MAY 2, 1853. 



190 



to be expected from the Scotch expedition to Oregon, to which 

 the Society had subscribed, and that fresh importations of seeds 

 and plants had become necessary. It was therefore announced 

 at the last anniversary that the Council felt the period to have 

 arrived when it was desirable once more to despatch a Collector of 

 plants in search of horticultural novelties, and that it was 

 under consideration whether one might not be advantageously 

 employed in some of the temperate regions of South America. 

 The unsettled state of the Argentine Provinces having, however, 

 compelled the Council to pause, and some negociations with a 

 naturalist in South America having failed, the Council provision- 

 ally availed themselves of the very liberal offer of Mr. Phillips, 

 one of the agents of the Mining Company of Pieal del Monte in 

 Mexico, to permit their officers to collect a supply of seeds 

 of the valuable Coniferous and other plants inhabiting that 

 locality, and an expenditure of 50/. in defraying the expenses of 

 the collectors was authorised. Subsequently, after much con- 

 sideration, the unexhausted richness of Mexico in fine plants, its 

 varied climate, and the rapidity with which it can now be reached, 

 have finally induced the Council to take that country once more for 

 a collecting-ground. But they have determined that the agent to 

 be sent there shall no longer, as on former occasions, travel 

 incessantly from place to place. They believe that it will be 

 more economical as well as more advantageous that the Collector 

 should remain stationary in some rich field until he has gleaned 

 all that is most worth having, before he is transferred to fresh 

 ground ; and they have to announce that a Committee has been 

 appointed which is engaged in arranging the details of the 

 enterprise. It has already been settled that Mount Orizaba shall 

 be the first district to be explored ; and the Committee have 

 every reason to believe that they have engaged the services of a 

 Collector who will skilfully and energetically fulfil the trust 

 reposed in him. 



The number of Plants, &c, actually given away by the Society, 

 during the period now reported on, was as follows : — 



