Foreign Notices : — Russia, Denmark. 489 



trary, extended the means of comfortable subsistence, respectability, and 

 happiness to additional numbers of human beings, without a symptom of 

 poverty becoming apparent. The inmiense estates which the church had 

 obtained possession of, have, since the time of Mr. Young's writing, full 

 forty years ago, been resumed by the state, and sold as national property, 

 on terms so easy, both as to price and the periods of payment, that multi- 

 tudes of industrious peasants have become proprietors of lands in detail, 

 which were heretofore monopolised, on a large scale, by lazy monks and 

 wily priests, the drones and pests of society. In Touraine this minute divi- 

 sion of landed property is said to be carried to a greater extreme than in 

 any other part of France, and yet there is there no poverty, no wretched- 

 ness, either real or apparent ; except, indeed, in the city of Tours, where 

 decayed manufactures have, as is usual in such cases in England, left a 

 need}' and half-employed labouring population. Tours has never yet re- 

 covered from the deplorable effects of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, 

 and the severe persecutions and measures which deprived this city of the 

 finest silk trade in Europe, and reduced the number of workmen employed 

 in that branch of manufacture only, from forty thousand to four ! It is, 

 however, with the state of the country, not of the towns, that this great 

 question has to do ; and with actual results, not with prejudiced or hasty 

 speculations : and I must limit what I have here farther to state on this 

 subject, by saying that fort}' years of experience have not only completely 

 falsified the opinions and predictions of Arthur Young on this interesting 

 point, but that the comparison which he boldly challenges between the 

 landed systems of England and France, if revived at the present day, would 

 show that whilst, as it relates to the small landed proprietors and peasantry 

 of the latter country, there is no pauperism requiring relief, in the former 

 every seventh person you meet with is in some way and proportion 

 maintained at the expense of others. It is, however, but justice to 

 Mr. Young to add that, since he wrote, the galling exercise of feudal occu- 

 pations has been abolished in France, and the curse of tithes for ever 

 removed from that country. 



The vegetable market in Tours, although spacious, has no accommodation 

 for cither the sellers or the articles exposed to sale. There is a small foun- 

 tain at the upper end ; but the su{)ply of water in the summer is very 

 inadequate to the purposes of cleanliness and health. The fruit market 

 has a separate space for its use ; and, as common in France, there is a 

 distinct market for flowers, which, raised early in the spring, are very abund- 

 ant, varied, and beautiful. — John 11. Moggrldge. Tours, May 10. 1831. 



RUSSIA. 



Botany. — The botanist attached to a recent scientific expediiion from 

 Russia to the Brazils has brought from Rio Janeiro, for the botanic garden 

 at St. Petersburgh, a collection of above 1000 living Brazilian plants, as 

 beautiful as rare, and among which are many never hitherto seen in Europe, 

 This rich acquisition, joined to the young plants which the garden has 

 already obtained from Brazilian seeds, will soon be sufficient to fill a large 

 green-house, where the lovers of botany in the 68th degree of N. latitude 

 may form an idea of the beauty and variety of the flora of a vast country 

 situated between the tropics. (^Literary Gazette, Jan. 29. 1831.) 



DENMARK. 



Floncidtiiral Society. — Dear Sir, A Society for the Improvement of 

 Floriculture has lately been formed in Copenhagen, and I have had the 

 honour of being elected a member of it. The Society is yet in its infancy, 

 therefore much cannot at present be said about it. It is, however, highly 

 gratifying to find a taste for our science among persons of consequence ; 

 and there is no doubt that, as this Society succeeds, the taste will extend 

 arther. 



