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NOYEMBEK, 1859. 



r-^(i "-^HE Horticultiiral Society has passed through so many 

 ^i ^M' chequered phases, that it is quite a comfort to hear 

 b that the bold proposal to form a promenade garden at 

 I Kensington has met with very extended and gene- 

 ? rous support. The expansion of the society in the 



form of a providitor to the public appetite for exhibitions 

 will, we much fear, considerably contract its proper sphere of 

 usof Illness as a teacher of horticultural practice and a promoter 

 of liorticultural botany, because, to a certain extent, the actual 

 advancement of science must be incompatible with the act of 

 providing popular recreations ; but we are assured that experiments are 

 not to be summarily banished from the society's programme, and we cer- 

 tainly feel convinced that popular taste, and, let us add, popular morals, 

 must be benefited by placing within easy reach of the great masses of the 

 meti'opolis good examples of the results of horticultural science. A good 

 garden teaches in a variety of ways ; and of all the secular lessons needed 

 by English people, none arc more required than lessons in form and colour. 

 Statuary and tlowers, combined with correct taste, may be expected to 

 play an educational part, therefore, when the grand garden shall be com- 

 pleted. To this consideration may be added another, that by successive 

 internal convulsions and external assaults the society had become so nearly 

 defunct, that only by some such scheme of boldly catering for popularity 

 could it have been held together according to the terms of the charter. 

 Like a patient in the last stage of atrophy, it needed to be dealt with on 

 the principle of kill or cure, and there is at least a fair prospect of the 

 cure being accomplished. According to the Chronicle, which is favoured 

 to the exclusion of the rest of tlie horticultural press, the amount already 

 promised is £44,210, which places beyond all doubt the realization of the 

 required £50,000, provided the public continue to favour the council and 

 the scheme with unabated confidence. The fashionable loccde chosen for 

 the site is, of course, all in favour of the enterprise, so far as subscriptions 

 are concerned. The wealthy Avill encourage an enterprise which promises 

 to provide them with a source of pleasure near home, and at the same 



vox. II.— KO. XI. M 



