270 On Modern Improvements of Horticulture. 



exterior habit and qualities, to have no natural affinity to each 

 other. This Linnaeus was aware of himself, and left some 

 fragments of a natural arrangement, but which he did not live 

 to complete. This, or the idea of it, however, was taken up 

 by Jussieu, a French botanist, and completed as far, perhaps, 

 as it can be ; and though, in our present botanical publications, 

 both systems are continued, yet it is likely that Jussieu^s sim- 

 plified system will, in time, supersede the other, though the 

 curious fact on which that of Linnasus was founded will never 

 be forgotten, because of its practical use in the amelioration of 

 fruits. Botanical publications, under the various names of 

 Hortuses, Floras, Monographs, and of every country and dis- 

 trict under the skies, and since the promulgation of Jussieu's 

 system, monographs, under the titles of Geraniaceae, Cistineae, 

 &c., flow in periodical floods from the press, crowd the book- 

 seller^s shelves, and thence find their way to every elegant 

 drawing-room in the kingdom. 



This additional call on the business of the press, as well as 

 upon the talent of the artist, arises from the fashionable and 

 refined bias of the public taste for this rational and delightful 

 study. To extend botanical collections, and the desire to pos- 

 sess every vegetable beauty, pervaded the whole community : 

 hence expeditions to distant lands by collectors ; hence the 

 extension and encouragement of nursery business ; hence have 

 sprung up chartered societies and associations for the encou- 

 ragement of botany and gardening all over the realm ; so that 

 vegetable beauties and curiosities are now to be seen in British 

 collections, from every region of the known world. 



Neither has the occult subject of botanical physiology been 

 neglected ; many curious facts connected with the organisation, 

 structure, functions, and qualities of plants, have been ascer- 

 tained : but still there remains much for the employment of the 

 naturalist's mind on this difficult subject. 



Landscape gardening is not so much '' the rage" as it was 

 twenty or thirty years ago : national circumstances, perhaps, 

 may be the cause ; but its principles are much better under- 

 stood. The errors of Kent and Brown, and their followers, 

 have been corrected by the works and writings of Repton, and 

 the critiques of Knight and Price, whose theories have been 



