PREFACE. 



The most original professional facts recorded in this Volume are, 

 the perfecting of the system of heating by hot water (p. SS^:), 

 and a new appHcation of the mode of heating pine-pits by steam 

 {p. 443.). The permanently useful subject of Horticultural Che- 

 mistry has been continued (p. 11. 127. and 404.), and commenced 

 in connection with vegetable physiology and the operations of 

 culture (p. 394.). The very complete forcing structures erected 

 in the Duke of Northumberland's kitchen-garden at Syon have 

 been described in detail (p. 502.) ; and a variety of other improve- 

 ments in gardens, foreign and domestic, are noticed in the Tours 

 of the Conductor on the Continent (p. 1. 113. 241. 369. 497. and 

 641.), and through different counties in England (p. 93. 222. 464. 

 557. and 671.). The subject of improving the condition of the 

 labouring classes, at present in a most lamentable condition for 

 want of employment, has been taken up by Mr. Spence (p. 125. 

 209.), by Captain Pole (p. 79.), by Variegata (p. 248.), by Y. (p. 390.), 

 by R. S, (p. 550.) ; and by the Conductor, in a number of minor 

 articles among the Miscellaneous Intelligence. Convinced as we 

 are that the only effectual and permanent mode of benefiting the 

 lowest classes of society is by raising their intellectual character; 

 rendering every man, who has a wife and family, above absolute 

 want, by a garden or piece of ground of at least a quarter of an 

 acre attached to his cottage ; and preventing early marriages by a 

 prohibitory law ; we would most earnestly recommend attention to 

 what has incidentally dropped from us on these subjects (p. 69. 

 84. 94. 216. 223. 226. 328. 451. 540. 549. 556. 650. 659. 662.), and 

 in the articles on Education (p. 692.), the Labouring Population 

 (p. 706.), the Cultivation of Waste Lands (p. 704.), Parish Gardens 

 (p. 714.), and in our different Tours. We wish it to be distinctly 

 borne in mind, that all that we have recommended in the above 

 passages has been for upwards of thirty years carried into execu- 

 tion in Wurtemberg, Bavaria, Baden, Silesia, Sweden, and other 

 parts of the Continent, with the happiest effects. Whatever may 

 be the general poverty of Germany and Sweden, and however 



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