Sinclair's Hints on Vegetation. 205 



it asks information from every body who is conversant with the subjects 

 expressed in its title. It states, in a brief and explicit manner, the amount 

 of what has been hitherto ascertained on the relative and comparative 

 agency of earth, air, water, light and heat, manures, and cultivation, in 

 influencing vegetation : we perceive nothing new in what is stated. Of 

 the agents destructive to vegetation, " minerals or noxious substances in the 

 soil " and " vermin " only are enumerated. Then follow hints on " raising 

 new varieties of plants and vegetables," the amount of which is hybridising, 

 a mode now as familiar to the majority of gardeners as the alphabet. 

 To these succeed " hints on the culture of potatoes." To all these 

 succeeds an appendix, containing " queries, addressed to farmers, gardeners, 

 and nurserymen." There are 22 queries concerning the influence of 

 the earth on vegetation; 15 queries on the influence of air; 10 con- 

 cerning water; 18 concerning light and heat; 12 concerning manures, 

 or dead organised matter; 9 concerning culture; 8 concerning substances 

 in the earth injurious to vegetation; 12 concerning vermin noxious to 

 vegetation; 14 concerning the improvement of plants, by the introduction 

 of new varieties, or crossing different species of the same kind of tree or 

 plant ; and these last queries, it is remarked, are peculiarly recommended 

 to the reader's attention. It is added : — " Any other facts on the subject of 

 vegetation, not included in these questions, will be extremely acceptable. 

 Answers are requested to be transmitted to Sir John Sinclair, Bart., 

 133. George Street, Edinburgh ; T. A. Knight, Esq. ; or P. Neill, Esq., 

 Edinburgh." This remark is appended to the queries : — " It is quite unne- 

 cessary to go through the whole of these queries, but only to refer to those 

 points with which the writer by whom any answer is sent happens to be 

 peculiarly conversant." This is the most comprehensive scheme we have 

 ever seen for amassing a vast stock of particular facts, out of which to 

 elicit, by cautious induction, safe conclusion. We wish the queries, which 

 seem clearly enounced, may be copiously answered. — J. D. 



Memoirs of the Caledonian Horticultural Society. 8vo. Edinburgh, 

 Maclachlan and Stewart, 1832. Part I. Vol. V. 3s. 



This Part of 128 pages of large type, rather loosely printed, contains 

 six articles by as many practical gardeners, and five by amateurs. From 

 a hasty glance at these papers, there does not appear much in them that 

 we have not already laid before our readers, in this Magazine, or in the 

 Encyclopedia of Gardermig ; but we shall examine it with care, and in due 

 time give the essence. 



Leigh, Peter, Esq. M. A. : The Music of the Eye ; or, Essays on the Prin- 

 ciples of the Beauty and Perfection of Architecture, as founded on and 

 deduced from Reason and Analogy, and adapted to what may be traced 

 of the Ancient Theories of Taste in the three first chapters of Vitru- 

 vius ; written with a view to restore Architecture to the Dignity it had 

 in Ancient Greece. Royal 8vo, 42 plates. London, Walker, 1831. 

 1/. \0s. 



The author's chief reason for calling architecture the music of the eye 

 is, that certain Greek lexicographers considered the words music and art as 

 synonymous. " It is the object of these essays to investigate the principles 

 of architectural beauty, and to form them into a system." At the same 

 time, the author is " not so confident as to anticipate, nor so vain as to 

 imagine," that his work is any more than " an outline, to be completed by 

 the finger of time and experience." He claims, however, " some title to 

 originality and system," and considers it wrong " to conceal these attempts 

 from the public, though they should be pursued by all the virulence which 

 sometimes accompanies modern criticisms." 



