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kinds of apple and pear trees in some parts of Canada, where they 

 seldom attain to any great age or size. The black walnut again is a 

 tree which has disappointed some of its admirers. For a few years 

 after germination, being a vigorous grower, the rapid production of 

 wood gave so much promise that experimenters were induced to devote 

 considerable areas to its cultivation, only to find after lo or 15 years 

 that the trees rapidly decreased in vigour and retrograded. This may 

 be due to their having penetrated through the upper layer of suitable 

 soil and reached a colder or less congenial stratum ; but, I do not wish 

 to discuss that point now ; the unnecessary outlay would not have been 

 made, had it been possible to examine trees of a known age, grown 

 under similar circumstances in a botanic garden. Again on the other 

 hand, a botanic garden would be the means of introducing and distri- 

 buting through the country new and valuable plants, with the great 

 advantage that those who acquired them would know beforehand 

 whether they were likely lo succeed. Botanic Gardens to be of the 

 greatest educational utility should be, of course, thrown open to the 

 public as much as possible, and for that reason should be laid out m an 

 ornamental manner, so that not only botanists, gardeners and specialists 

 may be satisfied when they visit them to study and examine new or 

 rare plants, but, also that they may form attractive places of recreation 

 for the large and important class of mechanics and other labouring 

 classes and their families, consisting in this country of people possessed 

 of considerable education, and, who, when once attracted to one of these 

 gardens, could not but find in it an efficient instrument for refining the 

 taste, increasing their knowledge and augmenting in a very high degree 

 the amount of rational and elevating pleasure available to them. A 

 fertile source of interest in Botanic Gardens is the cultivation and 

 exhibition of the various plants from which foods and other economic 

 products are derived. Interest in these will soon extend to other plants_ 

 In the same line of thought is the fostering of a love for flowers in 

 children, and I believe that every child should be taught to wish for a 

 garden of its own. I know of nothing at all which will give such con- 

 tinued and wholesome pleasure to a child as a small plot of garden of 

 which it considers it has the sole proprietorship. If any one wishes to 

 see true pleasure, let them take a seedsman's catalogue, about the 



