Foreign Notices ; — West Indies. S c 29 



v s 



my thumb on one ere long. Your lessons on landscape-gardening and laying 

 out have not been lost upon me even here. I have made a design for lay- 

 ing out and planting what is called the Hyde Park here, and also for build- 

 ing allotments around it ; and it has pleased the governor. We have a large 

 botanical garden here ; but it does not appear to me to be well kept up, and 

 possesses nothing very rare. It is open at all times to the public, the con- 

 sequence of which is, that no one visits it. There is also an Agricultural 

 and Horticultural Society very well supported, almost every respectable 

 person being a member. The pursuits of the settlers are merely the increase 

 of their stock, and the growth of wool, wheat, and maize. I am so ignorant 

 of what has been done in the way of naturalising our trees and shrubs to 

 the climate of England, that it is almost folly for me to talk about it ; but I 

 should certainly like to see the gum or eucalyptus adorning your lawns : so 

 disposed, I think, they are the most beautiful of trees. The burwan I re- 

 member to have seen at Loddiges', and think it could be naturalised; also, 

 the grass tree and fern tree would add a striking and agreeable feature to 

 your shrubberies. It will prove a most fertile source of amusement to me, 

 should I return to England, to recognise the flowers, trees, and shrubs of 

 Australia. Though I do not know their names or classes, I know them all 

 by sight, and shall never forget them. The flowers I have always on my 

 mantle-piece, sumptuous nosegays that would fetch half a guinea in Covent 

 Garden, and these are got in five minutes in the bush. I am unable to study 

 as I ought to do ; but the climate is so relaxing, that, after six hours' teasing 

 in an office, you are little calculated for aught but exercise and society. You 

 can have no idea of the delightful temperature of our winter. The clear 

 sunny days, without the excessive heat of summer, are enough to revive the 

 spirits of the most gloomy invalid. — /. T. 



The Hobart Town Courier. — We have to thank an unknown correspond- 

 ent for a series of this paper to the 30th of May last. These papers are 

 highly interesting as showing the progress of the colony; the spread of 

 civilisation of a high and advanced kind over an immense tract of country, 

 and the growing consumption of European, and especially British, manufac- 

 tures. In almost every paper there are several advertisements, containing 

 lists of the British goods just arrived, and for sale in the ships, or in certain 

 stores. As centuries must elapse before Australia can become a manufac- 

 turing country, the prospective advantages of the colony to Europe, even if 

 it should, which it most likely will, in the course or thirty or forty years, 

 become a free union, are incalculable. We wish we could see, under the pre- 

 sent governments of the different settlements, a description of allotments of 

 land for the support of schools, similar to what obtains in Ndrth America. 

 We have sent the editor of the Hobart Town Courier a copy of our Paro- 

 chial Institutions, 8$c. and of Des Etablksemens, Sj-c. ; and we hope he will 

 be able to find room, portion after portion, for the whole of both pamphlets. 

 In his pages they will remain to be consulted, at a period more auspicious 

 than the present for the establishment of Parochial Institutions, or at least 

 allotting lands for them throughout the whole of the civilised part of Aus- 

 tralia. We recommend also, both to the Australians and the Americans, 

 the subject of village breathing-places, or play-grounds, noticed in a former 

 Number (Vol. V. p. 686.) — Cond. 



■ WEST INDIES. 



Jamaica Agricultural Society, May 20. — Read. A paper on the Natural 

 History, Climate, &c, of the vicinity of Spanish Town ; by the secretary. 



Presented* Fourteen varieties of Kidneybean, cultivated at the Carac- 

 cas ; by Dr. Lockhart of Trinidad. 



Thanks were voted to the Hon. Vice-Admiral Fleming, for his polite 

 attention in forwarding the views of the Society, by the introduction of 

 several new objects of cultivation in the island. 



