Scotland. 337 



lately dotted over the open spaces are put in without the slightest regard to 

 effect. To say that they are in bad taste, would be paying them a compli- 

 ment — but they display no taste whatever ; all that can be said is, that 

 somebody has been ordered to plant a number of single trees, and that 

 single trees have been planted accordingly. 



Ten- week Stocks. A great many varieties have been lately raised 

 in Saxony by the weavers, and other manufacturers and tradesmen there, 

 who seem to have the same sort of taste for flowers as their brethren in 

 Britain. Mr. Lee has just presented us with plants of sixty sorts, with 

 names ; he imports the seeds annually, and consequently these fine flowers 

 will soon become general. 



Dr. Von Martins, the celebrated traveller, is now in London. Though 

 old in celebrity, he is quite a young man. He travelled upwards of three 

 years-in the Brazils with the late Dr. Spix, and has since published a learned 

 and elaborate work, in two quarto volumes, describing a part of the new 

 plants discovered, exceeding, in all, 2000 species. The present king of 

 Bavaria having no taste for botany, has left Dr. Martius to continue the 

 publication of this work at his own expence ; and we are sure that every 

 man who has a just notion of the value of science would wish to have such 

 a work, from such an author, and produced under such circumstances, 

 in his library. The plates are coloured, and consist not only of figures of 

 plants, many of which are of great singularity, but of specimens of land- 

 scape, and general scenery, not less foreign to European ideas* Whoever 

 has read the first volume of the personal narrative of Dr. Spix and Dr. 

 Martius, translated and published two years ago, cannot but feel an interest 

 in the man whose extraordinary thirst for information overcame his repug- 

 nance to that most horrid of Indian drinks, Eimer ; great as was the en- 

 thusiasm of Dr. Spix, yet he could not conquer his aversion to the horrible 

 potion. {See Spix's and Martius 1 s Travels, vol. 1. London, 8vo.; and Nova 

 Genera et Species Plantarum, $c. fyc, collegit et descripsit Dr. C. F. P. de 

 Martius, vols. 1. and 2. Munich, 4to. 1826.) 



Art. III. Scotland. 



Caledonian Horticultural Society, April 14. The competition show of 

 auriculas and polyanthuses, for prizes given by this Society, took place 

 in the Physicians' Hall, and several premiums were awarded. The 

 number of exhibitors, either of auriculas or polyanthuses, for the stage, 

 was considerably smaller than in some former years. Polyanthuses, 

 it is believed, have very generally suffered much during the past Winter. 

 The seedling auriculas were rather numerous, and of high promise ; some 

 sent by Mr. Macdonald of Newington (and which were necessarily excluded 

 from competition, on account of that gentleman having gained the medal 

 for seedling auriculas in 1825), were regarded by the connoisseurs as fine 

 flowers. The stage polyanthuses of Mr. Hately, and the seedling poly- 

 anthuses of Messrs. Dickson and Co., were also much admired. A collec- 

 tion of about twenty varieties of polyanthus narcissus, from the open 

 border at Biel, formed one of the novelties of this exhibition. 



At the meeting of this society, June the 1st, the best early melon pro- 

 duced in competition was a rock canteloupe, raised by Mr. JohnMacnaughton, 

 gardener to Colonel Wauchope at Edmondstone (a meritorious encourager 

 of horticulture and of gardeners, who paid ten guineas to make his gardener 

 a free ordinary member of this Society) : seed sown 1st March, in small 

 pots; kept in the pine-pits for 15 days; transplanted 16th March into a 

 two-light pit-frame (the Edmondstone frame) ; soil, two parts loam-turf mould, 



A a 4 



