THE PLORA.L WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



235 



matter of art, but it mucli more concerns tlie health of city residents and 

 the comfort of the poor, for whom at present no cheap and innocent 

 relaxations are pi'ovided. If any imaginative scribe is in the mood to 

 project a new Utopia, we commend to him the suggestion to describe the 

 towns of the new empire as plentifully furnished with public gardens, all 

 beautifally kept, where the poor mother may take her children to enjoy a 

 breathe of the free air, a glimpse of heavenly sunshine, and the glow of 

 flowers and verdure to charm away the cark and care of toil and poverty. 

 As for the churchwardens of the City of London, they ought to be put 

 into a crucible, and melted into dumps, the value of which might suffice 

 to clean up and plant the dirty inclosures they have allowed to become a 

 nuisance and a disgrace, instead of rendering them healthful and beautiful. 



Portable Pjgii^i Houses are coming into use so generally, that we fully 

 expect there will soon be an end put to the improvement of freeholds at 

 the expense of tenants in this particular matter. The patent houses of 

 Sir Joseph Paxton, as manufactured by Mr. Hereman, are to be seen in 

 hundreds of gardens where there was not a square yard of glass in use 

 previously to the production of these admirable structures. It is evident, 

 therefore, that the unsatisfactory nature of the freeholder's claim to garden 

 plants and structures operated prejudicially in preventing the tenant 



adopting such sources of enjoyment as were within his reach, and in 

 accordance with his taste, as the law of the land interdicted, without 

 unreasonable sacrifice. Sir Joseph Paxton's patent has, therefore, operated 

 as an encouragement to industry heretofore unemployed, for the manu- 

 facture of these houses by thousands is a matter of some importance in a 

 national point of view. But it is still more cheering to see mechanical 

 skill in action to outwit legal injustice, and so long as the gardener works 

 in fear that some day or other he must give up aU his investments of 

 money and time for the benefit of somebody he neither knows nor cares 

 for, so long must we encourage every invention which facilitates the 

 pursuit of horticulture on a reasonable legal basis. In several cases it 



