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savage who abandons the wild and wandering life of a warrior and & 
hunter, must first become a gardener. But his incipient efforts at hortir 
culture are confined to the useful—the indispensable. He has neither 
time, nor taste for horticulture in the higher sense of an ornamental art. 
This must be the result of a far greater advance in civilization. Th© 
humble garden—the nucleus of the future rural paradise—must expand 
into the luxuriant plantation; the mechanical arts must be promoted; 
commerce and manufactories must yield their golden fruits, and man must 
ascend to a condition of wealth and ease, before horticulture will be car¬ 
ried to its advanced stage of embellishment and perfection. In the order 
of nature, we first behold the rude cottage with its little clearing, through 
which the sun’s rays find a path to the earth,—then the cultivated farm 
with its annual crops and growing thrift—and last the spacious mansion 
with its library, statuary, painting, music and pleasure grounds, with 
their ornamental trees and exotic plants and flowers transplanted from 
every clime. 
I have indulged in this train of thought for the purpose of showing that 
horticulture first lays the foundation of civilization, and is finally cultivated 
as one of the ornamental arts when civilization is in its mid career of pro¬ 
gress. The barbarian commences his intellectual and moral progress in the 
garden, and when he has reached his highest advancement in civilization* 
he finds himself again in a literal paradise of his own creation. Is it not, 
therefore, evident that horticulture, for purposes of utility and ornament, 
is the natural employment of man—that its influence over him is pre¬ 
eminently elevating and refining. Its tendency is to raise him to his pri¬ 
meval state, and restore to him the innocence and bliss of Eden. 
A glance at the progress of different nations will show the relation 
which horticulture sustains to the higher forms of human development. 
Egypt, the cradle of ancient civilization, was celebrated for the extent 
and the luxuriance of her plantations. But her highest attainments in 
gardening were not reached till she had ascended to the culminating point* 
of her national glory. When the banks of the Nile had been cultivated 
into almost one continuous and splendid garden, the magnificence of her 
cities and temples, together with her stupendous pyramids, had become 
the wonder and admiration of the world. It was so with the renowned 
kingdom of Israel. Solomon stood before the nations of antiquity, ar¬ 
rayed in all the glory of his wisdom and power, before the historic fact 
in 
