108 " Hints for Improvements. 



Society, together with, I believe, the most intelligent young gardeners, not 

 only in the vicinity of the metropolis, but, generally speaking, throughout the 

 kino-dom ; where it is intended that branch establishments shall be formed. 

 They say they have a library, containing all the useful works now published in 

 the United Kingdom on horticulture and agriculture. They propose having 

 exhibitions three or four tim.es a year ; to create emulation among the 

 members ; and on the day succeeding each exhibition to have a flower fair 

 held in the same place, for the advantage of such nurserymen as belong to 

 the Society, and to allow thereby a means of purchasing to amateurs. They- 

 intend taking a piece of ground, to employ thereon respectable gardeners 

 whilst out of situation, together with superannuated gardeners that sup- 

 ported good characters. They intend cultivating the most profitable 

 vegetables for market, and to collect the best kinds of fruit-trees, to enable 

 nurserymen and their members in general to have their stocks genuine ; 

 but how far they can be relied on we can only guess hereafter. However, 

 this much I say, I will have an eye on them as well as their neighbours ; 

 and as soon as the scent of a job appears, though stifled with all the flowers 

 of sophistry, as well as decorated with all theii' garden productions, I 

 shall extract it, and send it all soldered in a tin case to you, promising that 

 it shall not lose in flavour, though under the influence of another atmo- 

 sphere. As nothing can be so great a check on public men as public 

 opinion, and as nowhere is that more candidly expressed than in your 

 valuable Magazine (which is read, of course, by the members of those So- 

 cieties), by giving a place to the above you will much oblige most gardeners 

 in Ireland, as well as your humble servant. — An Observer of Irish Jobbing, 

 Dublin, Aug. 1830. 



Remarkable Additions to the Irish Flora. — I lately made a short tour to 

 the wild district of Cunnamara, on the western coast, where, besides pro- 

 curing plants of Eriocaulon septangulare, Rhynchospora fasca, Cladiura 

 gerraanicum, and some other rare plants, I discovered -Erica mediterranea 

 growing abundantly in a bog, which I consider an important addition to 

 our Irish flora. — J. T. Mackay. 5. Cottage Terrace, Dublin, Nov. 13. 1830. 



A large Cucumber. — I observe that you have given some accounts of 

 larse cucumbers; let me give you the dimensions of one I grew last summer. 

 Length of the fruit, 26 in. ; circumference, 12 in, ; size of the leaf across the 

 bottom, near the insertion of the leaf on its footstalk, 16i in. ; across, far- 

 ther up the middle, 17| in. j from the tip of the leaf to the extreme verge 

 of either lower lobe, 18 in. — J. Elles. Palace Gardens, Armagh, Jan. 5. 

 1831. 



Art. IV. Hints for Improvements. 



Domestic Economy of the Middling Classes. — Sir, You v/ould materially 

 benefit an extensive class of the community, if you would suggest to 

 your correspondents to do for them what you have recently done for the 

 cottager. There are thousands of individuals living upon very limited in- 

 comes, who are driven to foreign countries to seek a cheaper subsistence 

 than that which their own seems to alFord them. They would be greatly 

 assisted if a page of the Gardener's Magazine were devoted to an enquiry 

 into the comparative cheapness of some of the counties in England and 

 Wales, I do not know of any work which furnishes this information; and 

 a small one, in a cheap form, is much to be desired. 



I would suggest an enquiry, and a brief return, from different parts of the 

 country, of the comparative expenses of different departments of housekeep- 

 ing, such as rent, wages, coals, provisions of every kind, &c. ; thus furnishing 

 to a most respectable class of persons the means of ascertaining where 



