322 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



tily supplied with varieties scarcely now remembered, except 

 in the case of a few fruits and esculents little susceptible of 

 change. Flower gardens, shrubberies, and plantations con- 

 tained little that had not been in them for a century and 

 more. Marshall, whose book on gardening had passed 

 through five editions by the year 1813, has even at the last 

 date few trees among his lists beyond such as are natives of 

 Europe, or as form the commonest vegetation of the United 

 States; and his annual and perennial flowers have long since 

 been confined to botanic gardens, with the exception of 

 cockscombs, balsams, some convolvuli, hollyhocks, stocks, 

 mignonette, Chinese pinks, and a small number of other com- 

 mon species. 



Of the then state of gardening we may form some idea 

 from an address in April, 1805, by the late Thomas Andrew 

 Knight, beyond all comparison the most experienced practi- 

 cal gardener, as well as scientific experimentalist, of his day. 

 Speaking of the need there was of some stimulus to horti- 

 culture, he made the following observations : — 



"Societies for the improvement of domestic animals, and 

 of agriculture in all its branches, have been established with 

 success in almost every district of the British Empire. Hor- 

 ticulture alone appears to have been neglected, and left to the 

 common gardener, who generally pursues the dull routine of 

 his predecessor ; and , if he deviates from it, rarely possesses 

 a sufficient .share of science and information to enable him to 

 deviate with success. In training wall trees there is much in 

 the modern practice which appears defective and irrational : 

 no attention whatever is paid to the form which the species 

 or variety naturally assimies, and be its growth upright or 

 pendent, it is constrained to take precisely the same form on 

 the wall. The construction of forcing houses appears also 

 to be generally very defective, and two are rarely constructed 

 alike, though intended for the same purposes ; probably not 

 a single building of this kind has yet been erected, in which 

 the greatest possible quantity of space has been obtained, 

 and of light and heat admitted, proportionate to the capital 

 expended. It may even be questioned whether a single hot- 



