Pleasant Talk About Fruits, Flowers and Farming

No one of our readers will be half so curious to know what this book contains as the author himself. For it is more than twelve years since these pieces were begun, and it is more than ten years since we have looked at them. The publishers have taken the trouble to dig them out from what we supposed to be their lasting burial-place, in the columns of the Western Farmer and Gardener, and they have gone through the press without our own revision.

It is now twenty years since we settled at Indianapolis, the capital of Indiana, a place then of four, and now of twenty-five thousand inhabitants. At that time, and for years afterward, there was not, within our knowledge, any other than political newspapers in the State—no educational journals, no agricultural or family papers. The Indiana Journal at length proposed to introduce an agricultural department, the matter of which should every month be printed, in magazine form, under the title, Indiana Farmer and Gardener, which was afterward changed to the more comprehensive title, Western Farmer and Gardener.

It may be of some service to the young, as showing how valuable the fragments of time may become, if mention is made of the way in which we became prepared to edit this journal.

The continued taxation of daily preaching, extending through months, and once through eighteen consecutive months, without the exception of a single day, began to wear upon the nerves, and made it necessary for us to seek some relaxation. Accordingly we used, after each weeknight’s preaching, to drive the sermon out of our heads by some alterative reading.

In the State Library were Loudon’s works—his encyclopedias of Horticulture, of Agriculture, and of Architecture. We fell upon them, and, for years, almost monopolized them.

In our little one-story cottage, after the day’s work was done, we pored over these monuments of an almost incredible industry, and read, we suppose, not only every line, but much of it many times over; until, at length, we had a topographical knowledge of many of the fine English estates quite as intimate, we dare say, as was possessed by many of their truant owners. There was something exceedingly pleasant, and is yet, in the studying over mere catalogues of flowers, trees, fruits, etc.

A seedsman’s list, a nurseryman’s catalogue, are more fascinating to us than any story. In this way, through several years, we gradually accumulated materials and became familiar with facts and principles, which paved the way for our editorial labors. Lindley’s Horticulture and Gray’s Structural Botany came in as constant companions. And when, at length, through a friend’s liberality, we became the recipients of the London Gardener’s Chronicle, edited by Prof. Lindley, our treasures were inestimable. Many hundred times have we lain awake for hours, unable to throw off the excitement of preaching, and beguiling the time with imaginary visits to the Chiswick Garden, to the more than oriental magnificence of the Duke of Devonshire’s grounds at Chatsworth. We have had long discussions, in that little bedroom at Indianapolis, with Van Mons about pears, with Vibert about roses, with Thompson and Knight of fruits and theories of vegetable life, and with Loudon about everything under the heavens in the horticultural world.

This employment of waste hours not only answered a purpose of soothing excited nerves then, but brought us into such relations to the material world, that, we speak with entire moderation, when we say that all the estates of the richest duke in England could not have given us half the pleasure which we have derived from pastures, waysides, and unoccupied prairies.

If, when the readers of this book shall have finished it, they shall say, that these papers, well enough for the circumstances in which they originally appeared, have no such merit as to justify their republication in a book form, we beg leave to tell them that their judgment is not original. It is just what we thought ourselves! But Publishers are willful and must be obeyed!

BROOKLYN, June 1, 1859.

CONTENTS.

[In the Hudson River, nearly opposite Peekskill, and in the very jaws of the “Race” (as the narrow passage through the Highlands is called), there is a small, rocky island, by the name of IONA. The name was borrowed from across the water, by Dr. C. W. Grant’s father-in-law, who owned this gem,—for gem it was and is for those who love rocks, glades, fine old trees, and absolute seclusion.

But who ever would have thought of such a place for vineyards? Yet, Iona became the very Jerusalem of grape-vines. Dr. C. W. Grant, formerly of Newburgh, purchased the island, and, adopting the then new grape,—the Delaware,—commenced propagating it for commercial purposes. It may be fairly said that no man in America ever gave to grape culture a greater impulse than Dr. Grant. Abundant sales at length brought in abundant revenues. But his ideas expanded with his means, and outran them.

The island was to become another Paradise. Here the magnolia was to be propagated in such numbers that every man in America could have it in his yard, holding white cups filled with perfume to his windows. The rhododendron was to be sent forth to every farm. New grapes were originated. Every year developed its own marvel. But whether it was pear, Downing’s mulberry, grape, or ornamental tree, the good democratic heart of Dr. Grant intended no narrower field than the continent. Men were to be raised to a higher level by familiarity with better and better grapes. The taste was to be refined. Every creature under the western heavens was to sit under his own grape-vine, and not under one alone, but a whole vineyard of them.

Health failed. Business got tangled. The kind doctor sold out. He is gone from his vineyards. The island remains. One of these days, in the hands of some one who unites taste and thrift with abundant means, it will become a marvel of beauty.

But it will hardly have a pleasanter day than when, in 1864, were gathered there two score or more of ladies and gentlemen,—not a few of them famous in art, in literature, in music, in pomology, and in sanguine plans of fruit culture,—for a good time. Among the contributions to the general amusement, I was appointed Orator to discourse upon The Apple, and the address was to have been published, together with minutes of the proceedings, other speeches, and various interesting matter. But years passed on without progress toward publication. What has become of other things I know not, but this apple-talk has been fished up and saved. I fear it will never again be as fresh or as powerful as in its first estate. For there now hangs upon my cellar wall a huge pan, lacking but a few inches of three feet in diameter, upon which the ladies who had heard the address established and perfected an apple-pie,—sent to me for New Year’s Day of 1865,—of so rare a spirit that every one of the hundreds who tasted it declared it to be as good as it was large. Alas! the pan remains, and the poetry which came singing its merits; but the pie,—where is it? So, too, the island of the Hudson stands secure; but where are the joyous people that thronged it on that autumn day?]

THE ADDRESS.

I am to discourse of the apple to an audience, many of whom know much more about it than I do, and all of them full as much. It does not, on that account, follow that I should not speak. What a terrible blow would fall upon all professions if a teacher should be forbidden to speak upon things of which he knew nothing, and to an audience who knew more about them than he! One large part of the duty of a teacher is to remind his hearers of how much they know, and tempt them to a better use of their knowledge. Instruction is one thing, and important in its place; but the inspiration of men to a good use of the things that they already know is far more needed.

While the character of the ladies and gentlemen present makes it proper for me to hide, with due modesty, my knowledge of the apple in the department of culture, there is what may be called the Political Economy of the Apple, by which I mean the apple in its relation to domestic comfort and commerce; and on that subject I think I can speak, if not to edification, at least without fear of being tracked and cornered.

The apple is, beyond all question, the American fruit. It stands absolutely alone and unapproachable, grapes notwithstanding. Originating in another hemisphere, neither in its own country, nor in any other to which it has been introduced, has it flourished as in America. It is conceded in Europe that, for size, soundness, flavor, and brilliancy of coloring, the American apple stands first,—a long way first.

But it is American in another sense. This is a land in which diffusion is the great law. This arises from our institutions, and from the character which they have imprinted upon our people. In Europe, certain classes, having by their intelligence and wealth and influence the power to attract all things to themselves, set the current from the center toward the surface. In America, the simple doctrines that the common people are the true source of political power, that the government is directly responsible to them, and therefore that moral culture, intelligence, and training in politics are indispensable to the common people, on whom every state is to rest safely, have wrought out such results that in all departments of justice and truth, as much as in politics, there is a tendency toward the popularizing of everything, and learning, or art, or any department of culture, is made to feel the need of popularity; a word which is very much despised by classicists, but which may be used in a sense so large as to make it respectable again. Things that reach after the universal, that include in them all men in their better and nobler nature, are in a proper sense popular; and in this country, amusement and refinement and wealth itself, first or last, are obliged to do homage to the common people, and so to be popular. Nor is it otherwise in respect to horticulture. Of fruits, I think this, above all others, may be called the true democratic fruit. There is some democracy that I think must have sprung from the first apple. Of all fruits, no other can pretend to vie with the apple as the fruit of the common people. This arises from the nature of the tree and from the nature of the fruit.