406 Biograjphy : — John Temyleton^ Esq, 



Arbuckle, with whom he carried on a frequent correspondence for some 

 years. These visits were only terminated by the death of Lord Clanbrassil, 

 in 1798. In 1796 Mr. Templeton paid a second visit to London, where 

 he was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, who took great notice of him ; and 

 then, or soon after, made him an offer to go to New Holland, with a salary 

 of 3 or 400/. a year, and a large grant of land ; but his attachment to his 

 aunt and sisters, with whom he lived before his marriage, as well as to his 

 native country, made him decline it, though the prospect it held out of 

 prosecuting his favourite study was very tempting. Mr. Brown, the distin- 

 guished author of the Prodromus of the Plants of New Holland, who went 

 to New Holland afterwards, was in the number of Mr. Templeton's friend* 

 and correspondents ; and expressed his sense of the services rendered by 

 Mr. Templeton to botany, by appropriating the name Templetonia to one 

 of his new genera. He also became acquainted with Doctor, now Sir J. 

 E. Smith, president of the Linnean Society, the Rev. Dr. Goodenough, 

 late Bishop of Carlisle, with Aylmer Bourke Lambert, Esq., author of a 

 splendid and valuable work on the genus Pinus, Mr.Sowerby, Mr. Curtis, 

 and others, besides renewing his acquaintance with Dr. Shaw and Mr. 

 Dickson; and with many of these he afterwards corresponded. Lord 

 Clanbrassil was in London at that time, and Mr. Templeton's letters show 

 that he enjoyed his visit much, though glad to return to his domestic occu- 



Eations. Previously to this visit, he had made some communications to the 

 linnean Society, which were well received. One of them was on the 

 migration of birds, and another on soils. In the year 1 799 he commu- 

 nicated to the Royal Irish Academy, through the Bishop of Clonfert, Dr. 

 Young, with whom he was intimate, a paper on the naturalisation of 

 plants, a subject to which he had devoted much attention. In this he urged 

 the necessity of experiments. " The same Almighty hand," he says, " that 

 formed the earth, has scattered, in far distant regions, vegetables, which the 

 necessity or luxury of man excites him to endeavour to accumulate about- 

 his home. And if we, at the present time, survey the different nations of 

 the earth, we shall find that most of them have received great and im- 

 portant benefits by the introduction of foreign plants ; and that there is 

 no country, however numerous its collection of plants, but may yet receive 

 considerable advantages by the naturalisation of others." 



This paper contains many excellent practical observations which have 

 been referred to in different works published since that time. I shall at 

 present quote only one. " By the appearance of the roots and leaves, we 

 may nearly determine in what kind of soil the plant is most likely to thrive. 

 Robust roots and fleshy or rigid leaves require a dry soil, according to 

 their thickness, stiff clay or sandy loam, as beans, peach trees, and apple 

 trees : robust spongy roots which have a tendency to mat near the surface, 

 with thin leaves, as the alder (^^lnus\ willows (5'alix), require a somewhat 

 stiffer soil with moisture ; many of the 5alix genus will not grow with their 

 accustomed vigour in a light turf or peat mould soil, for want of the 

 necessary resistance to the root, although suitable in respect to moisture. 

 Slender, hard, and wiry roots as those of the pine, cistus, &c., require dry, 

 sandy, or gravelly soils, and extremely fine and hair-like roots, as those of 

 JBrica, Kdlmea, i2hododendron,&c., must have a soil whose particles will not 

 impede the shooting of their tender fibres, and with a small but regular 

 degree of moisture, that the roots, which by their form cannot resist the 

 slightest drought, may not be destroyed. Plants in a warm climate perspire 

 more than in a cold one ; so in a warm one they require much, and in a 

 cold one little moisture. Therefore when transplanted from a warm to a 

 cold climate, they should have a drier soil, and from a colder to a warmer, 

 a moister one than in their native station." 



(Tb he continued.) 



