air, improper food and drink, venturesome and uncertain monied enterprises, and their consequent failures and downcast and burdened spirits, are the fertile pestilences that infest the earth, and send large brained men with paralysis and heart disease to premature graves; that steal the vital strength from millions of suffering mothers, and crowd the burdened cemetery with little mounds whose frequency and tender associations tax the time of poets and sculptors to portray, and the labors of medicine to lessen. We offer as a solace to these evils and a great reformer of these errors, the single word and simple occupation of Horticulture. We bespeak the reflective moments of such as desire the blessings of a vigorous life, a healthful constitution and cheerful days for themselves, and a prospect of strength and success for their posterity.

We say first, then, that horticulture promises physical health in the opportunity it affords for the inhalation of a healthy atmosphere. Want of pure air is a fertile source of ill-health. How many thousands of our race are shut up in illy-ventilated rooms, day and night, artisans, mechanics, merchants, lawyers, clergymen, teachers, women, every one of them nearly. How limited their supply of pure oxygen. Every breath of a fullgrown man requires twenty inches of pure air; every hour 25,000 cubic inches; every day 600,000, or 350 cubic feet.

Think then of the rooms fourteen or sixteen feet square, and many not half that size, in which such multitudes of the human. family spend their lives; containing not one person only, but three, four and five in the same apartment and occupation, breathing over the same air, laden with poison of the effete matter cast off from their own systems, relieved only by what little oxygen can gain admittance by the few crevices which lead from these rooms to the outer world. And then compare their means of healthful lungs and pure blood with him who handles the pruning knife and saw in the open orchard; or the hoe and rake in the garden; or the trowel and scissors among the evening flowers.

The blood of the one becomes dark, and purple and sluggish, and his nerves torpid; the blood of the other is bright red, and leaps through the arteries like a young roe; warms the extremities, and mantles the cheek, and fills the expanded lungs, and goes laughing through all the avenues of the body, carrying joy and exultation to every nerve and fibre of the system.

What a relish such a morning bath of oxygen gives to the breakfast table, and what renewed strength and vigor to the system to enable it to throw off the poison of the necessary confine. ment of the day, or to bear up under the taxations of business as a artisan, or student or mechanic, or other indoor laborer. The leaves of vegatation exhale oxygen, the food of the lungs, and absorb carbonic acid gas, the cast-off poison of the blood; and hence to dwell among the leaves and blades and flowers is to

dwell among the fountains of life and the ever present messengers of health. Doubtless it was the Divine plan that man should not only sit under his own vine and fig tree, but that he should cultivate his own orchard and garden, that he might gain the trio of blessings, the reward from the labor of the cultivation itself, the pure and healthful air it furnishes to the lungs, and the sweet consciousness of the rightful ownership which such a purchase accords.

Horace Greeley once gave answer to the frequent calls of unoccupied youth, "Young man, go West." Had he said "Young man, go out into the orchard and garden and go to work with a will and with brains," then let him go east or west, north or south, and he will accumulate both wealth and health, happiness and a long life, and a good vigorous old age to crown his successful enterprise.

Horticulture furnishes good food. What records of suffering, and disease and death lie along the track of improper food. It is said that 60,000 drunkards drink themselves into dishonorable graves each year in our land. But we believe more than twice that number eat themselves into pain and disease and a thousand ills, and finally into the grave of a shortened life, every cycle of our planet. Improper and excessive food is the flaming sword cutting both ways, keeping men out of the paradise of health. But the products of the horticulturist are the most healthful of all foods. How the race takes on flesh and health and good cheer when the autumn comes, and the table and the store are laden with fresh fruits and vegetables from garden and orchard. "Give me fruit or I die," says the dyspeptic. "Go to the vineyard, thou frail woman," says the doctor, "and thy strength shall be renewed." No record has been made, or doubtless can be made (so great is the number), of those who have been saved a "fit of sickness," or relieved from the already present ravages of disease by the incoming of small fruits and the continued prolonging of the fruit season by the products of orchard and garden. Apples will cure dyspepsia; tomatoes will drive away the "liver complaint;" blackberries will stop dysentery and diarrhoea, and grapes are good for indigestion. There is scarcely a fruit which the horticulturist brings in his plentiful basket which has not in it some almoner of relief and element of strength for the waiting stomach and needy system of man. As a basket of flowers for man's æsthetic nature, so a basket of fruit for his physical nature. So appetizing, so relieving, so toning and invigorating to every tissue that its influence reaches. All hail to the good food from the orchard.

Horticulture is an employment which does not injure the health by its severity. Too severe toil is oftentimes the cause of ill health. The smithy, the foundryman, the lumberman, the mason, the coal digger, and even the husbandman, who clears a forest

farm, often live out less than half their days. Too hard labor has undermined their health and buried them ere their work was half accomplished. Horticulture, though requiring diligence which is healthful, yet makes no demand on severe exertion that breaks down the tissues. It is mild, invigorating labor. A weak man even may tend an orchard or a garden and grow stronger every day. Aye, weak woman, or a frail girl in her hasty growth can find a field here a thousand times more fertile of health and strength, and beauty and sweetness than ever existed in all the nauseating drugs, or hot fomentations, or cataplasms, or lounges and mattrasses, and perfumery, that have ever cheated the hopes and fostered the weakness of the human frame. The labor of fruit and garden culture is easy and entertaining. It is natural and instructive. It is healthful and lucrative. It breaks no bones. It sprains no ligaments. It exhausts no muscles. It ruptures no tissues. It does not bow the frame, nor cripple the limbs with toil. It does not wrinkle the face all over with premature furrows, and crowd the weary mind with discouragement and sadness, and laden the head with grey hairs long before the years of manhood are half spent, or the early born children are old enough to lift the burden from parental shoulders. It's labors are light and refreshing; quickening the powers of life, and pointing with unerring finger to a long, healthful, joyous old age. Horticulture is a means of recreation. Forest and garden culture furnishes one of the most delightful fields for the employment of unoccupied hours. The planting, nurturing, trimming, budding, grafting and shaping of orchard trees supply the hands with the means of healthful diligence. The study of their swelling buds and shooting leaves; the length and size of their branches; the shape and style of their general growth, the quality and quantity of their bearing, the times of their fruit ripening, the soil and protection needed for their best developement, and the climates in which they flourish, the numerous diseases to which they are subject, and their remedies, the parasites that prey upon each and the means of their destruction, the varieties adapted to several localities with which you may be interested, such are some of the many subjects for a pleasant and instructive occupation of the ready mind which the orchard affords, and thus it fills up the waiting hours with healthful, mental employment. And then out of all this diligence and study, come those full autumn gatherings that fill the barrels and please eye, and gratify the palate, and regale the stomach and refresh the winter evenings with wholesome fruit, that makes better blood, brain and muscle, and better man every way.

The kitchen garden, with its little demands and abundant rewards furnishes an excellent field for this purpose. The selecting, the dressing, the spading, the plotting, the planting, the frequent weedings, and several gatherings, all help to fill up the unoccupied

morning and evening moments, and chase away dyspepsia and the blues, and a thousand head aches, side aches and back aches, and stomach aches and mind aches, that brood and swarm around the indigestion and sluggish and burdened secretions of sedentary habits. And then the sweet, palateable and wholesome vegetables that come as a harvest of such occupation. What good blood they make. How easily do the organs of digestion convert them into the elements of human life. We do not look for the imps of disease in the wholesome products of the kitchen garden. Such a garden pays a double reward, in the healthfulness of its occupation, and the excellence of its products.

The flower garden is another field. It furnishes pleasing and and vigorous employment. Had we time and space here we might show you a perfect host of sweet angels of blessing that come up out of those floral spots of beauty, well planned and well tilled, by the side of the garden and fruit orchard, of a happy home. Hours unfilled with useful employment are an enemy to health. They burden digestion. They clog the physical reservoirs. They shorten life and hurry to an unsatisfactory grave. The garden and the orchard open their gates of relief and reward to such, and bid the captive enter, seize the opportunity and be free.

The employment of horticulture encourages cheerfulness of spirit, and hence is largely promotive of health. Anxiety to secure a livelihood cr competence kills its thousands and cripples its tens of thousands. Pursued with the usual persistency and amount of labor and study of ordinary farming, horticulture fails less frequently than general agriculture to yield a profitable result. As a monied business it pays better than almost any other husbandry. It has even earned for itself the appellation of lucrative business. It is therefore freer than any speculation can be from the wear and tear of mind; it gives a freer scope for rest of spirit. Nothing is so promotive of disease as corroding care and sickening, weakening, and preying anxiety; no angel of health so mighty as sweet peace of mind." A worthy editor of seventy-six years, informed us that he had not "suffered himself to be worried about anything for ten years, and for that whole length of time," said he, "I have never taken medicine, for I have never been sick; before this time I was frequently ill, but now, though beyond three-score and ten, every organ in my body is in perfect health and action, and all, I believe, because of my peace of mind." Aye, "sweet peace of mind." 'Twere better than a thousand nostrums; stronger than the power of Cæsar ; richer than the wealth of Rothchilds. And I venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that there is no occupation more favorable for producing such a calmness and satisfaction of mind than horticulture.

The floral plat of the horticulturist is full of good cheer. There

is no sadness in a flower. Who ever saw care and anxiety depicted on the face of a pansy or morning glory, or a violet or tulip; or even on the red and white visages that hang upon the lean and lank stalk of a hollyhock? Expressions are contagious, even of nature itself. There are few places like a morning stroll in a well cultivated flower garden to make a man feel good. The morning air, the sweet sunshine, the laughing flowers, are healthgiving, and shed their benedictions free as air on every one who will walk forth and take them. Who ever saw the sunshine in tears? or the sweet blossom in mourning? There is a gladness all through the flower garden, and over the orchard and ner surrounding forest trees. Even under autumns blighting frosts she puts on her richest attire, her scarlet and purple and golden robes, and when, at length she must bow to the voice of destiny, she quietly lets go her richly painted leaves, and scatters them freely, joyfully and profusely over the bosom of mother earth, and into the lap of him who has planted and nurtured her and gathered her golden fruit, and now waits under her outstretched branches to receive her last bequest of colored foliage, to refresh his memory, to sweeten his spirits, and to adorn his winter apartments with the emblems of the past. Beyond a doubt horticulture is an antidote to wasting care and sickening anxiety. There is a large healthfulness of spirits in the cultivation of fruits and vegetables and flowers. Look, then, at the array of blessings which this employment offers to man. It furnishes one of the best opportunities for securing a full supply of the purest atmosphere, the food of the lungs and the vitalizer of the blood. It is the natural, unfailing source of the best of food; it furnishes a good livelihood; its labors are light and strengthening; its occupation is like a recreation; its tendency to, and resources of healthfulness of mind are certain and inexhaustible. Thus she offers large, rich, and choicest gifts; healthful air, healthful food, healthful labor, healthful blood, healthful brain, healthful spirits, healthful body and mind, every way healthful man, the noblest work of of God. "Horticulture and Health!" They are almost synonyms. They are divinely wedded. What God hath joined together let not man put asunder.

Let us go, then, like Washington, reflect, believe, act and live. Let there be ten orchards where there is now one. Let fruit and vegetables become more largely our constant food. Let us have less pork and fine flour that burden the stomach and clog the secretions, and shorten and make miserable our lives, and have more grapes, apples, peaches, strawberries, currants, tomatoes and every vegetable and all manner of fruits small and great which our hands and health will permit us to raise, until the barrels and shelves and cans and cellar corners are filled with these wholesome products so divinely designed and given for the health and happiness of the race.