NOVEMBER. 343 



and garden architects, with practical gardeners and nurserymen, have 

 all lent a helping hand for nearly two centuries in producing the 

 different kinds of scenery which prevail in English gardens at the 

 present time. But alas ! when we come to analyse with the eye of 

 taste much that has been thus done, by way of improving the beauties 

 of natural scenery, or of haYmonising the various details of planting 

 and architectural accessories, with the mansion belonging to them, the 

 conviction forced upon the mind has a fault-finding tendency, and the 

 exclamation made by the wise king of Israel, when in later life he 

 reviewed his own painstaking and multifarious labours — conceived, as 

 he thought, in much wisdom, and carried on with much discernment — 

 that they were only "vexation of spirit," applies with equal force to 

 much of what we have under review at the present time. 



But I fear this unsatisfactory state of things is likely to linger yet 

 longer with us ; we have not yet attained a position, or even come near 

 it, when perfection will be the rule and fault the exception, both in 

 architecture and in landscape gardening, as many modern buildings 

 inform us rather painfully. It behoves us, then, to criticise our position, 

 and by public discussion try to ascertain how far the true principles of 

 taste pervade society, and whether or not it cannot be brought up to 

 a point sufficiently advanced to enable us to entertain correct impres- 

 sions of what landscape composition should be, as well as architecture, 

 so as to judge of their respective merits. 



From the bowling green of the olden time, garnished with quaint 

 devices in vegetable sculpture, with its border of herbs and antique 

 arbour, down to the latest attempt at high art in gardening as ex- 

 emplified in the Crystal Palace, a wide scope of ideas has emanated 

 fi'om the mind of man, and have been put in practice for beautifying 

 and adorning his residence. Fashion has rung her ever- varying round 

 of change with this as with other subjects, and although almost foreign 

 to the object I started with, to discuss things as they are rather than 

 criticise what has been, it will not take long to notice the different 

 peculiarities belonging to the period named above, beyond which all is 

 conjecture and doubt, from more modern improvements having oblite- 

 rated nearly all traces of the past. 



M. A. S. 

 {To be continued.) 



DIOSCOREA BATATAS. 

 We do not know how far this plant, about which so much was said 

 18 months back, as a substitute for the Potato, may answer the high 

 character given it for an esculent ; but one thing is certain, it is a very 

 ornamental climbing plant, and as such may prove useful in more 

 ways than one — for covering arbours, trellis, and walls, there is 

 scarcely a plant grown for the purpose which has such beautiful foliage 

 as the "Chinese Potato"; while its habit of growth is botli graceful and 

 elegant. In addition, therefore, to its producing a root of more or less 

 value for culinary uses, it will prove very ornamental as a chmber, 

 where beautiful foliage is an object. ^* 



