I was pleased to read the address of "Viator" to the various Horticultural Societies in your last number, and trust the different successful associations will move in the matter of experimental gardens. Horticultural magasines and horticultural societies have done a vast deal towards the present advanced stage of American gardening; but to roe it seems that both of these combined are not able to effect so much good as the example of a well conducted garden would, Bo far as our society is concerned, I do not think there is one who has taken the least interest in its success, who is not of the same opinion 5 indeed, it is a subject which, as a body, they bare often had under consideration, and which they have long looked forward to as a cherished object I have not been connected with the management or business affairs of the society sufficiently to understand the reasons why something of the kind has not been attempted ere this; but I judge I am not far wrong in the impression that it is either from a fear that their resources are inadequate to its establishment, or that they bare a doubt as to its power to sustain it afterwards.

Should I prove correct in my surmises, and it turn out that there are really no other objections, I shall begin to hope that, with the assistance of a few snob friends as "Viator," the day is not far distant when I shall enjoy a ramble through "The Society's Garden." If the resources are limited, we have only to keep within their bounds. It is not prudent, even with large resources, to begin too largely at first. An establishment of say four or ten acres, thoroughly well kept, and in a prosperous state, would draw around it more support than a princely affair that, with difficulty, eked out a beggarly ex-istence. Though everything should not be attempted at once, whatever was begun should be completed in the most perfect manner, and sustained with liberality and judgment 80 far as it went, it should be a model of its kind. If our society will only attempt it, there need be no fear of the result. If their finances are too low, an appeal to the citizens judiciously made would be liberally responded to. Once started, and on a proper basis, it would, I am ante, flourish by its own vital force, and with very little external aid.

As a member of the Pennsylvania Society, these suggestions are made to it particularly from a pride I should naturally feel in seeing it the first to more in the matter. I do hope, however, that either it or the equally prosperous ones of Massachusetts, Cincinnati, or Brooklyn, etc., will proceed to consider it, believing, as I do with "Viator," that there is nothing more capable of diffusing a popular taste for gardening than such establishments.

In conclusion, Mr. Editor, allow me to compliment yon on the support yon have given your correspondent. Had your lamented founder, Downing, lived, we should have had something of the kind ere this. But a short time before his death, he was so impressed With the importance of such an establishment that it was a constant theme of conversation with him; and, if I mistake not, he penned a powerful essay on the subject but a few months before the catastrophe on board, the " Henry Clay." You could not just now offer a fitter tribute to his memory than to revive, encourage, and stimulate this, one of his pet projects.

[We are pleased to find this subject is attracting attention; sooner or later we must have such gardens, and the sooner the better. If not undertaken by societies, we would call attention to a plan, formerly suggested, of a few gentlemen uniting for such a purpose. In regard to exhibitions, the first step has yet to be taken for a competition in boilers, and all sorts of heating apparatus, collections of garden implements and tools, machines, glass-ware, protecting materials, cement work, flower-pots and vases, garden engines and syringes, wheelbarrows, hand-pumps, transplanting machines, wire netting, famigators, scrapers, etc etc, and even greenhouses themselves. - Ed].

Experimental Gardens #1

A correspondent, whose suggestions we always value, asks us if the idea of an experimental garden is given up, and why. To this the answer is easy. In an early number of our labors, the topic was discussed, and made its impression, but, so far, it has resulted only in the conviction of the propriety of such an effort, which, we are happy to know, is gaining ground. The triumph which such a plan, properly carried out, would give to any one of our great cities, can scarcely be appreciated, any more than the benefits to the public. It would afford an example which thousands - aye, hundreds of thousands - would annually visit and profit by. It is not to be put down by a cynical frown. Things barely of use are subjects for professional skill and scientific inquiry; they must also be beautiful and pleasing, to attract common attention, and to be naturally and universally interesting. The progress of civilisation and refinement is from instrumental to final causes; from supplying the wants of the body to providing luxuries for the mind.

To stop at the mechanical, and refuse to proceed to the fine arts, or churlishly to reject all ornamental studies and elegant accomplishments as mean and trivial, because they only afford employment to the imagination, create food for thought, furnish the mind, sustain the soul in health and enjoyment, is a rude and barbarous theory.

It has been said that an experimental garden would injure the business of the nurseryman. This is on a par with the old axiom, now utterly exploded, that machinery injures labor. It would be exactly the reverse. The education which its visitors would receive at every visit, would create an immense demand for what is now only sold occasionally.

We are sure that the intelligent portion of the trade would not only feel an interest in such'a project as we are advocating, but we know many that would take an interest and shares, and by every means in their power assist it. It is just such means combined as they possess that we want, to make a perfect thing.

We have heard a poor painter decry the introduction into America of the finest works of art. "Let us," he said, " encourage our own painters first !" But this cannot be until a taste for good pictures is taught by excellent examples; there will be no taste, and painting will forever be in inferior hands, because (there being no educated taste) there can be no demand for excellence. A man who has frequented the Dresden Gallery, will detect at a glance a miserable daub, whether he see it in Italy or his own parlor. It is so in gardening. Those who have never seen a fine garden, or acquired a love for fine and rations trees, are content all their lives with inferiority, because their taste has never been stimulated or educated*

Nature is not limited, nor does it become effete, like our conceit and vanity. The closer we examine it, the more it refines upon us. It expands as we enlarge and shift our view; it "grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength," and our capacity is invigorated as it is called out by occasion and necessity. He who does nothing, renders himself incapable of doing anything; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another. The principles are the same in all nature, and we understand them better as we verify them by experience and practice. Expenditure of intellectual wealth makes us rich; by lying idle as by standing still, we are confined to the same trite, narrow round of topics. By continuing our efforts, as by moving forwards in a road, we extend our views, and discover, continually, new tracts of country. Humanity rusts for want of use.

The application is this: We can name more than one horticultural society whose exhibitions no longer pay expenses; the public have become satiated with the repetition of the same repasts; they want something new, and something new they will have. The exhibitions have educated the publio up to a certain point; we now want progress. We should show them what can be done; what beauties can be developed in a garden; out of doors exhibitions, and a band of music, amid the best productions of trees, flowers, and lawns. With these, horticulture, arboriculture, floriculture, would make new strides in our country, learn to run, and not walk lazily along as is now fearfully the case. As Boon as one of our cities shows an experimental garden properly founded, it will be the fashion everywhere, just as it was only necessary to show one example of a good rural cemetery, to introduce them all over our land. The city that first takes the lead, will be the most benefited; the stockholders will reap a rich reward in the rise of their land, and so forth, and all will ultimately acknowledge it a better, more useful, and more profitable scheme - more educating than a dozen Academies of Music, however valuable they may be in their place.

If it should even prove partially unprofitable, in a pecuniary view (which, with judicious management, it would not), that man or that city which founds it, will be a public benefactor.

Josiah Stickney, the new President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, said in his speech on his election: - "I look also to the establishment of an experimental garden, whenever our means may permit, and circumstances favor it, as one of the best and most effective means of promoting the objects of the society, and one that should never be lost sight of".