Domestic Notices : — Ireland. 229 



IRELAND. 



HortimUiiral Society of Ireland. — At a meeting of the committee, held 

 Jan. 3. 1831, for the purpose of adjudicating premiums for winter pears, the 

 following were adjudged : — For the best pear, Mr. Wilkie, gardener to 

 William Gregory, Esq., Phoenix Park. For the best Crassane pear, Mr. 

 Wilkie, gardener to William Gregor}-, Esq., Phoenix Park. For the best 

 Colmar pear, Mr. Thomas M'Mahon, gardener to Mi's. Rathbourne, Scrib- 

 blestown. The best Poir d' Auche, Mr. P. Vaughan, gardener to James Jame- 

 son, Esq., Montrose. The best Chaumontel pear, Mr. Doyle, gardener to 

 IVIrs. Edwards, Friar's Hill, county Wicklow. There were also presented 

 to the Society, by Thomas Heary, gardener to Isaac D'Olier, Esq., several 

 bunches of black Hamburgh, white sweetwater, and muscadine grapes, in 

 excellent presei'vation, with a communication to the Societ}' upon the mode 

 of keeping them ; and also specimens of 21 named varieties of choice winter 

 apples, in good preservation. There were also presented to the Society, 

 by Mi\ M'Cabe, gardener to the Right Hon. William Saurin, specimens of 

 hemp manufactures, from the leaf the Phormium tenax, or New Zealand 

 hemp. The committee are happy to state that the show of pears, which 

 was very considerable, far exceeded any exhibition hitherto held at this 

 season of the year, and contemplate with much satisfaction the increasing 

 zeal in the improvement of horticulture evinced by the gardeners in the 

 vicinity of Dublin. {Dublin Evening Post, Jan. 6. 1831.) 



The Horticultural Society of Ireland. — Sir, An anonymous writer in the 

 last Number of the Gard. Mag., who styles himself an observer of Irish 

 jobbing, in his remarks on the Horticultural Society of Ireland has stated 

 that, although I am a member of the committee, " I must abhor its intended 

 proceedings." This statement but ill accords with the previous character 

 he has been so kind as to give me, as being a man of candour ; and I would 

 therefore beg, through you, to inform him rhat I would not give my name 

 to any society of whose principles I did not approve. He also states that 

 most of the members of the committee belong also to the Dublin Society, 

 and that some of them are on the committee of botany there. I am not 

 aware of more than two members of that Society being on our committee ; 

 one of whom, who is on the committee of botany at the Dublin Society, 

 has long been well known as a gentleman of first-rate taste and knowledge 

 in horticulture and floriculture ; and the other has given good evidence of 

 his taste and knowledge in floriculture by the introduction and cultivation 

 of many rare and showy plants. I shall not at present trouble you further 

 on this subject, but shall leave it to the public to judge of the proceedings 

 of the committee generally by their future conduct. It was, I think, rather 

 unfair to prejudge a society before it could fairly be said to have com- 

 menced its operations. I am. Sir, &c. — James T, Mackay. 5. Cottage 

 Terrace, Dublin, Feb. 23. 1831. 



State of Botany and Civilisation — In Vol. V. p. 305., under the notice of 

 the Botanical Miscellany, I find the foUovving statement,taken from a transla- 

 tion of Schultes's Botanical Visit to England; of whom it is justly remarked, 

 that " he is profuse in his compliments to some individuals, and severe on 

 others." The paragraph I allude to is the following: — " Of Ireland," he 

 says, " he was informed, by very many Englishmen, that it is safer to travel 

 among savages than on the west coast of Ireland, which is the reason why 

 the botany of that country is as little known as that of Sardinia." Now, as 

 I happen to know something of the people and plants of that " dangerous 

 country to travel in," having made a botanical tour of sixteen weeks, during 

 the summer and autumn of 1805, over the fouthern and western coasts, 

 from Bantry Bay to Sligo, I can lcU him and his wise informants that there 

 are several plants indigenous to those parts not to be found in either Eng- 

 land or Germany ; and that, although several English botanists have also 



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