28 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



essential to morals as to health. No one can doubt, in this 

 respect, their direct and beneficial influence. The rich can take 

 care of themselves, and can flee the sources of pestilence, and go 

 after health and recreation where they are to be found. Not so 

 with the poorer and humbler classes in society, to whose labor 

 and service the rich owe all their wealth and many of their 

 pleasures. Whoever goes into the low places in crowded cities, 

 into the subterranean abodes where these wretched beings con 

 gregate like rabbits in a warren, or, rather, like swine in their 

 sties, and enters into the melancholy statistics of mortality, in 

 such cases will learn some measure of the suffering which is 

 here endured. In London, and other places of a similar char 

 acter, the presence of the police and the officers of the peace, 

 always in such places in strong force, will remind him that there 

 is a connection not to be overlooked between condition and 

 character, between destitution arid crime, between outward filth 

 and impurity of mind, neglect of person and neglect of morals. 

 The most crowded parts of London are the most vicious parts ; 

 and a new should not neglect the experience of an old country. 

 A city without public squares and public gardens should provide 

 them, and on a most liberal scale. In a pecuniary point of view, 

 as rendering a residence in the city the more desirable, and so 

 increasing the value of estates in it, I have no doubt that it 

 would yield ample advantages and profits. But health and 

 morals are not to be measured by any pecuniary standard ; and 

 where wholesome water, and fresh air, and light, and sunshine, 

 and cleanliness are concerned, no expense and cost are to be con 

 sidered as exorbitant. To talk about the value of land in such 

 cases, and to place this in competition with health, comfort, and 

 morals, is equally short-sighted and inhuman. 



The public parks and pleasure-grounds in London are highly 

 ornamented with shrubs, plants, and flowers, and accessible to 

 the public for exercise and recreation. In St. James s Park, and 

 in some others, metallic labels are affixed to the foreign plants 

 and shrubs, with the botanical and the vulgar name of the plants 

 upon them, and the class and the country to which they belong. 

 This is a beautiful arrangement, and well deserving imitation ; 

 furnishing instruction, as well as satisfaction ; inciting to the 

 study of botany, and opening a sealed book to the unaided and 

 curious student of nature. Every one knows the advantage of 

 teaching by example ; and what an interest is given to the 



