“Address on Horticulture” in “Georgia’s Planting Prelate”
ADDRESS ON HORTICULTURE
Delivered before the Central Agricultural Society of Georgia at Macon, October 29, 1851
IT SEEMS, at first sight, very astonishing that, in a State, so richly blessed as Georgia with all the advantages of nature, so little attention should have been paid to Horticulture, either as a science or an art. Whether we grope our way through the tangled luxuriance of our Eastern shores, or climb the rugged steeps of our northern mountains, or saunter over the gently rounded hills of our midland counties, the eye of taste perceives around it, in rich abundance, the rarest elements of all the arts which make up this fascinating pursuit. Each portion of the State has its peculiar beauties, and it is not easy to decide their relative claims to admiration and enjoyment. While the level counties of our seaboard lack the line of beauty which belongs to the swelling slopes of our hill country, and are deficient in the ever changing hues which play around the mountain tops and light up as with fire the foliage of their gorges; they yet stand unrivaled in the magnificence of their outspread forests, in their overarching masses of foliage and flowers, in their broad sheets of water, rippling up in pellucid brightness to the very feet of the beholder, and above all, in the capabilities which a climate almost devoid of frost affords to the intermixture of tropical luxuries with those which belong to our peculiar zone. Or if our rolling midland counties are denied the venerable glories of gigantic and moss crowned trees, and cannot boast such rank luxuriance of vegetation, and are doomed to roll down forever to the ocean, rivers “yellow as the Tiber,” they yet have their own arrangement of hill and valley, of rock and glen, of sighing waterfalls and grassy knolls which work out for them the invariable compensations of nature. And if again, we change the scene and transport ourselves to the mountain region of the State, we often feel, as we gaze out upon those boundless views, which Claude4 would have delighted to paint, or watch the sunsets as they change from gold to purple, and from purple to blue, and from blue to the dull gray of an indistinct twilight, or look shudderingly into the chasms through which the agitated waters are struggling to force their way, that association must at last decide among their various charms, and that the claims of nature, in each particular section, must be assisted by the recollections of childhood and the fancies of our dreamy youth, ere it can gain the triumph over its rival scenes. All, all are beautiful, and crowned as is this natural glory by a soil rich as the most ardent worshiper of nature could desire, and a climate fit for almost every culture, and a profusion of materials for all artificial appliances, it is, indeed, as we observed just now, at first sight, a source of wonder and reproach that we should be so very far behind less favored countries in every branch of Horticulture, from the vegetable that speaks to our absolute necessities to the exotic flower which ministers only to our luxuries.
But it is only at first sight and to the superficial observer, that there is any real ground either for wonder or reproach. The reasons of our backwardness lie upon the very surface and are as good excuses as people generally offer for their faults. In adducing them, we mean them merely as excuses, without pretending to maintain that we have not been somewhat to blame or that we ought not immediately to set about the correction of our errors; and as they lead us very naturally into the midst of the subject which I have been appointed to treat, I shall dwell upon them at greater length than they would deserve, considered simply as excuses. The knowledge of the difficulties which stand in the way of our improvement is the first step towards their removal, and is the surest pledge of our intention to be wiser and better for the future.
The greatest, and I fear the most incurable difficulty, in the way of our advancement in Horticulture, arises out of the very kindness and profusion of nature herself. She has showered her richest gifts so lavishly upon us, that we have grown accustomed, like all spoiled and pampered children, to demand and receive every thing at her hands, and to become mere dependent idlers upon her bounty. We see around us a Flora, springing up spontaneously at our feet, so rich in variety, so exquisite in beauty, so delicious in perfume, that we can scarce believe that art can add any thing to our resources. We listen complacently to the admiration which strangers lavish upon the grace of our woods, the sweetness of our flowers, the flavor of our fruits, the genial breath of our atmosphere and are satisfied to enjoy them in their wild and untrained excellence. And should we take the trouble of introducing any thing rare or beautiful into our gardens, we are fain to treat it as we have been wont to treat our indigenous productions and leave it to the unassisted kindness of nature. Because we have so many good things without any trouble, we are unwilling to take any pains to have them better, and the strong temptation lies heavy upon the people of an indolent climate, to be content with good things which cost no pains, rather than be troubled about supreme excellence in any thing.
Another obstacle to our progress in Horticulture has arisen from the recent settlement of much of our State, and from the necessity which has been laid upon our people of hewing out for themselves homes in the forest and the wilderness. Because Georgia was reckoned among the old thirteen States, and because of her rapid strides, of late years, in physical improvement people find it difficult to realize that the largest and most valuable portion of the State has been settled within the last thirty and much of it within the last fifteen years.5 The very spot on which I now stand, surrounded by this large assemblage of intelligent and elegant people, encompassed with the rich offerings of science and of art, was but yesterday the home of the Indian. Georgia has been in the condition of an unfortunate stripling, who has shot up beyond his years and from whom is expected a maturity of wisdom, of manners, of conduct, correspondent with his maturity of physical development. Look only at his growth and you would be warranted in demanding that he should think as a man, that he should speak as a man, that he should act as a man: but ask the youth his age, and you will no longer be surprised that he has not altogether “put away childish things.” And so with our own fair Georgia. Was she really as old, as appearances in many things would warrant us in supposing her, we might ask for her country seats, for her parks, for her gardens, for her orchards, and be disappointed if we did not find them worthy of such a soil and such a climate. But when we reflect that emigrants to Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana, passed over a Federal Road6 through Indian tribes to reach those States, and were protected in those journeys within the State of Georgia by United States agencies and United States soldiery—that within the recollection of our children, the war whoop was heard upon our Western limits, we should be unreasonable to expect such luxurious appliances as surround the homes of Massachusetts or New York, or Pennsylvania. As well might we have asked for these things in those States a century ago, as demand them now at our hands. And most assuredly if you had made the demand of them you would have received the very reply which we now make: “We have been too busy in clearing our forests, in sheltering our heads, in providing for our actual necessities to have any time for extraneous pursuits.” Horticulture, except in its lowest branches, is the science of a settled and permanent population, not the pursuit of a people struggling for bread and existence. And already do we perceive, in the various societies which exist within the State; in the important part which Horticulture is playing in this very fair; in the corner which is allowed it in all our agricultural papers; and above all, in the deep interest which individuals are taking in it all over our land, the evidence that a more settled and permanent population will rapidly wipe away our reproach from among men.
A third difficulty which has stood in the way of our improvement in Horticulture has been owing to the great difference which exists between our soil and climate, and those whence has been drawn all our book knowledge of this pursuit. A climate peculiarly wet, an atmosphere remarkably humid, a soil needing drainage at every point, has furnished for us, whose climate, atmosphere and soil are the very antipodes of those of England, the theory and practice of Horticulture. The English treatises and the English practice may do well enough for the Northern States, although in many particulars unsuitable to them; but for us they are not only useless but absolutely pernicious. The general principles of the science are the same, of course, every where; but the practical application has to be worked out for each peculiar climate. In this way, we at the South, have had every thing to do for ourselves; and deriving almost our whole literature from England and the North, we have been perplexed with numberless theories, and rules having no application among ourselves.7 The countries whence we should have derived our horticultural maxims, Italy, Spain, and the countries bordering the Levant, have, in great measure been locked against us, and we have floundered on, through what should have been a most sad experience, had not nature been really so kind as to do for us, in spite of our mistakes, what we never should have been able to do for ourselves. And hitherto, most of the experience which has been wrought out through the laborious exertion and observation of individuals has died with them, or has lain dormant with those who have gained it, for lack of societies and journals through which to compare it with the experience of others, or communicate it to beginners.8 The consequence has been that each individual, or each generation, as the case might be, has been obliged to go over the same ground as its predecessor—to commit the like errors, to incur the like useless expense, to waste almost a life-time in acquiring knowledge and gaining positions which a few weeks reading or a few hours conversation with one who had been over the ground, might have given him. We have not been permitted to stand upon the shoulders of a previous generation. We have been forced to be pioneers in every thing connected with Southern Horticulture. Why, even to this day, we have not a decent work upon the very commonest topics of vegetable or floral cultivation adapted to the South. It has been impossible, therefore, for any progress to have been made, save as neighbor might communicate to neighbor the results of his experience, or parent might hand down to child, traditional rules of action and modes of operation.
Moreover, there has been at the South no pecuniary stimulus to urge on the improvement of Horticulture. In England and the Northern States, most of the great Horticulturists have been the owners of large establishments for the propagation and sale of vegetables, fruits and flowers. The proximity of large cities, the concentration of wealth, and the inevitable growth of luxury have enabled these Horticulturists to spare neither labor nor expense in procuring, propagating and circulating plants of whatever kind, and thus filling, at a small expense, the gardens, orchards and greenhouses of their fellow-citizens. It is from these depositories that the great mass of the flowers and fruits and vegetables, which illustrate the English and Northern exhibitions is obtained; and while there are really many more private collections at the South, we cannot concentrate these things, because they have been reared merely for individual pleasure and not for profit or show. Until very lately, with the exception of the Noisette garden near Charleston, I know of no Horticultural establishment among ourselves, that was not a mere branch of some Northern house.9 And this—not because fruits and flowers were not valued; not because there was not a constant importation going on of these things from the North—but simply because it was considered mean to sell any thing except cotton, rice, tobacco, wheat, or some other of the great staples of the country. Every body had flowers and fruits, such as they were, and he was quite ready to give his neighbor all that he had: to sell them to him would have been considered quite beneath the dignity of a farmer or planter. Horticulture has suffered, like every other branch of art at the South, from the absorbing pursuit and immense profit arising out of the cultivation of the leading staples of the country.
The last, though by no means the least reason which I shall offer for the backwardness of Horticulture among us, has sprung out of that which ought to have been its chief support. We are universally a planting people, and planters are the least gregarious people upon the face of the earth. Living separate and apart, each upon his own estate, the planter is an independent power: he is Lord of all he surveys, and he frames his own conduct upon the basis of this individual sovereignty. The social tie—the current of fashion—the compromise of opinion is but little known to him. He thinks for himself, he speaks for himself, he acts for himself; and unless a movement, of whatever kind or for whatever purpose, commends itself to his individual judgment, he is but little swayed by the opinions or desires of others. It is very difficult to move such a being out of the routine of old practices and traditional modes of action, especially as he has a profound contempt for “novelties that disturb his peace” or for book farming of any kind. His father grew rich upon such and such an experience, and it would be filial irreverence for him to engage in any new fangled schemes for the improvement of his homestead or his grounds. Such men it is not easy to collect into societies—the instrumentality of the present day for the advancement of every science and art. Even now, we find it exceedingly difficult in an agricultural State to maintain agricultural societies promising profit and recompense to the members: how much more difficult to originate and carry on Horticultural societies which seem much more connected with mere ornament and luxury.
Such are the reasons which, in my opinion, have placed and kept us in the horticultural condition in which we find ourselves today. I trust that the time has come when many of these obstacles will be removed out of the way. Our population is rapidly becoming more permanent; our planters are beginning to abandon the policy of running after new land and are entering upon plans of improvement for their homes. The growth of our towns is also furnishing a nucleus around which horticultural societies will be formed and create a taste for things now neglected and perchance despised. The various journals in which horticulture is associated with agriculture, will create a literature of flowers that will soon produce the books which are wanted for direction and guidance, and as nursery gardens are beginning to be formed, we shall soon see, I trust, the stimulus of profit swelling the rising tide of horticulture. How to overcome the profusion of nature, I really know not; and it is almost as difficult a problem how to arouse a horticultural zeal among our rural population. But patience and perseverance will overcome even these, and when overcome, they will prove the most powerful means of urging forward the delightful pursuit which we are now considering.
The most fascinating, at the same time that it is the most ornamental branch of horticulture, is that which stands connected with the flower garden and the green-house. I take no notice, in my remarks, of the hot-house, for in the larger part of our State, we do not require, except perhaps for a night or two during the depth of winter, any greater heat than can be maintained in a well built green-house, managed with skill and judgment. This I know from experience. For several years, I have used one, not by any means well guarded, and have found artificial heat necessary only for one or two nights in each winter, even when I was cultivating very delicate plants belonging to the tropical climate of the East and West. In this department of horticulture, we are, perhaps, taking the State as a whole, better advanced than in any other branch of this art. And this has arisen, partly from the felicity of our climate and partly from their having been the peculiar province of the ladies—the heralds of all refinement and all elegance. If horticulture consisted merely in the plenty and variety of beautiful flowers that could be collected with ease at any given point; if it did not include as well the arrangement and cultivation of those flowers, the carrying them by artificial means to their highest perfection, the production of new varieties by hybridization, the constant enlargement of our flora by importation and acclimation, I should not admit that we were at all behind any part of the Union in this branch of the art. The genial kindness of our climate assimilates the most precious plants of other countries to itself, and exotics like the Camellia, the Oleander, the Gardenia, the Tea Roses, are rapidly becoming indigenous in the milder portions of our State.10 When these beautiful genera were first introduced among us, they were treated in Carolina and Georgia as they are treated in England and the Northern States, nursed and protected into feebleness and ugliness. By degrees we learned that our climate and soil were peculiarly well adapted to them, and now the Gardenias and the Tea Roses are as much at home in all lower and middle Georgia as in any portion of the world, and the Oleander and Camellias are rapidly becoming weeds in the Eastern counties of the State. In many of the gardens in Savannah, and especially in the grounds of the late Mr. LeConte,11 of Liberty County, there are seasons of the year when one literally walks upon Camellias, and their seed is freely matured in the open air. Exotics like these, rifled from Africa, Persia, China, when added to our native Flora, furnish us, at very little expense, a profusion of exquisite flowers, and there is scarcely a section of the State in which, at certain seasons, bouquets might not be furnished, that it would puzzle Mr. Paxton, with all the riches of Chatsworth at his command, to rival or surpass.12 Even in our mountain region, the bleakest and most sterile portion of our State, the Kalmias, the Rhododendrons, the Azaleas, the Robinias, give a richness and glory to the rocky carpet over which they are spread, that might enable it to compete with the gayest patterns that leave the looms of Flanders or Persia. We have no lack of flowers, of beautiful flowers, but we have great lack of skill in the cultivation of them, and still greater lack of taste in the arrangement of them about our houses; and we are doing literally nothing in the production of new varieties. We take our flowers very much as we take every thing else from the North and from Europe, just as they please to give them to us, and take no pains to originate new varieties and so bring them into tribute to us. We are exhibiting the wonderful anomaly of a fertile soil, a felicitous climate, an atmosphere assimilating to itself almost every plant subjected to its influence, made tributary, from lack of enterprise and industry, to countries possessing none of these advantages, and struggling for six months of the year against ice and frost and snow. Why should this be so? Why should we not turn the current of trade in flowers as we are rapidly turning it by our steam boats, in vegetables and fruits? We can place vegetables upon the northern tables perfectly matured, before their climate will permit them to be even planted, and if we chose, we might supply, in like manner, the belles of New York and Philadelphia, with the richest ornaments of their boudoirs and drawing rooms. If you could witness the surprise of the northern invalids who resort to Savannah and the Eastern shores of Georgia and Florida, at the profusion of exquisite flowers that are poured in upon them, in mid-winter, from the gardens of its citizens, you would appreciate the advantage which we possess in climate and soil. And yet, despite all this, we are mere amateurs in Floriculture, and with the exception of the Noisette and Herbemont Roses, I really do not know one single contribution that we have made to the floral riches of the world through any exercise of art.13 We are acting like a man of genius, who, with very little labor, can achieve as much as his rivals with all their pains, and yet is content to be only as learned and wise as they are, when God intended him to soar a higher flight and become one of the master spirits of the time. Because we can, through the blessing of nature, reach with ease an excellence like that of less favored countries, should we be satisfied with that? Should we, who are intended to be the foremost horticulturists of the world, permit others with every thing against them, to usurp our position and thrust us from our thrones? Away with such groveling views! Let us, in horticulture, as in every thing else, learn a nobler ambition, and make our land what God and nature intended it should be, a land of surpassing beauty and exceeding joys.
It is impossible, in an address like this, to enter into details—a few passing hints are all that I may introduce, and my friends must look for any thing more in the Soil of the South, where I trust we may often meet for mutual instruction and improvement. I would therefore merely state, that in preparing a flower garden, the point of importance is to secure a strong, permanent soil, rather than an over rich and over manured one. The naturally good soil of our State, deeply spaded and intermingled with the top soil of old fields and vegetable manure from the woods, makes the very best substratum for almost all flowers and shrubs. With this compost may be judiciously mingled some well rotted stable manure, say one fourth in quantity; and with clay soils some white sand; and with sandy soils some clay or pond earth. Upon such a compost as this, with a depth of eighteen inches, I have a Cloth of Gold rose which covered, in two years, the greater part of the front of a house, and climbed over the eaves, twenty-five feet from the ground, upon the roof; a La Marek, whose stem was in three years the size of a man’s wrist; Banksias, Ophirie, Bignonias, Wistarias, all intermingling over the sides and roof of the house and crying out for room; and in the same soil the Amaryllis, the Lilium, the Gladiolus have all acquired a relative luxuriance and ask nothing but the most ordinary care. A strong and deep soil is what flowers need, and not an over manured one. The plants, in the latter soil, will be like children fed upon sweetmeats and confectionary, sickly, dyspeptic, always ailing. Those upon the strong, deep soil, like the rosy cheeked cherubs that have developed their muscles and painted their faces under the influence of wholesome natural diet and the pure air and bright skies of Heaven. Particular families of plants need special soils, and where it is desirable to cultivate these to perfection, recourse must be had to such mixtures as the books indicate, with this point, however, kept always in mind, that no books upon horticulture which we possess, are adapted to our climate. Their general directions must always be modified by such particular experience as can be gleaned from our own journals and amateurs of the State.
The green-house is generally considered a very expensive appurtenance to an establishment. This depends very much, of course, upon the size and style of the building. Like everything else, they can be made luxuries, and then they will be expensive, but in the South they are not necessarily so. In Europe and in the cities of the Northern States, where land is worth its area in gold, any structure is expensive; but with us space is abundant even in our towns, and the mere site of a building enters not into the calculation of its cost. Material, too, for building is abundant and cheap, and almost every planter has his own mechanics, who, with some instruction, could arrange a very neat structure of this sort. The only expense, therefore, to a planter, in money, would be the cost of the sash work and the glass, both of which have been very much reduced by the application of improved machinery. But in our mild climate there is a very excellent substitute for a greenhouse, requiring no expenditure exceeding five or ten dollars. This substitute is a pit dug in the earth to the depth of five or six feet, of any size the party may desire, and furnished with benches rising one above the other like the staging of a theater. Around the upper edge of this pit, run a wooden framework of a foot in height in front and two feet in the rear, with its sides sloping from rear to front, cover the top with frames attached by hinges to the rear, and instead of glass, enclose these frames with the common ten cent homespun of our factories, well saturated and tacked tightly as they can be drawn over the sides and ends of the frame. Such a pit as this will answer all the practical purposes of a green-house, and will give you through the winter, a succession of exotic flowers, and through the summer will deck your gardens with the riches of the East, as they continue to flourish in their sunk and concealed pots.
The fruit culture of Georgia is in a very anomalous condition. The remarks which I made respecting floriculture apply in some measure, although not so widely to Pomology. We have a great deal of very fine fruit scattered through the State, fine in appearance, fine in size, and above all fine in flavor, but we have no system, very little art, and above all no nomenclature. A delicious peach is handed us, whose skin peels off like that of a well boiled potato, the rich juice the while streaming down our fingers, and while the flesh melts in our mouth and the combined qualities of smell and taste and sight are gratified to the utmost, ’tis still only a peach, and great astonishment is expressed at a desire to know any thing more about it. A dish of strawberries is placed upon the table—strawberries such as Peabody14 only can raise—and while every one admires the size and flavor and delicacy, they are still only strawberries, and no body cares whether they are Hovey’s, or Burr’s, or Ross’ or any body’s else, who may have taken infinite pains in establishing a fine variety. And thus it happens that while we have good fruit of certain sorts, it is because we cannot help ourselves. It is thrust upon us by nature, and neglect it as we may, it still, under the favorable auspices of our climate and soil, is tolerably good, teaching us what we might have, would we take only the ordinary pains which are bestowed upon any of the comforts of life.
In all climates, fruit is of vast importance, but in a hot climate it is not merely a luxury, it is a real necessity. We have introduced into a country corresponding in thermal lines with the south of France and Italy all the habits of England and the north of Europe. Our houses are still built, our rooms still ventilated, our light and shade still disposed upon English models; and above all our tables are loaded, even during the summer months, with heavy joints of every kind, instead of vegetables and fruits, the proper diet of a warm climate. We ought to look to the East for our lessons in building and gardening and dietetics, and we should find in the courts and fountains and densely shaded gardens, in the frequent ablutions and frugal fruit diet of the East, the wise lessons which nature has taught the Asiatics, in the thousands of years of their experience; and if we had fruit in such abundance and of such a size and quality as we might possess it, we should soon find nature teaching us to substitute for traditional plum pudding and princely sirloins, vegetables and fruit, and thus add ten years to the average of human life. God has provided these things for us in rich abundance, just at the seasons when the animal economy most requires them, and has left us to animal food during those seasons when it can be digested with ease and healthfulness. All that is asked of us to respond to the indications of Providence and take due care that these things be properly cultivated and matured. Nothing is more wholesome than fine, well ripened fruit—nothing more unwholesome than the hard, knotty, half-ripe productions that are too often permitted to degrade the sacred names of peaches, apples and pears.
Each zone of climate has its peculiar fruits—those which it brings to highest perfection. Belgium and France seem to be the home of the pear and the plum;15 Italy of the orange and olive; our Northern and North-Western States are peculiarly adapted to the apple;16 and in like manner the peach and the melon flourish best in Georgia and Carolina. In these our State ought to stand unrivaled, and yet there are, perhaps, no two varieties of fruit in which there exists greater confusion, making it exceedingly difficult for an amateur to know what he possesses, and subjecting him to useless expense in procuring from abroad what he already has in higher luxuriance. We cannot progress, because we do not know where we stand; and like the young gentlemen who, after a wine party, unhappily stumbled upon a race course and traveled until morning upon a well beaten road which they were satisfied was taking them rapidly home—we are ever treading in our pomology, the same eternal circuit, you giving me under one name the same fruit which I have returned to you under another. Until some order shall be introduced into this matter and some attention paid to the comparison and naming of fruits within the State, we shall know neither our riches nor our poverty.
We possess in Georgia a great many fine peaches, but whether they are really new varieties or whether they are well known species modified by climate and soil, we have no means of ascertaining. Our Indian peach, for example, the most curious of our peaches, is scarcely noticed by Downing, and one would hardly detect our favorite under the title of “Columbia,” which, as well as I can divine, is the name under which he describes it. Our Tinsley peach, a most decided favorite, is certainly a Georgia fruit, and we know it only in this neighborhood in its perfection.* What is called in Georgia the English peach, is probably a peach brought into Georgia from Virginia by some of the early settlers, who derived it from the mother country, and in almost every good orchard may be found several local varieties, having merely local names, and which it is almost impossible to compare with any foreign varieties because of the effect which climate has exerted upon them. Along with these we have a large variety of imported peaches, which are answering, under proper culture, the warmest encomiums of their owners. In my own experience, I would mention George IV, Crawford’s early and late Melacatune, Bergen’s yellow, the Oldmixon cling, and upon the recommendation of the Rev. Mr. Johnson, of Talbaton, Van Zandt’s superb, as varieties richly repaying cultivation. Drs. Ward17 and Camak18 of Athens, whose names are known wherever pomology is cared for in the South, have recommended to me “La Bell de Beaucarie” as a peach surpassing, under their cultivation, all others they have tried. What we most need are good early and late peaches, so as to give a succession of good fruit. A peach was sent me by Corse, of Baltimore, under the name of Duff’s Yellow, which seemed to answer, in some measure, the demand for an early peach. It ripened as early as the 4th of July—a very fine and large fruit—a full fortnight before any of the finer Northern peaches came to maturity. It seems, from its name, to be a local peach and I would remark, in passing, that the gardens of Baltimore would probably very much enrich our circle of peaches, inasmuch as their soil is very like that of middle Georgia, and their latitude some degrees nearer our own than that of New York or Boston. A fine late peach has probably been found, but it has yet to be tested by a larger experience.
In the middle and upper parts of Georgia we are not much troubled with the common enemies of the peach. A little care in searching the roots for the borer seems to be almost all that is necessary in our climate and soil, where the trees have been properly planted in the first instance and are kept clear from weeds and grass. Should the worm become troublesome, the freedom of the orchard given to the hogs will soon remedy the evil. But there is one neglect which injures our peach orchards more than every thing else, and that is the superabundant product which is permitted to form and strive after maturity. We see most of our Georgia peach orchards broken down and rendered worthless for want of a little care at the proper season. The preventives for this mischief are the shortening in system and the removal of the inferior fruit so soon as it sufficiently develops itself to mark its inferiority. For a few years you will have less fruit, but it will be better and your orchard continue in fine bearing years after that of your careless neighbor shall have been destroyed and cut up.
I would recommend to every farmer in Georgia the practice of planting the stone of every peach that deserves the trouble. By adopting this method a constant succession of trees would be secured and new seedlings be produced adding to our list of excellent peaches. These stones should be planted very soon after the fruit has been eaten, and label attached, designating in every instance, as far as possible, the fruit whence the stone was taken.
The Water Melon requires scarcely any cultivation further than the choice of good seed and a location where it may be freed from too much damp and moisture. Its peculiar home seems to be the sandy soil of the sea Islands; and it loves nothing so well as to repose its sleek sides in a heated bed of sand, which the bare foot of the white man could scarcely tolerate. It is almost incredible, what a size they attain, and what a richness of flavor, under such conditions; and I suppose the water melon could scarcely be improved by importations of seeds. Our musk melons and cantalopes are far inferior to our water melons, and need the attention of the lovers of good fruit. They might be very much improved by importations of seed from abroad, especially when we know that there are seventy kinds named upon the catalogue of the London Horticultural Society.
The Apricot, the Nectarine, the Plum, are scarcely known in Georgia. Here and there a few are produced; but the unceasing and almost irremediable ravages of the curculio, and the slovenly manner in which we have cultivated all our fruit, have made them exceedingly rare—rarer than they should be, I think; for while I despair of raising these smooth skinned fruits in the open field culture which we give to the peach and the apple, I think they may be produced upon a smaller scale. They have been matured in great perfection in South Carolina and Georgia, and why may they not be again.
The finest nectarines I have ever seen, were produced in the paved yards of the city of Charleston—yards closely and entirely paved, and swept daily of all the offal of the tree. They attained a large size, a delicious flavor, and were entirely free from the curculio. This is an isolated fact, and yet worth recording; for it is one step in the process of induction. The best apricots I have ever eaten were grown, in like manner, in close proximity to the dwelling house, upon a spot where the soil was trodden upon every day, until it was as hard as brick, and the offal was carefully removed. This is a like fact, affording another step in our induction. The finest plums and gages I have ever met with at the south were all grown upon dwarfed trees, forming heads which sheltered their bark, and planted in courts and yards trodden continually by the foot of man, and freely reached by brooms and poultry. These facts, coming under my own observation, in every case where I have remarked these fruits to be peculiarly fine, have fixed my belief, in spite of the pros and cons of the books, that the true remedy for the curculio is the neighborhood of the household, the use of the broom, and the freedom of the manor to the poultry, and perchance a few genteel pigs, taught by a ring in the nose not to do more than skim the surface of the soil. Such a proximity as this, joined to a constant dwarfing of the trees, so as to protect their bark, especially in the case of the apricot, might afford some remedy to this evil.
Another suggestion has been made to me by Mr. Carolan, my gardener at Montpelier, which may be deserving of attention. He observed that the curculio did not destroy the native and common plums of the country, especially where they were grown in dense masses, as plum orchards are usually permitted to grow. The plums, under such circumstances were inferior in size, but free from worms. Might not this thick planting and dense shading of the surface of the earth help us to the solution of this problem? And should we be satisfied of this, might we not secure the shade and coldness of earth necessary to disturb and discourage the curculio, without sacrificing the proper size of the fruit, by planting our smooth skinned fruits on the north side of walls and buildings? It may be that this little pirate may require a certain amount of light and heat to make his abode comfortable, and that, failing all other hints, we may freeze him out by depriving him of the comforts of life. Every thing deserves to be considered in connection with this pest, and I throw out this suggestion for as much as it is worth. Should every thing else fail, these fruits may be grown in boxes, and matured under the shelter of the green house.
The Pear has hitherto been a very scarce fruit in Georgia owing to two causes. First, because it is a tree of very slow growth, requiring a long time to bring it into bearing; and secondly, because it is a very delicate tree with us, requiring a great deal of peculiar care and attention. The results, therefore, have not been at all adequate to the efforts which have been made, and ill success has produced something like despair. But these causes are yielding to the more permanent settlement of the country, and to the undisputed and eminent success which has attended the culture of this fruit in and around Athens. The gardens of Dr. Ward and the late Mr. Camak, of Athens, prove beyond a question, the complete adaptation of upper Georgia to the culture of the pear; and all that is now needed is to ascertain the varieties which seem best suited to the climate and soil of Georgia. This is of vast importance, for it is well known that varieties of apple and pear are first rate only in particular localities; and that a distance of a hundred miles will produce such a change as to modify very much the quality of the fruit. It is all important therefore, when we are about to commence the cultivation of this fruit, that we should import varieties which have succeeded, and avoid the mortification of finding, at the end of ten years, that the choice varieties of the books were not those which suited us best. Was I about to commence this culture, I should infinitely prefer taking the advice of such gentlemen as had practically tested the matter, rather than depend upon the recommendations of the catalogues, or the decisions of pomological conventions where the South had not been represented.
It is scarcely necessary to touch upon the cultivation of the apple. It is so favorite a fruit, is so universally cultivated, and is produced of such good size and flavor in many parts of the State, that attention is sufficiently excited about it, and large importations are constantly being made of the most approved varieties. The important points in the apple culture are, to test and note the results of these importations, and to endeavor to find an apple that will keep during our winter months. Until we make this discovery we shall be tributary for this useful fruit.
Nothing proves more conclusively our subservience to the North and to England, in our horticulture, than our neglect of the Fig. Because it is a fruit denied to them, with meek submission, we have concluded that we will deny it to ourselves. This is true only of the middle and upper parts of Georgia. In the lower country, it has so forced itself upon the notice of the people, that they have condescended to cultivate it; but even with them very little pains has been taken to introduce the finest varieties. No fruit is more delicious, more wholesome, or more certain in its returns, and yet in Georgia only a few varieties of this fruit are generally cultivated. The horticulturists of the eastern shore of Georgia ought to take care that the best varieties of the Mediterranean and Levant are placed within our reach. In our middle section of the State it is a fruit almost entirely neglected; and yet so far north as Atlanta it requires only a moderate protection. If carefully guarded for a few years, it will assimilate itself; and it often happens that the frosts which seriously injure the figs of the seaboard and the Gulf, do not affect us. And the solution is a very simple one. The early warmth of February in those latitudes, causes the tree to move its sap and prepare for growth, foliage and fruit. In this condition the frosts of February and March find it, and a severe check is the consequence. The same cold finds our trees still in the repose of winter, and expends itself upon a mass prepared to meet it. Extreme seasons, such as ’27 or ’35, would of course put the fig to a severe trial; but as these terrible frosts are but rare, and the fig is a tree of rapid growth, they are not worth taking into the account. My own trees stood entirely uninjured the cold of 1848, when the thermometer declined to 8°. But in this latitude they must be protected for a winter or two, during their early growth; and no better covering can be found for them than the common broom-sedge of the old fields, tied closely around them, and giving them the appearance of a wheat or rye stack. Should any persons desire to cultivate the fig, I would recommend them, for the present, to procure cuttings from the seaboard of Georgia and Carolina, where a few fine varieties are in cultivation. The blue and the brown figs are the best.
The various berries which make such a delicious appendage to the dessert—the Strawberry, the Raspberry, the Blackberry—are at last beginning to receive attention among us. Mr. Peabody, of Columbus, has opened a new era in the strawberry culture; and his wonderful success in quantity, in size, in flavor, has attracted attention every where. He has achieved the wonderful feat of furnishing this fruit in profusion, from April to October. With such a master at the head of the horticultural department of the Soil of the South,19 it would be presumption for any one to speak of the culture of this fruit, and I will therefore only say, that the secrets of its culture are, a due intermixture of staminate and pistillate plants, the use of vegetable rather than animal manures, mulching with tan or dried leaves, or straw, or even broom-sedge, and abundant watering during the season of fructification. Hovey’s Seedling is incomparably the best variety I know. This intermingled with the large Early Scarlet, or the Boston Pine, will give very fine and abundant fruit.
The common variety of the black Raspberry, commonly called the Thimbleberry, produces very freely in middle and upper Georgia. But the finer varieties of red and yellow Antwerp, and Fastolff, are with us very shy bearers. Whether sufficient pains have not been taken with their cultivation, or whether the climate is too hot for them, they certainly are as rare among us as gages or apricots. I have never been able to do more than procure enough merely to say that they had been raised. But their cultivation in more northern parts of the State might be eminently successful.
The Blackberry is one of the fruits which we ought to improve by artificial means. Our wild blackberries are, in many cases, very large and well flavored; and there is no telling how delicious a fruit might not be produced by its careful cultivation. It is a subject worthy the attention of our horticulturists.
I suppose it may create a smile in this audience, when I recommend that the like efforts should be made with the Persimmon. It is, even in its wild state, a very palatable fruit, and might become, under high cultivation, a very delightful addition to the dessert. I venture to affirm, that if our eastern friends possessed it, with the advantages we have of climate and soil, we should soon hear of it as large as a peach, and receive it, in rich abundance, as a substitute for dates and dried figs. We leave it for the hogs; they would very soon make it a fruit to grace the table of a prince.
The culture of the Grape is at a very low ebb in Georgia. With the exception of the smooth skinned fruits, I know nothing so rare as a dish of good grapes. Even the coarser grapes of the country are by no means a certain crop; and with the exception of the Scuppernong, none can be counted upon in every season. The grape seems to need, more than any fruit I know, a certain combination of circumstances; and when these meet, it is as prolific and as certain as our blackberry. When I walked over the vineyards around Cincinnati, rising terrace above terrace, to the very summit of their hills, and saw the luxurious clusters hanging by wagon loads upon their vigorous stocks, I could not but feel that it was not cultivation but soil, climate, location, which made the vast difference. The very same varieties of grape had been cultivated with infinite pains in Georgia, but had not at all repaid their cultivators, scarcely furnishing enough for the use of the table, far less the wine-press. For any thing like wine culture, the banks of the Tennessee, from Knoxville to the Muscle Shoals, offer, in my opinion, the finest field, with the best prospect of success. The vine seems to love the neighborhood of rivers where they are flanked by hills of moderate height, or even by mountains, and can find the drainage and nutriment necessary for its successful growth.
But while we may be denied the grape for its wine, it is entirely within our power to have it, at very little cost, in abundance as a table fruit. We speak of the vine clad hills of France, and we speak truly, but the table grapes of France are not comparable to those which are raised in England by artificial means, where the outdoor culture has been long abandoned. These artificial means are entirely within our reach at far less expense than in England, and there is no farmer of any enterprise, who might not have an abundance of the finest table grapes of the world, at no other cost than a little pains in gaining information and putting it in practice. For the last two years I have been running the Black Hamburgh, the Muscat of Alexandria, the Chasselas, and other foreign grapes, upon the rafters of my green house, and the past summer they bore very fine fruit, which came to high perfection. The only trouble was the preparation of the border, and this a little labor can effect.
But it may be said, we have no green houses, and we cannot afford to build them. That may be so, although I by no means admit the expensiveness of a green house, but even for this there is no necessity. Any body who can put up a log cabin can put up such a house as is necessary for grape culture in Georgia. It is not, as in England, the artificial heat that we need, which requires glass, and flues, and all the expensive apparatus of vineries; it is simply protection from the excessive changes which distinguish our American from the European climate. To meet this single difficulty I would suggest a building exactly like a vinery in form and shape except that it be built of the rudest materials, logs put together and the interstices closed with clay, while the sides and front and top be covered with frames of oiled homespun, such as were recommended for the pit culture of tender exotics. The poles or rafters extending from the front to the rear should be four feet apart, and about six inches in width. From a border made outside the house, pass the vines in and run them upon these rafters, and with the proper preparation of the soil, which any of the books will give, and the proper management of the vines, the finest grapes may be matured. The frames which fit in between the rafters should be well jointed and connected by hinges with the rear, and furnished with cords and pullies for raising them for ventilation and sun. In forming the border be not carried away with the vulgar idea of stuffing it with animal manure. Nothing will so soon and certainly disgust the delicate feeders of the roots of the vine.
Besides these fruits of ordinary culture in Georgia, there is a large family of the Aurantaceae, which deserve a passing notice, as capable of profitable cultivation upon the sea coast. The Orange, the Lemon, the Lime, the Citron, the Shaddock can all be raised upon the eastern coast of Georgia with great profit; and while, for the present, the prospect of the Orange crop is clouded by the ravages of an insect, we trust, from what we learn, that it has run its course and is now passing away. As far north as the islands of Hilton Head, Port Royal and St. Helena, in South Carolina, the Orange and Lemon bear profusely, in the open air, and although they cannot bear our most excessive frosts, the only fatal year in this century has been the cold of 1835. There are now very large groves, one numbering, upon Cumberland Island, as many as two thousand trees, awaiting the departure of the insect. It would be well for those who are engaged in the cultivation of this family of plants to import the best works upon this natural order from France and Italy, so that they may choose among the varieties for culture. The most valuable works are those by Dr. Sickler*, Gallesio†, and Risso and Poisseau§, expensive and in foreign languages, but still very necessary for the proper understanding of the genus Citrus. A very valuable addition might be made to our resources by turning these fruits into sweetmeats and exporting them to the North and Europe.
Besides this family of Mediterranean and Eastern culture, there are other fruits which deserve the attention of the sea coast of Georgia, and are receiving it. The Olive can be cultivated with complete success, and if the oil taste could only be created in the United States, might form a very lucrative branch of horticulture. The Date has been matured upon St. Simon’s Island. A bunch I think is now on exhibition within these walls, and the Guava will stand most of the winters of south eastern Georgia and Florida. We should never forget that our most valuable staples, our rice, our cotton, our wheat, were all introduced from abroad, and that the food of the lower classes of Great Britain and much of Europe is an American root. Who can place any bounds to the adaptation of such a climate as we possess, for really as between the mountains of Rabun and Dade and the ocean washed shores of our islands, we embrace almost every variety of atmosphere which floats between Canada and Cuba.
Closely connected with these two branches of horticulture, is the art of Landscape Gardening, in which we are more deficient than in any thing else. With all the advantages which nature can give us, we have none of the appliances of art. Our houses, with some exceptions, exhibit the most wretched specimens of architecture, our out-houses are arranged just in the most conspicuously awkward positions, our orchards are where our ornamental grounds should be, and our vegetable gardens thrust up their tall collards and peasticks where the rose and the jasmine ought to be taught to twine. And all this, too, not from any necessity in the case; it is a mere matter of bad taste. A well proportioned house, in good keeping in its arrangements and ornaments, is not more expensive than such outre models as stare at us along our roads; and where land is plentiful, it makes no sort of difference in expense as to the location of the outbuildings or of the various gardens. There is no man, of any property, who could not afford to preserve around his dwelling woodland enough to make a grove and lawn for shade, for comfort and for ornament. Was this always observed in the settlement of new places, what a different aspect would our country soon present! Instead of bare red hills, crowned with great white houses glaring at you through the broiling sun and making heat even hotter, surrounded by negro quarters of the most ungainly aspect, with cotton and corn growing up to the very doors, we should have a variety of pretty country seats, or neat farm houses, peeping out of parks and groves, with lawns sweeping down to the entrance gate, and with pleasant associations all around. As one approached the seat of wealth and refinement, instead of a straight up and down clay road, flanked by straggling Virginia fences20 on either hand, and ornamented as you approach the house by consumptive hogs wallowing in the dirty puddles they have made before the very door, we should find a winding road running through native forest trees until it came out upon the ornamental gardens of the estate, and opening, as it wound towards the mansion, picturesque objects at every turn. Instead of rude log cabins, and dirty negroes grinning at you from every door, distance would be taught to lend enchantment to the view, even of these appendages of necessity. Instead of discomfort and filth and the offal of a yard heaped all around you, you would find the education and refinement and wealth of the inhabitants fairly represented in their abodes, and “beautiful as apples of gold in pictures of silver.” It is sickening, as one passes through the middle counties of Georgia, to behold its deformed appearance. Naturally it is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, for nothing is more picturesque than the alternation of hill and dale, the undulating sweep of a rolling country, the variety of foliage that arises from the intermixture of so many species of forest trees; but as man has dealt with it, it is rapidly becoming one of the ugliest. For it is the peculiarity of a rolling country, whose subsoil is red clay, to be either very beautiful or very ugly. The elements of beauty are likewise the elements of its ugliness—the curve line of beauty, unless preserved, rapidly breaking into the rugged wrinkles of an early decrepitude, and the clay that would, with due treatment, have afforded sustenance to a lawn of velvet, running speedily into a surface of baked brick. But sad as has been the havoc, it is not yet too late; much of the woodland is yet untouched; many of the hills are yet crowned with their primeval forest; and thanks to the progress of refinement, many of the newly opened estates in upper Georgia have been arranged with a view to ornament as well as profit—have mingled the idea of the beautiful with the sense of the practical.
Two thirds of the year, in our climate, is a conflict with heat. Every thing, therefore, which art can do ought to be done to mitigate its fervor and make life comfortable. And yet, strange to say, very little is done towards that end. Our houses are built with small porches, giving no protection to their sides, instead of deep piazzas and graceful verandahs through which the winds may play and cool themselves before they kiss our cheeks. Every native tree is swept down before the relentless axe, as if to court the sun, and in their places are gradually reared, with infinite pains, prim rows of Lombardy poplars, or groups of stunted altheas, or perchance a straggling tree of Heaven, that certainly has got out of Paradise. Nothing there that may produce shade or modify the glare and heat of the sun. No trees, casting their sweet foliage, like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land, over the roof; no vines creeping up and sheltering the sides; no shrubs intercepting the air and loading it with freshness and perfume as it passes on its errand of mercy. All is one broad glare of heat, searing the eyes, filling the atmosphere with a reflection hotter than the reality, and every day preparing within the house a furnace for the night. And as it is with our houses so is it with our grounds. We seem to forget that the direct heat of the sun is only a portion of that which we are called to bear; that every thing reflects heat, and that a surface of sand or clay will give out an infinitely larger portion of it than a surface of dew moistened and densely matted grass. But where are our lawns? Where are the green spots that are to relieve the eye and cheer the exhausted nature? There are literally none. A green sward is almost as rare in Georgia as a pavement of jasper. Not only is art seldom applied for this purpose, but nature is not permitted to do even the little which she desires.
One of the chief beauties of England, the most gorgeously cultivated country of the world, consists in what is called her park scenery and in her lawns. In plain language this means nothing more than such a disposition of trees and grass as shall best satisfy the eye of a man of taste. Now I do not mean to say that we could, by any process, rival the richness of the English parks and lawns, and for the single reason that we lack the dull skies and the humid atmosphere and the frequent rains of the sea girt isles; but an humble imitation and a distant approach would certainly be better than fields of broom-sedge and rows of withered cornstalks. And that approach we can make either by artificial or natural means. Let us consider both briefly.
If the desire is to have a perfect lawn, pains and labor will have to be bestowed upon it. Deep spading, a free use of lime where it does not exist in the soil, clean weeding, nice harrowing, a mixture of blue grass, white clover and English lawn seed rolled in plaster before planting, constant top dressings of plaster or charcoal, all these will be necessary, not once but often, to enable it to stand the heat of our suns, and the interminable droughts of our summers. What lawn, however prepared, could bear such a spring, summer and autumn as we have just passed through? But we must not reason from extremes and refuse to enjoy our many ordinary years, because an extraordinary one may intervene and blight our labor. In land prepared and dressed as above recommended a very fair lawn can be obtained. The white clover protects the other grasses for two or three years and then dies out leaving them to form the smooth body of the sward. To the labor above detailed must be added frequent scything and rolling with a heavy stone roller. All weeds and intrusive grasses must be carefully handpicked until you shall have destroyed all that was left in the original preparation of the soil. The seed ought to be placed in such a lawn by October, so as to give it a firm root and a steady growth before the trying heats of summer.
This is the artificial method, but there is one much more simple by which in two or three years nature will do the work and keep it done. Let me suppose that you have preserved around your dwelling some fifty or sixty acres of woodland, out of which you desire to make a park. Your first process would be to take out all the decayed and deformed trees and destroy them. Underbrushing would succeed to this and then a cleaning out of stumps and roots and the offal of the wood. When the surface shall have been rendered smooth, then take out the poorest and ugliest and most unpromising of the remaining trees so as to let in the sun and light in moderate degree upon the surface of the soil. This done, you have an open wood with a surface covered with fallen leaves. And here begins the lesson taught us by the Indians who preceded us in the possession of this fair country. They left us, when they ceded middle Georgia to us, one of the loveliest lands on which the eye could rest—long sweeps of open woodland, undulating and covered as far as the eye can reach with waving grass; no underbrush, no rubbish, but a rolling wooded prairie, such as may be seen, ere the white man utterly ruins it, in Illinois and Indiana. To produce this result Indian used fire and you must imitate his example. So soon as your leaves are dry enough to kindle put in fire and reduce the whole surface to ashes. Out of this grave will spring up what you are looking for, a native grass that will give you in a few years of repetition a very pretty sward, provided you will use the scythe upon it freely. This will not be, of course, such a lawn as the artificial one I have described, but it will afford a most delightful relief to the eye, and, covered with fine cattle, will give an idea, at least, of the English lawn.
Although I have already trespassed upon your patience, I must be permitted to add a few words upon the subject of Hedges. So long as the straggling Virginia fence is adhered to, and indeed any fence except it be an invisible one of wire, we shall always have a blot upon our landscapes. To obviate this we should every where substitute hedges, especially in the room of inner fences, such as surround and protect our dwellings and our gardens. We rejoice in an abundance of material for such an hedge. We have the cedar, the holly, the Cherokee, white microphilla and macartney roses, the privet, the osage orange, and in the lower country the cassina. Any of these form beautiful hedges, and are adapted for outer or inner fences according as one may desire.
Of these the cedar and the holly are evergreens, which gives them a vast superiority over the others. For inner hedges they should be always employed; but for outer hedges the osage orange and the white microphylla rose are unrivaled. Both these plants are vigorous growers, presenting an almost impenetrable barrier of wood and thorns against any assailant, and from April to November presenting to the eye a mass of richest green. They are both produced easily from cuttings—the osage orange from cuttings both of the branches and roots. I prefer the white microphylla rose very much to the cherokee, as it possesses all its good qualities and is not so straggling above nor ragged below. For planting out objects the macartney rose stands supreme; and for delicate tracery the privet and cassina are the most beautiful.
Before I close I would beg permission to suggest a few practical modes of elevating our horticultural position and taking our proper place among the societies which now grace almost every State. We have hitherto done very little systematically, let us strive now to gather and concentrate the individual energy which is toiling without sympathy and without countenance.
1. We have established in Macon a Central Horticultural Society for the State.21 Let this be the society around which shall spring up branch societies in all the towns of Georgia. Savannah, Columbus, Augusta, Athens and Milledgeville, are full of amateurs who need only the bond of a society to make them eminently useful. Let me urge it upon those cities to take the matter in hand and to form local societies which shall send up annually delegates to this central society to compare progress, interchange experience and promote the great ends of our union. While we should thus awaken a proper spirit in these localities, we should likewise act, through the Central Association, in harmony about all those points in which harmony is so requisite.
2. Let those Branch Societies, and the Central Society, invite at their meetings, literary contributions from their members upon points connected with Horticulture, details of interesting experiments, successful culture of particular flowers, fruits or vegetables, production of new varieties, etc. Let these papers be subject to the control of the Executive Committee of the respective societies, who shall publish such of them as they may deem important in some one of the agricultural papers of the State.
3. The arrangement of quarterly exhibitions in all these societies, and a general one of such things as may bear transportation at the annual State Fair. The winter exhibition should be for exotics; say camellias, azaleas, epiphyllums, etc. The spring exhibition for roses, hyacinths, tulips, amaryllis, together with such fruits as may mature at that season. The summer for all flowers belonging to that season, and for peaches, nectarine, etc. The fall may be merged in the Central State Fair, and include particularly apples and pears. The most suitable months, in our climate, would be the end of January and beginning of February for the winter exhibition; the end of April and beginning of May for the spring exhibition; the end of July and beginning of August for the summer. The period of the State Fair is probably now settled for this month.
4. The last means for the promotion of horticulture among ourselves, is the encouragement of nursery gardens at home. For the long and tedious experiments which are necessary for the determining of many points in Horticulture, a permanent establishment is necessary; one in which results can be noted over a long series of years and time be allowed for the testing of fruits, vegetables and flowers. To a certain extent this may be achieved by individuals, but not so perfectly as in nursery gardens. Besides, it is so convenient and such an encouragement to amateurs to have an establishment at hand where such things can be procured at little trouble and without the expense of agencies. Many a person would be deterred from improving his grounds or orchards by the difficulty of obtaining trees and plants from a distance, while if they were near at hand, he would often be tempted, without any previous inclination, to embark in the matter of Horticulture. Let every Horticulturist determine, therefore, as a duty which he owes to the science, to encourage the nursery gardens nearest to him and to cheer on those engaged in the enterprise. Such things must have their beginning every where, and if we intend to make a new era in the science, we must purchase every thing at home that can be obtained. The result will be, that from the superiority of climate and soil, much finer plants can be furnished at the same price, and plants too having the advantage of being acclimated, and without the risk of removal. It might be a matter of consideration with the Horticultural Societies how far they would encourage beginners by loans of money and temporary assistance; for it requires some years before a nursery garden can be made profitable. It is very gratifying to me to be able to state that such nurseries are springing up in the neighborhood of our principal towns, and promise in time to be useful and profitable.
I have not deemed it necessary, in an address like this, to prove the advantages, the uses, or the enjoyments of horticulture. I have taken these points for granted, and have proceeded in my discussion upon the grounds that my audience fully agreed with me in those respects. I may have been too sanguine in my conclusions; and if I have, must beg you to pardon my mistake, for it has arisen only out of my own ardent love for every thing connected with the beauties of nature. It was born with me; it has grown with my growth, and strengthened with my advancing life; it has been a source of health, of contentment, of rich enjoyment to me; and in the midst of cares and responsibilities of no ordinary nature, I have always found relief from the pressure of thought and the burden of anxiety in my gardens and among my flowers. It has opened before me higher views of the beneficence of my Creator, and has taught me the important lesson—a lesson which cannot be too much impressed upon an utilitarian age—that over and above the useful, the profitable, the necessary, God has deemed it wise to surround his creatures with the beautiful, the picturesque, the sublime. Let us imitate his wisdom, and while we neglect none of the duties of life, nor evade any of its responsibilities, let us surround ourselves and our children with those rich appliances of nature and art which gratify the taste, which elevate the feelings, which teach us to look from nature up to nature’s God. Like all the highest blessings of his providence—the air, the water, the sun—God has placed flowers and fruits within the reach of every one of his creatures, and there is no homestead so poor, no plot of ground so small, but that it may be made with a little labor and a little care redolent with beauty and perfume. May the time soon come, when over the length and breadth of the land we shall find taste, beauty, ornament mingled with the necessities of life, and a glory of art corresponding in some measure with the glory of nature—when man shall aspire to imitate his Maker, and beautify rather than disfigure the great temple wherein he has placed us for worship, amid the richness of his own tracery and the grandeur of his own handiwork.
*It is probably the same as the Pace Peach of our Eastern Counties.
*Der vollkemmen Orangerie. Gartner, 1815.
† Traite du Genre Citrus. Savonna, 1818.
§ Historie Naturelle des orangers par Risso at Poisseau. Paris Folio, 1818.
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