We have visited in our time very many nurseries both East and West. We have seen those East where the elaboration of landscape gardening was made to add effect to and set off the nursery stock grown. We have seen West hundreds of acres covered with stock in a single nursery. Yet we have never seen the perfection of details coupled with strict accuracy as to name in the varieties of stock grown, united to evenness and vigor in growth, nor a stricter method displayed in adaptation of varieties suited to the climate of the West, added to the most perfect cultivation and handling of stock, than at the premium nurseries of Spaulding & Co., near Springfield, Ill. These nurseries, covering 375 acres originally, of first-class land, were thoroughly tile-drained, at heavy expense before anything was planted thereon, the land having been first cleaned and stumped of its timber. Thus, the groundwork having been laid for a great and model nursery, under the management of Mr. J. B. Spaulding, a well-known nurseryman of many years’ standing in Illinois, and whose practical experience from a critical standpoint is perhaps broader than that of any man in the West, it is not strange that whenever entered for premium before the State Board of Agriculture, such should have been unanimously awarded by the committee of examination. This, however, the records of the board will show. In speaking of the artistic adornment of some old and extensive nurseries East, we find this difference: In the nurseries of Mr. J. B. Spaulding the useful is never lost sight of. Mere ornament is not what strikes the visitor, and yet the nursery is one beautiful picture in its varied and blending colors of fruit, flowers, and foliage; for the orchard and garden are by no means neglected—the visitor can find the fruits themselves, the crucial test. It is worth the journey to see. The immense stock, the ample building, the splendid drives, the office connected with the Western Union Telegraph lines by telephone, and everything pertaining to the great nursery, is kept in the most perfect condition. Blight and borers are strangers to their 10,000 orchard trees of pear, peach, chestnut, and apples, all of varieties unexcelled, and adapted to the soil and climate of the West. The real gist of the whole, however, lies in the record of sales of this nursery for the fall delivery just closed, which amounts to nearly $120,000.