Horticultural Society and Garden. 251 



Exhibited. Newtown Pippins from America, by John Beadnell, Esq. 

 F.H.S. Nine sorts of Camellias, from Mr. Chandler, F.H.S. ieucojum' 

 vernum, Forced Swedish Turnips, &c., Striped Perennial Kale, from Mr. 

 Daniel Grant of Lewisham. Camellia Reevesfi (French White Camellia) 

 from T. C. Palmer, Esq. F.H. S. ^' 



A/so, from the Garden of the Society/. Twenty-two sorts of Apples, six 

 sorts of Pears, two kinds of Rhubarb, Flowers of Crocuses, three sorts of 

 Camellias, and Flowers of Chimonanthus fragrans. 



The Chiswick Garden, Feb. 16. — We regret to see an alteration going 

 on in the plan of this garden, which shows a determination, on the part of 

 the Society, not to adopt any radical reformation in its general arrange- 

 ment. We regret it, because it shows a want of recourse to fundamental 

 principles, and a dispositipn to apply palliatives to fundamental evils, which 

 is generally the characteristic of indolence or ignorance. Some, who 

 reverence all public bodies, and adopt the opinions of eminent names, from 

 inability, disinclination, or want of leisure, to enquire into measures, may 

 think it a species of presumption in us, to set up our notions on the layino- 

 out of this garden against those of the Council, who must have sanctioned 

 the alteration in question. Perhaps, indeed, some may think that we are 

 influenced by private or party motives. Let those think so who do not 

 know us better : if private feelings could influence us, it would be to the 

 part of silence ; for, since the removal of Mr. Sabine, the officers of the 

 Society have shown us every civility, and afforded us every information 

 which we could desire. We are not, however, the less decided in our total 

 disapproval of the plan of the garden ; and our ideas on this subject must 

 be known to those who have perused this Magazine from its commence- 

 ment. If the whole, the half, or a fourth of a reformed plan could not 

 have been executed in one season for want of funds, a smaller fraction mio^ht • 

 and there would have been, to us at least, the double satisfaction of seeing 

 work performed which would not require, at some future time, to be 

 undone, and the prospect of the completion, sooner or later, of a plan 

 worthy of the present state of gardening sciencei The money now ex- 

 pending in the alteration alluded to, if it had been applied as we proposed, 

 would at least have made a beginning to a work which must certainly one 

 day be undertaken. We will not repeat the outline of our plan, nor fatigue 

 our readers by pointing out many of the objections to that adopted. We 

 must, however, keep the subject alive, by now and then directing attention 

 to a defect or a deformity. Our present essay in this way shall not be long. 

 Let every young gardener recollect, that whatever is truly scientific must 

 form a definite whole ; the parts of which can no more be disarranged 

 than can the steps necessary for working a problem in geometry or a ques- 

 tion in arithmetic. On trying the plan of the Chiswick garden by this test, 

 it will be found that it has no pretensions to the merit of being a definite 

 whole J since any one part of it might be substituted for any other part, 

 and all the purposes which the garden now serves be as well answered 

 as at present. The arboretum, for instance, might just as well have been 

 on the west side as on the east side ; and the hot-house department might 

 have been equally well in the southern as in the northern corner. But the 

 principle we have laid down must be reflected upon by the young gardener, 

 and applied by him to all the details of the garden, in order to understand 

 the important consequences to which it leads. Had a scientific plan been 

 adopted, such as that we sketched out in a former Number, no patches of 

 common-place shrubbery or pleasure-ground scenery could have been 

 admitted, and not a single duplicate would have been required ; or, where 

 duplicates might have been thought desirable, they could only have been 

 allowed a place close to the original. No one species, in short, of either 

 ornamental tree or herbaceous plant could have occurred in two different 



