MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE, 45 



W private) they will unquestionably be received ; and in this as well as 

 llie other objects the Society have in view, we have every reason to con- 

 clude, the garden and its appendages will be so managed, and be so sucess- 

 ful, pleasing and instructive, as to meet with the approval, as it no doubt 

 will, with ttie desired support of the British Public, and we do most 

 heartily wish it every success. — (Comductor.) 



Notwithstanding the manifest importance of a proper acquaintance with the 

 productions of the vegetable kingdom, there is not, to this day, in the me- 

 tropolis of the commercial world, a public establishment devoted to their 

 general study : and while foreign countries possess such institutions, and 

 there are forty in our own empire, we are the last to avail ourselves of their 

 advantages. The benefits to be derived from a properly directed botanic 

 garden are so apparent that it argues an inconceivable deficiency in our 

 local administration that they should be so long neglected. The only way 

 in which the study of botany has received attention has been for medical 

 purposes ; and it is to be regretted that that knowledge should be consid- 

 ered as restricted to one profession, which is capable of still further deve- 

 lopement. The chemical properties of plants are not confined to their 

 medical uses, but exercise important functions in manufactures ; and indeed 

 when it is considered how little advanced is our acquaintance with their 

 analysis, they should acquire a greater importance in our eyes, from their 

 susceptibility of extended application in a more advanced state of science. 

 The use of dye plants is but one of many chemical preparations \ and the 

 manufacture of su>:sr is a series of chemical processes. J he employment of 

 vegetable productions in textile fabrics makes them an object of commer- 

 cial importance, and renders them deserving of scientific investigation ; and 

 the manufacturing properties of plants are so various as at once to open a 

 wide field for observation and inculcate the necessity of it. 



But if the study of the raw material have met with so little attention at 

 our hands, there is another application of it to manufactures which has 

 necessarily suffered still more in the general neglect. This is the applica- 

 tion of the study of the external form of plants to the improvement of our 

 arts and manufactures ; and we need not be surprised if the effect of such 

 neglect has been to leave them in a state of barbarism, as compared with 

 the rest of Europe, unworthy of our positions in the commercial world. 

 Few points could be selected more strongly to show the intimate connexion 

 which exists between all departments of the arts and sciences, and the ill 

 effects which proceed from the non cultivation of any of the series. In 

 this case a complicated neglect is involved ; and we find an eqnal want of 

 attention to botany, the fine arts, and our true commercial interests. The 

 consequence is, not only are we deprived of foreign markets, but we are un- 

 able to preserve our own from the inroads of strangers, and are subjected 

 to the stigma of barbarism in the eyes of those to whose taste we are made 

 captive by our own ignorance. The extent of this economical injury is two- 

 fold ; first a3 we are subjected to a positive loss by the importations of silks, 

 cottons, velvets, papers, and jewellery from France ; clocks from Switzer- 

 land ; bronzes from Italy ; and berlin ware from Prussia ; but we contin- 

 gently lose by our exclusion from foreign markets, whiot other advantages 

 would enable us to supply. The United States would undoubtedly prove a 

 large customer for articles of taste, were we able to supply them with such 

 productions, for which the congeniality of associations between the two na- 

 tions would obtain a preference over any foreign rivals. 



The adaptation of botanical subjects is the principal source of patterns 

 for textile and imitative goods, and a facility for studying such objects is 

 consequently the desideratum for the improvement of our manufactures. 

 This has been recognised by every public body by which it has been in- 

 vestigated ; and the evidence before the Select Committee of the House of 

 Commons, on the State of Arts and Manufactures, affords abundant testimony 

 of the necessity of this study. 



