uit and fruit-trees, together with the wonderful
horticultural improvements which are daily taking place, have brought
richer and better kinds of fruit more or less within the reach even of
our poorest cottagers--when every little valley among the hills is
enriched with its beautiful orchards, and every farmhouse and cottage
may boast its luscious plum or cherry trees, and its row of bright
fruited raspberry or strawberry plants--when all thrifty housewives
may, at small expense, have their little store of pleasant jams and
jellies made from fruits which used to be beyond the reach of even our
island kings, and the 'sedulous bees' located on every homestead
present us with their amber sweets--we can perhaps scarcely
appreciate the real importance which must have attached to these now
comparatively worthless fruits at a time when the land on which our
most populous cities stand was covered by woods and brakes, nay, in
many places by thick, tangled forests, or wild and deep morasses. But,
even now, these fruits are treasures to the cotter and the child, as
we shall see in the course of our discussion; and even to persons of
more luxurious habits, several of those that I have named are of value
and importance. Let us first look at those which rank under the
natural order _Rosaceae_, under which head we shall find the greatest
number of our English fruit-bearing plants. We will give a little
botanical sketch of the general characteristics of this order, as
elucidatory of what we may hereafter have to say before we proceed to
the details of any of its members. The chief of these characteristics
are, that in the order _Rosaceae_ the calyx is in most cases formed of
five lobes, _with the petals and stamens rising from it_, the latter
being generally numerous; the ovaries are several, or solitary, each
of one cell, including, in most cases, one ovule or incipient seed--in
some cases many--the style being lateral or terminal. Most flowers
thus formed produce edible and harmless fruits. Loudon says: 'The
ligneous species, which constitute this order, include the finest
flowering shrub in the world--the rose--and trees which produce the
most useful and agreeable fruit of temperate climates--namely, the
apple, pear, plum, cherry, apricot, peach, and nectarine;' and he
might have included the medlar and service trees. Now, this vast order
is subdivided into several sub-orders or sections, under the first of
which are classed all whos