66 



of glass are Inclosed, thus uniting durability with the advantage of 

 Sidmitting' the greatest quantity of light. The price of these iron 

 frames in England, where every thing is six times as expensive as 

 with us in Bavaria, amounts to no more than what we should pay for 

 a frame of wood that would not last above a year. The Horticultural 

 stoves contain many valuable plants from China and Sierra Leone ; 

 brought by Mr. Don's brother, wlio had resided there for some time. 

 So fine a collection of Roses exists ho where else ; the celebrated Mr. 

 Sabine, who is secretary to the Society, having been engaged in 

 studying this tribe for almost thirty years. They are arranged in 



I 



large squares ;" one might almost say, in small groves of roses, native 

 and foreign, single and double. On comparing this garden with j 

 those of the ancient universities of Cambridge and Oxford, one can- 



* 



not for a moment hesitate in declaring the superior influence that 

 this must have in benefiting the country ; although it has only been 

 formed within these few years, by the joint exertions of a few private 



individuals 



d 



ftfuch more a well-directed Society of spirited men can effect in ten 

 or twelve years, with the small sum of about 60,000 florins, raised 

 among themselves, than has been performed by the two great learned 

 bodies of the kingdom, with their millions. Whoever doubts th6 

 influence which the Horticultural Society has produced on the nation, 

 or who thinks that our ideas of its value are over-rated, we would 

 advise him to attend one of their sittmgs, and there to see what is 

 done by the members of this institution; and then,' like that wisest oi 

 the Apostles, Thomas, when he shall have weighed in his hand what 

 is sent thither, when he shall have tasted of the fruit, and inhaled 

 the rich perfiime diffused by pines, peaches and nectarines, he' will 

 perhaps satisfy himself that it is not all a phantasmagoria. We had 

 the honour of being present at a meeting of the Society in September 



L 



1824, and we must confess that although conversant with the rear- 

 ing of fruit for almost forty years, we had never beheld finer peachesj 

 nectarines, plums, melons, grapes and pine-apples, than we saw here. 

 We had been much disappointed in the London fruit-markets, where 

 we certainly saw uncommonly fine-looking fruit j but on tasting, found 

 them to be acid or insipid, compared with the produce of our south- 

 ern hemisphere, in Tyrol, the South of France, and Lower Hungary- 



_i- 



