Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. 179 



plants, and take pleasure in communicating this knowledge to his youthful 

 charge ; and it might be so conducted as to cause little or no interruption 

 to the other laborious exercises of the school. The instruction given as a 

 recreation in the play hours, would not be the least valuable, as knowledge 

 is always more readily acquired by the young, when it is possible to combine 

 pleasure with mental exertion. As the parochial clergy are now so attentive 

 to this taste for adorning their own dwellings, they would no doubt readily 

 take an interest in such a plan, and encourage the love of it in the school- 

 master and his pupils. Such gardens, small in extent, might be laid out at 

 little expense. They should be kept in order by the master, with the as- 

 sistance of his scholars, who would soon take much interest and delight in 

 such occupations. Any trifling expense the proprietor might be at in 

 ornamenting these small gardens around the parochial schoolhouse, would 

 be principally repaid in the security of his woods from the mischievous 

 schoolboy's knife." We entirely concur with him, and it is singular 

 that he should have hit upon what has been already done in Bavaria. We 

 may add that for cherishing a regard for the low er animals, and humanising 

 youth generally, few pursuits are more eilectual than that of natural history, 

 and with this view we hope to live to see much real good done to the 

 rising generation by our Magazine of Natural History. At Rouen, Paris, 

 Strasburg, Frankfort, Cai'lsruhe, Nuremberg, and other towns in France 

 and Germany, the public squares, which, unlike those in Britain, are open to 

 every body, and are unprotected by iron railings or fences of any kind, are 

 stocked with the finest American trees and shrubs, magnolias, rhodo- 

 dendrons, azaleas, &c., and with the rarest flowers of the country, which 

 bud, leaf, flower, and fruit untouched by the populace. Such is the hum- 

 anised state of the laborious classes in these countries ; very different in- 

 deed from what it is either in Scotland or England, but not from what it 

 might and will be. 



On the Propagation of genuine Agricultural Seeds, By Mr. Shirreff'of 

 Mungoswells, East Lothian. — A very important paper. The propagation 

 of vegetables exceeds that of animals in importance, because the vegetable 

 produce of the country surpasses that of animals, and because our most 

 valuable domestic animals live on vegetables. Selection is the principle for 

 procuring abundance of genuine seeds, and the process even with the dif- 

 ferent sorts of corn is not, as might be supposed, tedious. In 1823, Mr. 

 Shirreff" marked a vigorous wheat plant, near the centre of a field, which 

 produced him 2473 grains. These were dibbled in the autumn of the 

 same year, the produce sown broadcast the second and third years, and the 

 fourth harvest produced 40 quarters of sound grain. A fine purple-topped 

 Swedish turnip produced 100,296 grains, which was seed enough for five 

 imperial acres; and thus, in three years, one turnip would produce seed 

 enough for Great Britain for a year. 



On the Plough. — A geometrical demonstration of its construction and 

 action, and, as far as we can judge, the best essay that has appeared on the 

 subject, since the time of Small. 



On the Agriculture of Ireland. By Edward Johnston, Esq. M.R.I.A. 

 &c. — Absenteeism, middlemen, " absence of tranquillity and of personal 

 security" (an objection now, we trust, removed), want of capital, the great 

 bulk of the tilled land in farms of from 15 to 50 acres, " indolence and 

 slow, slovenly, dawdling habits of working," and general ignorance of 

 agriculture, are the evils to be overcome. 



On Maize or Indian Corn, which not ripening its seeds in the neighbour- 

 hood of London till the middle or end of November, can never come 

 generally into culture in England; but that it may be worth culture, in 

 favourable situations, for feeding poultry is probable. 



The Miscellaneous Notices are various ; one of the most valuable is the 

 following from the Bulletin des Sciences Agricoles, which we extract, because 



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