394; Domestic Notices : — England. 



above was transcribed, we have seen Mr. Greenshields of Englefield Park 

 Gardens, who is well acquainted with the Vale of Kennet. He states that 

 there is an immense deal of hoar-frost there, over all that part of the vale 

 where the soil is a moist clay, and very little where it is a dry sand. The 

 irregular outline of the moist clay district on each side of the vale is as dis- 

 tinctly marked by the hoar-frost as if it were confined with a wall. Mr. 

 Greenshields thinks Mr. Eisdale's theory very likely to be a true one. 



The Faculties of Mind necessary to form a Botanist. — Dr. Daubeny very cor- 

 rectly considers him " a botanist whose mind is imbued with the great principles 

 by means of which plants can be collected into natural groups, and who 

 strives to discover the general relation in which these groups stand toward 

 each other ; in short, who labours to construct a method, where the very 

 place which a plant occupies in it shall, in a manner, announce its most pro- 

 minent characters, the qualities it may possess, and its affinities with others. 

 We hold the pertinacious attachment to the artificial system to be the cause 

 of the low degree of estimation in which botanical science is, therefore, de- 

 servedly held in this country. If we are right in this opinion, it is certainly 

 greatly to be regretted that that which was formerly dignified with the name 

 of botany should yet linger in our schools, or that any should be found to 

 teach it, since there has arisen in its stead a science which is beautiful, philo- 

 sophical, and capable of the most varied and useful applications-; capable of 

 being applied to medicine, horticulture, entomology, chemistry, and, above 

 all, to climatology, and, consequently, to geology. The method of Jussieu 

 does, for the vegetable kingdom, that which the method of MacLeay does for 

 the animal, viz., by putting us in possession of a single fact, or a few facts, it 

 confers upon us the power of inferring many more, relating not only to the 

 structure of the plants, but to the juices circulating in the vessels, and the 

 products elaborated therefrom. If something more than the name of a plant 

 be to be comprehended in botanical arrangements, let us imitate the example 

 of Linnaeus, who, conscious of the inadequacy of his artificial system ,to serve 

 the cause of genuine botany, wisely abandoned it, and devoted himself to 

 devising a natural method, and called upon all botanists to assist in accom- 

 plishing so desirable an object. Let us no longer cling to this system, which 

 has been expelled from almost every other country of Europe, but rather let 

 us cast it, like an idle weed, away, which cannot be suffered longer to deform 

 the fair garden of philosophic truth." (London and Edinburgh PhiL Jour., 

 vol. v. p. 76.) 



Influence of Colour oriUeat, tlie Deposition of Dew, and of Odours, — Dr. Stark, 

 in a paper in Jamesorts Journal, vol. xvii. p. 65-, has shown, by experiment, 

 that one principle operates in the production of all the above results. A 

 black colour, whether in solids or fluids, absorbs heat most rapidly, and parts 

 with it most rapidly ; dew is also deposited more rapidly on this colour than 

 on any other, and with proportionate rapidity eyaporated from it. Odours, 

 whether agreeable, offensive, or of infectious diseases, are, in like manner, 

 absorbed with greater rapidity, and in greater quantity, in a given ;time, by 

 black colours ; and discharged by these colours with proportionate quickness. 

 The other colours are next effective to black in the order of blue, brown, 

 green, red, yellow, and lastly white; which last absorbs and gives out heat, 

 dew, and odour more slowly than any other colour. These facts will afford 

 valuable hints to gardeners for the colours of walls, of walks, of rockwork, 

 of soils, of coverings for protection, and even of their dresses. 



Art. II. Domestic Notices. 

 ENGLAND. 



A Garden School, in which boys will be taught gardening, agriculture, and 

 rural economy generally ; and girls, sewing, cookery, and domestic economy 

 in all its details, is about to be established at Fordhook by Lady Noel Byron. 



