen, I have called your attention to the 
universal taste among civilized men for the art of garden¬ 
ing ; and I have sought to account for this taste, by the 
usefulness of the art; by the innocent and rational nature 
of the employment; by its tendency to promote the health 
of the body and mind, and by the real dignity of the oc¬ 
cupation. In conclusion, I beg leave to congratulate you, 
that you have united yourselves in pursuit of an object so 
worthy. The exhibition we have this day witnessed, is in 
the highest degree encouraging. It may be that New- 
York has been heretofore out-done in this department, by 
the zeal and science o r Boston and Philadelphia; but I 
trust you will be efficient laborers in wiping away this re¬ 
proach. The beautiful Valley of the Hudson, the theme 
of admiration abroad and at home, for the charming 
variety and beauty of its natural scenery—now swel¬ 
ling in graceful undulations—now rising in lofty sublimity 
to overlook our majestic river—the various, but for the 
most part genial, climate and fertile soil that we possess_ 
ought surely to yield to no portion of our country, in the 
excellence of horticultural productions, or in the applica¬ 
tion of horticultural skill. He who causes two blades of 
grass to grow where but one grew before, and he, likewise, 
who produces a delicious peach or pear where neither grew 
before, may well be said to be a greater benefactor to his 
species, than all the conquerors whose names have sounded 
through the world. We may not expect that the fall of an 
apple will suggest to every man, as to the immortal New¬ 
ton, a new theory of gravitation; but we may reasonably 
hope, by a careful observation of the natural phenomena 
around us, and a diligent application of natural powers to 
useful ends, to contribute our humble mite to the improve¬ 
ment and happiness of mankind. 
