HORTENSIUS. 243 HORTICULTURE. HORTENSIUS, lii'ir-tfii'shli'is, QnNTi's (c.3jO-JSti U.C.). A Roman Icfrisliitor. His Lex ilorlcnsiii, passed in his diotatursbip (280), de- cTct'il that the laws passed by the plebs were binding on the whole people, and brought to an en<l the struggle between plebeians and patri- cians. HiirtcM-ius die<l while he was dictator. HORTENSIUS, Qvi-ntis (b.c. 114-50). A Roman advocate and orator, a contemporarj' of Cicero, with whom he was personally on good terms, though opposed in politics, and often niatched against him in legal contests. Horten- sius had already obtained a name as an orator before he was twenty, and he passed through the several grades of the public service until he ob- tained the consulship in B.C. Gil; afterwards he withdrew largely from politics and devoted liim- sclf to pleading in the courts. He was an elTec- live, though florid, orator, but often showed him- self unscrupulous in attaining his ends. None of his orations or writings have been preserved. HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES. Associa- tions for tlie eni'iiuragcnicnl of ganlcning. They fire now numerous in almost all civilized coun- tries, but seem to derive their origin only from the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the London Horticviltural Society was formed. The society obtained a charter in 1S08. The E.- perimentai Garden of the society, the first of its kind, was established in 1817, and was removed to its present situation at Chiswick in 1822. The progress of the society was very rapid, and its usefulness is still very great. Societies of the same kind soon began to spring up in Germany and other parts of the Continent of Europe, and now e.ist in almost all parts of the civilized world. In the I'nitcd .States there are about five himdred horticultural societies. The New York Horticultural Society, organized in 1818, and now extinct, was the first to come into existence. The American Poniological Society, established in 1850, is now one of the strongest organizations of its kind in the world. The purpose of these societies is education and the development of interest along horticultural lines. HORTICULTURE (from Lat. hortus. garden + ciiltiirii. cultivation, from rolrrc, to cultivate). The branch of general agriculture that deals with the raising of fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plants. On the one hand, horticulture merges into agriculture in its restricted sense, i.e. tha raising of cereal, forage, textile, and root crops; on the other into landscape gardening, which is really a fine art. To illustrate, peas raised to be used as an esculent are classed as a horti- cultural crop, but if grown for the dry seed they are considered an agricultural crop: the names 'garden peas' and 'field peas' sufTiciently indicate the distinction. Again, plants raised for their intrinsic ornamental merit are properly .subjects of horticulture (see Florici-i.ttre and FoR- ESTRV) ; but if their primarj' use is as units in a general landscape efTect, they are subjects of landscape gardening (q.v.). While the devel- opment of agriculture, in the restricted sense of the term, springs from sheer necessity, that of horticulttire. which ser-es to gratify the sense of beauty and the desire for comfort, naturally im- plies a state of communal or national ease, of thrift, and even luxury-. This fact is emphasized by the time at which horticulture becomes in- dustrially important in a nation's history. For it attains commercial importance in a community only when the pioneer days have passed, when the rugged soil has been educated by the practices of general farming, and prosperity seeks new channels by diversification of interests. But horticulture is really much less simple than may be inferred from the ordinary definition of its scope. Problems of plant physiologj-, of breeding and variation of plants under domesti- cation, of the operation within its domain of natural laws in opposition or in conjunction, of the life histories of innumerable organisms, such as insects, mites, bacteria, anil microscopic fungi, are closely connected with the ordinary jirolilems of horticulture proper, and render it an art of great complexity. Further, with its growth, which, especially in America, has been phenome- nal, many industries, such as the nursery and the seed industries; the manufacture of tools and implements; of artificial fertilizers; baskets, bar- rels, tins, jars, and other packages; the prepara- tion of canned, evaporated, or otherwise preserved fruits and vegetables; storage by refrigeration; the transportation of all materials for manufac- ture and of the finished product — these and ether industries have either sprung into existence or have been vastly increased in magnitude willi the development of horticulture. Moreover, since each of its branches may l>e carried on in the open air or under glass by sjx'cialists; since each species, and in many instances each variety, cul- tivated, demands some special knowledge of its peculiar needs; since a total of fully 25.000 plants, some of which have thousands of varieties, are cultivated for use or ornament ; since cli- mates, soils, and other conditions dilTer as widely as do details of raising; since markets are as whimsical in their demands as persons: and finally, since improvements and discoveries in plants, varieties, methods of culture, marketing, etc., are annually reported, it is apparent that the realm of horticulture is exceedingly broad. The main divisions of horticulture are flori- culture, or flower-growing; pomology, or fruit- growing; and olericulture, or vegetable-growing. Each of these divisions may be further subdivided into amateur and conuncrcial branches, the for- mer dealing with personal ideals, the latter with commercial demands. Of course, these two are blended to some extent, and it should be noted that examples of the fonner arc annually in- creasing to the no small advantage of the com- munity, the nation, and the world. The ancient methods of gardening were so crude, the means of disposal so limited, and the areas devoted to horticultural industry, if such it might be called, so small that the tenn horti- culture, as now understood, if applied to that early gardening would be a misnomer. Not until within the past two hundred years was the term more than occasionally employed, and only during the past century did it come into gen- eral use. As proof of the interest taken in horti- cultural matters during the nineteenth century may be mentioned the development in America of a horticultural literature. In 1800 there were very few agricultural works that devoted more than a few chapters or even pages to fruits and vegetables. The first American horticultural book was published in 1804. Not only was there at the time no periodical devoted wholly to horticulture, but there was none that had even a horticultural department. Not until 1821
