276 Journal of the Horticultural Society of London. 



Art. III. The Journal of the Horticnllnral Society of Lon- 

 don. In Quarterly Numbers 8vo. Eighty pages each. 



We some time since announced the publication of this Jour- 

 nal, which commences a new series, in a cheap octavo form; 

 the old and expensive quarto having been discontinued, after 

 running the society deeply into debt. This series commenced 

 on the 1st of January 1847, and one volume complete, and 

 parts 1 and 2 of the second, have been issued. We have al- 

 ready given several extracts from the first A^olume, but very 

 little has yet appeared which could be considered of much in- 

 terest to a majority of our readers. The papers have been 

 long, and some of them rather dry, — more theoretical than 

 practical, — as a majority of the communications have been, 

 and ever will be. The magazines of the day, appearing as 

 they do weekly or monthly, are the sources to which the cul- 

 tivator looks for information, and the source through which 

 the practical man prefers to communicate with his professional 

 brethren. 



The chief value of the Journal of the Society is the publi- 

 cation of its own transactions, which interest a very large 

 number of fellows who look to it for an account of what is 

 doing in the Society's Garden, — for descriptions of all the new 

 plants, trees, shrubs, fruits, vegetables, &c., which are intro- 

 duced through the Society's Botanical collectors and corre- 

 spondents — for the details of Experiments carried on in the 

 garden — and for scientific discussions in the various branches 

 of Horticulture. 



Among the scientific papers, one of the most valuable is an 

 essay on " Hybridization amongst Vegetables," by the Hon. 

 and Rev. Mr. Herbert, which fills a larger part of two numbers 

 of the work. The Rev. author arrives at the following con- 

 clusions relative to the specific diflerence of plants : — 



"When the generic characters, as ultimately stated by Enlicher, of 

 Pisum, the pea and Vicia, to which the bean beU)ngs, are carefully com- 

 pared, it will appear that, except a little prolongation and straighter posi- 

 tion of the flower, which, in some other races, would be immaterial, the 

 only fixed feature of difference is the asserted roundness of the seed in pea, 

 audits lateral compression in the vetch and bean, a feature which, if the 

 fact were undeniable, is insignificant in many other genera. If the pea, 



