HORTICULTURE (front Lat. hortuR. garden ± culture, cultivation, front colere, 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. the 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 he used as an esculent are classed as a horti cultural crop. but if grown for the dry seed they are considered an agrieultural crop: the names `garden peas' and 'field peas' sufficiently indicate the distinction. Again, plants raised for their intrinsic ornamental merit are properly subjects of horticulture (see FLORICULTURE and FOR EsTRY) ; but if their primary use is as units in a general landscape effect, 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 Horticulture. which serves 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 hortieulture becomes in dustrially important in a nation's history. For it, attains commercial importance in a community only \Olen the pioneer days have passed, NV hICII the rugged soil has been educated by the practices of general farming, nod 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 physiology, 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. mit cc, bacteria, and microscopic fungi, are closely connected with the ordinary problems 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 bther industries have either sprung into existence or have been vastly increased in magnitude with the development of horticulture. Moreover, since each of its branches may he carried on in the open air or under glass by specialists; since each species, and in many instances each variety, cul tivated, demands some special knowledge of its peculiar needs; since a total of fully 2.5.000 plants. some of which have thousands of varieties, are cultivated for use or ornament ; since cli mates, soils. and other conditions differ as widely as do details of raising; since markets are as whimsieal 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 flo•er-growing; pomologv, or fruit growing; and olerieulture, or vegetable-growing. Each of these divisions may be further subdivided into amateur and eommereial branches, the for mer dealing with personal ideals, the latter with commercial demands. Of course, these two are blended to sonic extent, and it should be noted that examples of the former are annually in creasing to the no small advantage of the com munity, the nation, and the world.
The aneient methods of gardening were so crude, the means of disposal so limited, and the areas devoted to horticultural industry. if such it might lie called, so small that the term horti culture, as now understood, if applied to that early gardening would he 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 conic 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 ISO° there were very few agricultural works that devoted more than a few chapters or even pages to fruits and vegetable:. The first American horticultural book was published in MI. 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 did a horticultural column appear in the Massa chusetts Agricultural Repository, the first agri cultural journal printed in America. During the nineteenth century fully 600 books were published and 500 horticultural journals were started, of which about 40 were in circulation in 1900. The tendency of recent horticultural literature has been to substitute for the long series of specific rules formerly popular a set of general principles, which, if thoroughly grasped, might enable the reader to judge as to what work ing method may best suit any given ease under any combination of local conditions. Outside of North America, during the past century, the de velopment of horticulture, though less marked, has been, nevertheless, very remarkable as com pared with previous centuries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. For history of horticulture in Bibliography. For history of horticulture in America and the bibliography of American hor ticulture, consult: Bailey, article "Horticulture," in Cyclopedia of American Horticulture (New York, 1900) ; for account of European horti culture, consult: Johnson, The History of English Gardening (London, 1829) ; Jager, Gartcnkunst and Garten, sonst and jetzt (Berlin, 1887) ; Huttig, Gesehichte des Gartenbaues (Berlin, 1899) ; Andre, historical chapters in L'art des jurdins (Paris, 1879) ; De Candolle, Origine des idantes cultirc'es (Paris. 1893).
For somewhat detailed discussions of special horticultural •topies, see: FRUITS, CULTIVATED;