378 Intelligence and Miscellanies. 



tions. The collection was made chiefly from the produc- 

 tions of Lebanon, during my visit there with my family 

 last summer and autumn. Among the most interesting 

 of the whole I reckon the oyster shells. They enclose, 

 as you will see, what seems to be a part of the animal it- 

 self in a petrified state. They are from the only locality of 

 the kind of which I have any knowledge in the country. It 

 is a plat of cultivated ground, fifteen or twenty yards square, 

 surrounded on three sides by high limestone rocks, and at an 

 elevation above the sea of perhaps one thousand feet. The 

 oyster seems to be at present quite unknown in Syria. 1 

 have not been able to obtain any more of the petrifactions of 

 fish,* but they may be easily obtained hereafter. The cedar 

 ball is said to possess the power of reproduction when proper- 

 ly planted. We are assured that fine cedars are now grow- 

 ing in England, produced from the seed of the Besharry 

 grove. If this be true, I hope you may yet live to see your 

 own dwelling shaded by cedars of Lebanon. 



1 5. Notice concerning the Horticultural Society of Paris, 

 translated for the American Journal of Science ; hy Jacob 

 Porter. — The Horticultural Society of Paris, was instituted 

 for the encouragement and perfecting, in France, of the va- 

 rious branches of gardening. 



Gardening is both a science and an art. It embraces the 

 knowledge and use of all the elements of the vegetable king- 

 dom, that serve or may serve the wants as well as the pleas- 

 ures of mankind, and that have not already been brought 

 forward in full by agriculture. 



This definition, precise and rigorous, must give an exact 

 idea of what is, at present, understood by horticulture, the 

 culture of the garden, a new term, becomes necessary, since, 

 in the course of language and the decline of words, the 

 terms of gardening and gardener, suggest to the mind of the 

 proprietor, little more than the enclosure and the laborer 

 employed in the regular culture of his fruits and pulse. 



Horticulture, on the contrary, comprehends, in its natural 

 and methodical divisions, 



1. The nursery, or the first training of useful or pleasing 

 vegetables ; 



2. The orchard and kitchen garden, containing the fruits 

 and pulse destined for the nourishment of man ; 



* From twenty miles north of Beyroot. See Vol. X. p. 28, of this Journal 



