Domestic Notices : — England. 487 



be obtained for a trifle. On the whole, the impression on our mind is, 

 that New Zealand is a most desirable country for a colony of Europeans, 

 who might settle there, and govern themselves without the interference 

 of the mother country, at present pressing so severely at Sydney, the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and other misgoverned colonies. According to all the 

 accounts which we have received, an emigrant with a little capital would 

 have an incomparably better chance of prosperity and happiness, by taking 

 his chance among the New Zealanders, than encountering the certain tyranny 

 of the government of Sydney. The things related of the present governor,, 

 and we fear truly, are indeed horrible. (See Scotsman, July 17.) — Cond. 



Art. III. Domestic Notices. 



ENGLAND. 



Lessons on Botany, to young ladies or gentlemen residing in London or 

 its neighbourhood, are about to be given by Mr. Sweet, who proposes to 

 teach both the Linnean and Natural System, on moderate terms. We are 

 heartily glad of this, and hope Mr. Sweet will extend his lessons to culture 

 and management. There is not one person in five hundred of those who 

 possess a house, and plot in the way of garden, in the neighbourhood of 

 London, who knows how to make the most of the latter. If such persons 

 were to take six mixed lessons of botany and culture, say one on each of 

 the spring and summer months, for two or three years, they would find them- 

 selves, at the end of that time, within the pale of a new world; new enjoy- 

 ments, and new wants. Even those who keep plants in pots, (window 

 gardeners, as the French call them, and stube or room gardeners as they 

 are called by the Germans,) would derive much benefit from a few lessons of 

 management. We knew a lady who could not keep a heath alive six months 

 till we taught her always to keep the bottom of the stem, botanically speaking 

 the collar, above the level of the rim of the pot ; the earth sloping from the 

 stem to about half an inch under the rim of the pot, so that the plant seems 

 to grow out of the summit of a little dry hill. She now grows a dozen sorts, 

 as well as most nurserymen. Few persons that occupy houses have a tithe 

 of the plants in pots about them which they might have. The roof of every 

 house might be covered with pots by fixing boards over the tiles in the 

 manner of a green-house stage. Alpines would grow better on a house-top 

 than in the back yard or front area below. Miss Kent, who, as we men- 

 tioned in one of our earliest Numbers, also gives lessons in botany, and 

 whose ability to do so in the most engaging manner will not be doubted by 

 those who have read her very interesting Introduction to the Linnean 

 System, in the Magazine of Natural History, lives in the very heart of Lon- 

 don, between Paternoster Row and St. Paul's, yet she has a thriving garden 

 of pots on the top of the house ; not of sickly geraniums, but of pretty little 

 hardy natives, among them the common gowan or daisy. In a very few 

 years we expect to see botany, entomology, ornithology, and conchology, 

 as generally taught in schools and private families as music now is, and cer- 

 tain we are that the sources of enjoyment which this will open up for the 

 rising generation will be great beyond what many of their parents have any 

 idea of. — Cond. 



A School of Industry and an Infant School are about to be established at 

 Potton, Bedfordshire. The proposals issued contain, in our opinion, some 

 good features, with one or two bad ones. " That the utmost attention be 

 paid to the religious instruction of the children, according to the liturgy 

 and catechism of the church of England," we include among the latter, 

 because we belong to the church of Scotland, and think it most probable 



I I 4' 



