118 REPORT—1858, 
On his return to London he stated the great advantages he had received by accom- 
panying the Professor of Botany, under the patronage of the Society of Apothecaries, 
in repeated herborizations round London, which gave him a great insight into the 
natural conditions of all the plants within twenty-five miles of London. On his 
establishment in Wellclose Square, he endeavoured to fulfil these conditions in a 
kind of terraced garden on the roof of his brewhouse, but with indifferent success. 
This garden was destroyed by fire. A subsequent attempt to grow ferns and mosses 
proved equally unsuccessful from the influence of smoke. An accident led him to 
the employment of cases sufficiently close to exclude soot and other impurities, and 
to retain the moisture. The first important application was the conveyance of plants 
to and from distant countries, which proved so successful as to be universally 
adopted. On his removal to Clapham he found that he was enabled to grow great 
numbers of plants in the open ait by supplying them with proper food, &c.; and 
therefore restricted the use of the closed cases to such plants as could not with all 
his care be cultivated in the open ground. He expressed his belief that the cause of 
failure in the cases arose, not, as had been stated, from the quiet condition of the 
atmosphere, but from the much greater heat of the case when exposed to the 
summer sun without a blind, the thermometer often rising from 20° to 25° higher 
than in the open air. When the sun is obscured the temperature in the cases is not 
more than from 2° to 15° higher. It is his firm opinion, that where the natural con- 
ditions as regards heat, light, moisture, soil, and periods of rest are fulfilled, the un- 
disturbed state of the air, so far from being prejudicial, is of great service. This 
fact he has proved with numerous plants; and he will feel extremely obliged to 
those who will kindly communicate instances to the contrary. What strengthens 
his conviction that heat is the cause, is the fact that in the spring and early summer 
months no cases of failure arose. He exhibited, among other plants, specimens of 
two fairy roses, the one having been in a case for three or four years, and the other 
above twenty. 
On some Practical Results derivable from the Study of Botany. 
By N. B. Warp. 
The author commenced his paper by observing that Botany had not had fair play; 
and that in many ways it might be rendered a much more attractive and useful 
science. In the formation of an herbarium, for example, he considered that such a 
collection might, in numerous instances, give a faithful, and if faithful, a beautiful 
picture of nature. This position he illustrated by a series of specimens from the 
Dovrefeldt range of mountains in Norway, and arranged in three different ways,— 
all of them conveying useful information :—first, the association of such plants as 
grow together, illustrated by a sheet containing forty or fifty species of plants from 
the highest portion of the range—on the borders of eternal snow; secondly, the 
grouping of plants belonging to one natural family, as the Ericacee; and thirdly, 
the arrangement of one or more genera according to their elevation on the mountain 
side, illustrated by four species of Saxifrage, one of which grew at 3000 feet elevation, 
one at 4000; one at 5000, and one at 6000 feet, respectively. 
He further remarked that the climate conditions of plants might be most unmis- 
takeably shown by observing the spontaneous vegetation of hedge banks, &c., and 
this was exemplified by a series of specimens from the banks surrounding the timber 
plantations in the New Forest, and from a bank near Tintern Abbey, Monmouth- 
shire, the former indicating a moderate, the latter an excessive amount of moisture. 
He then proceeded to urge the importance of cultivating a taste for legitimate 
horticultural pursuits among the members of the labouring population, as it was a 
well-established fact, that ‘‘ whenever a pink, or a carnation, or rose was seen out- 
side a cottage, there was a potato or a cabbage for the pot within ; thatif there were 
not happiness, there was the nearest approach to it in this world, content.” 
“Yes, in a poor man’s garden grow 
Far more than herbs and flowers ; 
Kind thoughts, contentment, peace of mind, 
And joy for weary hours.” 
He concluded by a communication he had received from the Bishop of Ripon on 
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