616 Summary Vieno of the Progress of Gardenings 



with reference to their curators, and to the recommendation of 

 young men from their gardens. 



The London Horticultural Society having advanced in their 

 conditions of quahfications for the admission of young gardeners, 

 from " reading and writing moderately well " (see Vol. I. p. 3 1 5.), 

 to "writing, arithmetic, land-surveying, mapping, and geography" 

 (seep. 610.), the circumstance will not only tend to raise the 

 character of gardeners, but to show the real practical value of 

 school education to working men generally. This will conse- 

 quently aid in accelerating the progress of measures for establish- 

 ing a national system of education ; a part of which system will 

 consist in the examination of pupils, and the granting of certi- 

 ficates from the masters and managers of the national schools 

 to all persons whatever that have been educated in those schools, 

 after they have been publicly examined. These certificates, by 

 showing the natural taste and acquired knowledge of the pupils, 

 will regulate the kind of profession, or employment, to which 

 they are most likely to apply with success. This is the case at 

 present in Wirtemberg and other parts of Germany. (See Vol. 

 V. p. 692.) 



Vegetable Physiology and Systematic Botany. — VV^e have not 

 much to say under these heads. The facts that plants may be 

 kept alive in the smoke of cities, and in close rooms, by covering 

 them with glass cases, the lower rims of which are placed in 

 water, so as to exclude the free entrance of air ; and also that 

 they may in this manner be transported in a living state from 

 any one part of the world to any other part, have been proved by 

 the indefatigable zeal of Mr. Ward, whose experiments we have 

 noticed in former volumes. A curious fact, which bears on the 

 subject of the duration of the vitality of seeds, will be found 

 noticed in a paragraph in a future page, respecting some rasp- 

 berry seeds which vegetated after having been buried many 

 centuries. A hybrid plant between Cytisus purpureus and (7. 

 iaburnum has reverted to its original parentage ; by one part 

 of the plant becoming Cytisus purpureus, and the other Cytisus 

 iaburnum ; which seems to show that permanent hybrids cannot 

 be produced between genuine species ; and to confirm that part 

 of the definition of a species which designates it as a form 

 which cannot be obliterated either by nature or art. A botanical 

 society has been established in Edinburgh, and another in Lon- 

 don. (See Domestic Notices.) 



NetX) Agents of Culture. — Of these the most valuable which 

 has been produced during the year is Reid's new hydraulic 

 machine, which combines all the advantages of a syringe, and 

 most of those of a garden watering-engine. In this machine, a 

 great acquisition of power is obtained by having two cylinders, 

 in one of which the air is compressed as in Montgolfier's engines. 



