107 



cultivation, as gardening and farming, attracts the attention of only a 

 small portion of the community. And the staple contents of the ' Lon- 

 don Journal, 1 over and above the disadvantages of disconnected pub- 

 lication and high price, are addressed almost exclusively to a mere 

 fragment of the botanical portion of the community. A very restrict- 

 ed circulation is a natural consequence of this state of matters. Let 

 us not be misunderstood to find fault with the ' London Journal ' or 

 its contents. The latter are good of their kind, the reviews of books 

 excepted, and their kind itself is good and scientifically important ; 

 but they are very far from being matters of general interest to the bo- 

 tanical circles. And when we speak of the remunerative circulation 

 of a periodical, the question resolves itself into one of ' how many are 

 induced to buy ? ' 



In the January No. of the ' Phy tologist ' we used the freedom to 

 suggest a better arrangement of the 'Contents' of the 'Loudon Journal 

 of Botany ; ' and we are pleased to find our hints acted upon in that 

 respect. It may be much less easy to give that wider interest to the 

 contents themselves, which would ensure the wider circulation so much 

 to be desired for the periodical ; and probably the proprietors could 

 not venture on the experiment of bringing the price and contents 

 nearer to the usual proportion. Seven and sixpence for a hundred 

 and fifty-four pages is a high price now-a-days in the book-market. 

 But we believe that if the size of each half-crown Number were 

 doubled, the increase in this respect would add extremely few to the 

 list of purchasers, unless the additional contents were of a different 

 kind from those which constitute the bulk of the ' London Journal.' 



Judging by the three Nos. now before us, the periodical is still to 

 consist principally of lists and descriptions of South American plants, 

 by very competent and eminent botanists ; notes and letters of botani- 

 cal travellers; eulogies of books, perhaps hardly looked into beyond 

 their title-pages and tables of contents ; miscellaneous information 

 about collectors, &c, &c. By-the-bye, we must make an exception 

 to the " eulogies " of books, when looking into the Number for Fe- 

 bruary. The first of the " Notices of Books " is one of Presl's ' Bo- 

 tanische Bemerkungen,' which is pretty smartly censured ; the re- 

 viewer's pen, in this instance, being apparently dictated to by a diffe- 

 rent head from that which usually allows its good-nature and kind 

 encouragement of authors to run too closely on indiscriminate com- 

 mendation, which renders the laudation valueless. 



There is nothing on English Botany in the three Nos. before 

 us. Perhaps the paper of greatest general interest is that on the 



