342 Improvements in Australia. 



Art. XX. Short Communications. 



Australia. — Si/dney. We have lately received a valuable 

 packet of seeds and dried specimens, from Mr. M'Lean, the 

 under curator of the Sydney Botanic Garden ; and also a 

 variety of gratifying information respecting the colony, from 

 Mr. Lawrence, a surgeon, who spent five months in New 

 South Wales last year, chiefly in travelling in the interior 

 among the settlers. The prosperity of the colony has in- 

 creased much, in consequence of all the new grants of land 

 being paid for, instead of being chiefly given away as for- 

 merly. Concentration is thus produced, which is always 

 more favourable to improvement than dispersion. Mr. 

 Lawrence, in his tour through the country (which was in 

 great part made in the society of a Scotch landowner and 

 excellent cultivator), found every where all the improved 

 instruments of British husbandry, two-horse ploughs, drills, 

 horse-hoes, cultivators, threshing machines, and even one of 

 the reaping machines of Bell, first figured in this work. In 

 some of the houses of the Scotch farmers, far in the interior 

 of the country, Mr. Lawrence observed excellent select 

 libraries, and among them, very commonly, the Uncyclo- 

 pcedia Britannica, or Brewster'' s Encyclopcedia. We were 

 gratified to find that our works were also very generally read 

 in the colony. A message was brought us by Mr. Lawrence 

 that a short kitchen-gardening book would be very desirable, 

 and we can recommend, as precisely the sort of publication 

 for a settler, our Cottage Manual, which is at once an 

 epitome of the most useful parts of gardening, farming, and 

 cottage building. To this work, which contains three model 

 designs for cottages, we have just added an Appendix, con- 

 taining thirty designs for cottages, or farm-houses, of dif- 

 ferent degrees of accommodation, from four to ten rooms. 

 The price of the Manual alone is 25., and that of the Ap- 

 pendix Is. The want of a good system of general education 

 is stated to be much felt in the colony, but it is believed that 

 the colonists will soon have a legislature of their own ; and 

 then they will relieve themselves from certain very oppressive 

 establishments imposed on them by the mother country. We 

 regret to find from Mr. Lawrence, that a number of letters 

 vi^hich we have sent out to our correspondents at Sydney have 

 been lost, as well as letters from some of them to us. The 

 seeds sent us by Mr. M'Lean, we have divided between the 

 Birmingham, Manchester, and Goettingen Botanic Gardens. 



Calls at the Nurseries. — We have been our usual rounds 

 among the nurseries, and other London gardens, since the 

 appearance of our last Number, and intended giving our notes 

 on them in the present one. There is, however, no room, and 



