Horticulture

The plant is the basic source of all food and consequently the determining factor in life. The fundamental process of photosynthesis,by which the plant is able to combine water and carbon water and carbon dioxide to form sugar, permits the synthesis of the more complex compounds by the plant and the use of these compounds by man and the lower animal to sustain their life processes. From the earliest time, when herdsmen sought and processes. From the earliest times, when herdsmen sought and protected grass for their heard up to present period of diverse plant form, man has always had a fundamental interest in the production and care pf plants.

As soon as some adventurous soul found a fruit, a berry or a plant to be edible, it immediately became an object of solicitous attention. The best type were selected and propagated by any means available,

usually seeds, with the result that many new forms were constantly coming into being from which better selections could be made. Over a long period of years, this precess of selection and preparation of new and better types has resulted in an array of plant materials that is lavish beyond the imagination of earlier generation.

As man began to grow these plants in gardens, he became aware of the beauty that develops in any systematic and well-cared -for planting. He began to seek and select flowering plants, ornamental shrubs, and trees of all kinds and to blend them into pleasing landscapes. This later development of ornamental horticulture has expanded with ever-increasing enthusiasm. with all the magnificent of earlier gardens of both past and present, there is little reason to doubt that even greater achievements will be made in this field in the future.