and of Rural Improvemeivt generally/, during 1836. 633 



in visiting one another ; and would enable many, who now seldom 

 leave their own neighbourhood, or see only those gardens which 

 they can approach by stage-coaches, to inspect the principal 

 gardens throughout the country. This they cannot do by 

 travelling by stage-coaches alone, because many of the first-rate 

 gardens are situated at a distance (too far for walking) from 

 the main roads. We have often had occasion to regret the loss 

 which foreign gardeners, who have come over to this country 

 solely for the purpose of visiting our gardens, have sustained 

 from this circumstance ; it being a well-known fact that a person 

 may be conveyed fifty miles on a stage-coach along a main road, 

 for less than he can go five miles in a post-chaise, or in a gig, on 

 a cross road. Another improvement, which would greatly faci- 

 litate the travelling of the working classes, including both arti- 

 sans and artists, would be the removal of all turnpike-gates, and 

 the taking off the present heavy tax on stage-coaches and gigs, 

 and on horses drawing in them. Stage-coaches and gigs are 

 the carriages of the middle and working classes ; and by means 

 of them nearly all the important business of the country is 

 transacted. Let the taxes, therefore, be removed from them, 

 and placed on the post-chaises, and other carriages of the wealthy. 

 Another improvement which we should like to see take place, is 

 the increased stability of every description of public carriages by 

 widening them, and allowing no luggage whatever to be placed 

 on the roof, or even above the level of the axletree. There 

 ought, also, to be a law to regulate the number of outside pas- 

 sengers, the rate of driving, and the length of stages, so as to 

 lessen the great number of coach accidents which annually occur. 

 (See an excellent article on this subject in the Scotsman^ Oct. 12. 

 1836.) 



GARDENING AND RURAL IMPROVEMENT IN FOREIGN 

 COUNTRIES. 



In France, in the Jardin des Plantes, a new palm-house 

 has been completed, and the hot-houses in that establish- 

 ment generally have been altered and improved. The new 

 variety of mulberry, ikforus multicaulis (see Arboretum et Fru- 

 ticetum Britannicum, art. ik/orus), has been lately extensively 

 propagated by the nurserymen, both for planting in France, and 

 for exportation to America and other countries. The Madura 

 has ripened fruit at Lyons and Marseilles ; and the leaves have 

 been employed to feed the silkworm in the latter place. Young 

 plants of the Salisbur/a have been raised from fruit produced 

 in the neighbourhood of Montpelier. All these facts will be 

 found in detail, at more length, in their appropriate departments 

 in this Magazine. (See Foreign Notices, in the table of Contents.) 



Holland, in consequence of the increased commerce in bulbous 



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