114 Annual Report of the S. A. Institution. 



by the Institution, have never failed, in any country whore they 

 have been tried, to produce an improvement in its productions, 

 beyond all original expectation, and if by similar clforls any 

 thing approaching to the same degree of progress shouldoccur 

 here as in other countries, the vegetable productions cultivated 

 at the Cape, may be expected to attain a beauty and excellence 

 hitherto unrivalled. The effect of these means has been not 

 only to improve what existed any where, but also to promote the 

 introduction of articles admired for their splendor and utility 

 in other countries, and they have led to the creation or dis- 

 covery of Bew varieties suited to the soil and climate. With 

 the advantages which our land possesses, for improving what is 

 established, or gathering what is foreign, there is every thing 

 favorable to its assuming an eminent rank amid those that are 

 most fruitful, and are best adorned with whatever tends to the 

 sustenance or gratification of their inhabitants. 



On the advantages of haying a Botanic or Experimental 

 Garden in this place, and on the facilities for constructing and 

 preserving it, it is unnecessary to dilate. But this is an object 

 in which the Institulion can only a.\d, without having the pro- 

 spect, in the present stale of its funds and engagements, of 

 canying on successfully an independent establishment. — 

 Under our Association it could not be expected to make such a 

 return of pecuniary profit as would nerve to counterbalance its 

 expence; though it eannot be doubted, that, with the interested 

 and vigilaut superintendence of an individual profiting by its 

 produce, such would be the case; from the facilities here pre- 

 sented for the exportation of indigenou « articles, and from the 

 advantages which would be derived from it as a nursery 

 ground for the colony, to introduce Aere the productions of 

 similar climatts. In carrying on the me; \sures announced as in 

 view, last year, under the liberal encoura; reroent offered by His 

 Excellency the Governor, the Council « wpected that before 

 this period, an individual interested la th e same object, would 

 have been found, desirous of making it professionally a 

 source of emolument to himself, but willii ng at the same time 

 to make it so far an establishment for the public benefit, as 'to 

 justify the Institution in transferring to him. . whatever facilities 

 they might be able to attain, or in affording whatever small aid 

 their funds or influence might admit, The only proposal of 

 this kind which the Council has had an oppoi tunity of making, 

 has, for the present, been declined.. 



The Council have been much gratified b y finding that a 

 similarity of view had led to the formation of i \ similar Society 

 in the Island of Mauritius, of which the An mial Report for 

 18'29^0, was read at one of the Sittings of the Instil mion. 



