126 BOTANICAL NEWS. 
purpose—the advancement of botany as a science. And for two centuries, at 
considerable expense, they have maintained its efficiency, during all which 
time it has supplied valuable facilities to the successive generations of the 
medical students of the metropolis for the prosecution of an important branch 
of their professional studies. Within the last few years, the expenses of its 
cultivation, the increase of buildings and manufactories around it, and the 
threatened inroads of railway companies have created a feeling of discourage- 
ment among its owners, and even suggested the advisability of discontinuing it. 
The continued importance of the garden however to the medical students, as 
shown by the large number (no fewer than 500) who sought admission for the 
purposes of study during the past summer, have induced the executive of the 
Apothecaries' Society not only to keep up the garden but to devote a larger sum 
to put it in a more efficient condition. It is intended to make a new and exten- 
the more important hardy herbaceous plants, and to arrange them. according 
to the natural system, to construct a cold-house, or mere glass shelter, in order 
of vegetation " at The Ferns, Clapham, can have any idea of what will 
be the effect of the large houses when completed according to Mr. Ward's 
plans. The co-operation of Mr. Thomas Moore, the present Curator of the 
Gardens, whose numerous and valuable works are well known, will further 
ensure the successful accomplishment of these designs. No a is made to 
supplying them with some of the duplicate plants which either inconveniently 
crowd their houses, or must of necessity be got rid of. 
At a meeting of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, February 12th, Pro- | 
fessor Balfour, V.P., in the chair, the following communications were read :— — 5d 
1. Notice of Plants collected in the counties of Leeds and Grenville, Upper 
Canada, in July, 1862. By George Lawson, LL.D., Professor of Chemistry 
and Natural History, Queen’s College of Canada. 2. A Record of the Plants 
collected by Mr. Pemberton Walcott and Mr. Maitland Brown in the yeat 
1861, during Mr. Gregory's Exploring Expedition into North-West Australia. — 
By Ferdinand Mueller, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., Government Botanist for the 
Colony of Victoria. Communicated by Professor Balfour. 3. Extracts from 
1 
