( 446) { July, 
THE INTERNATIONAL HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITION 
AND BOTANICAL CONCRESS. 
Tus grand meeting of English and foreign Botanists and Horti- 
culturists, so long expected, took place on the 22nd of May, at 
South Kensington. This meeting is only one of a series, the first 
of which was held at Brussels in 1864, the next at Amsterdam in 
1865, this year, 1866, in London; in 1867 the Congress meets in 
Paris, and in 1868 at St. Petersburg. It is expected that the 
country where the Exhibition and Congress is held, will endeavour 
to give as complete a representation as possible of its own Botany 
and Horticulture. Hence, in the late Horticultural and Botanical 
display at South Kensington, our great nuxserymen and botanists 
were legitimately masters of the position. And well did they maim- 
tain our national pre-eminence in Horticulture! Never was there 
a larger or a better flower-show exhibited on English soil. 
The general plan consisted of a rectangular plot of ground, 560 
fect long by 300 feet broad, covered throughout by 40,000 yards of 
canvas, forming a vast pavilion or tent, overspreading about 34 acres. 
The ground thus enclosed and covered was laid out as an orna- 
mental garden, with broad and winding gravel walks, grass-terraced 
banks, waterfalls, artificial lakes, hills and valleys, and rockeries, the 
object of the whole arrangement being to display the plants to the 
best advantage, and give the visitors every facility for seeing them. 
The view on entering the tent was truly beautiful and pleasing, 
reflecting much credit on the taste and judgment of the gentlemen: 
of the Executive Committee, who devised the plan, and by whom 
all the arrangements were effected, viz. Mr. Gibson, Mr. Eyles, Dr. 
Masters, Mr. T. Moore, and Dr. Hogg. From the raised ground 
at the southern end, a very fine and comprehensive cowp-d’cel was 
obtained of an undulating landscape of flowers, shrubbery, and trees, 
every zone and climate under heaven having apparently been ran- 
sacked of its botanical treasures to furnish the brilliant and imposing 
scene. A valley of Rhododendrons slopmg down to the banks of an 
artificial lake !|—masses of bloom grouped on every eminence and 
covering the green shelving banks, magnificent Azaleas and Pelar- 
