PROGRESS OF HORTICULTURE. 25 



of the season. The early part of the nineteenth 

 century presents a great coolness in the garden 

 mania with which the eighteenth was so possessed ; 

 and it was hardly till after the peace that public 

 attention again took this direction. We presume 

 that it will only be in the philosophical fashion of 

 the day to say that this was a natural reaction of the 

 public mind, after the turmoil of a foreign war, to 

 fall back upon the more peaceful occupations of 

 home. The institution of the Horticultural Society 

 of London, however, took place a little earlier, and 

 it no doubt gave both a stimulus and a stability to 

 the growing taste of the nation. 



It may be amusing to run over some few statistics 

 of the progress of horticulture since that time. It is 

 now only thirty-three years since the foundation of 

 the London Society, the first comprehensive institu- 

 tion of its kind : there are now in Great Britain at 

 least 200 provincial societies, founded more or less 

 upon its model. We find merely in the ' Gardener's 

 Chronicle ' for last year notices of the exhibitions of 

 120 different Societies. Everything else connected 

 with gardening has increased in the like proportion. 

 There were at that time not more than two botanical 

 and those strictly scientific periodical works : 

 there are now at least twenty monthly publications, 

 each entirely devoted to some branch or other of 

 botany or horticulture ; and, what may perhaps still 

 more surprise those of our readers who live apart 

 from the influence of the gardening world, there are, 

 or were very lately, published every week three 



