The field and garden vegetables of America : $b containing full descriptions of nearly eleven hundred species and varieties; with directions for propagation, culture, and use.

In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. BOSTON: PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 5, WATER STREET TO HON. ALBERT FEARING, President of the Hingham Agricultural and Horticultural Society, WHOSE EARNEST LABORS AND LIBERAL CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY HAVE ENDEARED HIS NAME TO THE AGED POOR AND TO ORPHAN CHILDREN, AND WHOSE ACTIVE SERVICES HAVE EXERTED SO BENEFICIAL AN INFLUENCE ON AGRICULTURAL PURSUITS IN HIS NATIVE TOWN, This Volume is gratefully and respectfully Dedicated BY THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. Though embracing all the directions necessary for the successful management of a Vegetable Garden, the present volume is offered to the public as a manual or guide to assist in the selection of varieties, rather than as a treatise on cultivation. Through the standard works of American authors, as well as by means of the numerous agricultural and horticultural periodicals of our time, all information of importance relative to the various methods of propagation and culture, now in general practice, can be readily obtained. But, with regard to the characteristics which distinguish the numerous varieties; their difference in size, form, color, quality, and season of perfection; their hardiness, productiveness, and comparative value for cultivation,—these details, a knowledge of which is important as well to the experienced cultivator as to the beginner, have heretofore been obtained only through sources scattered and fragmentary. To supply this deficiency in horticultural literature, I have endeavored, in the following pages, to give full descriptions of the vegetables common to the gardens of this country. It is not, however, presumed that the list is complete, as many varieties, perhaps of much excellence, are comparatively local: never having been described, they are, of course, little known. Neither is the expectation indulged, that all the descriptions will be found perfect; though much allowance must be made in this respect for the influence of soil, locality, and climate, as well as for the difference in taste of different individuals. Much time, labor, and expense have been devoted to secure accuracy of names and synonymes; the seeds of nearly all of the prominent varieties having been imported both from England and France, and planted, in connection with American vegetables of the same name, with reference to this object alone. The delay and patience required in the preparation of a work like the present may be in some degree appreciated from the fact, that in…