638 Gardening and Rural Improvement during 1836. 



and Mexico by Dr. Coulter, are about to be published by Mr. 

 Lambert. 



Australia has lost the curator of the Sydney Botanic Garden, 

 Mr. Richard Cunningham ; and a notice of the distressing man- 

 ner in which he met his death will be found in a preceding 

 page. Mr. Allan Cunningham, the brother of the deceased, 

 has been appointed his successor, and sailed from London in Octo- 

 ber last. From the new colony established in Southern Australia 

 much is expected, in consequence of the adoption of the new prin- 

 ciple of concentration; by which means, in a very short period, 

 a distant colony may be made to unite all the essential advan- 

 tages of an old country with those of a new one. This prin- 

 ciple consists in government assuming the proprietorship of the 

 land, and allowing no person to settle who does not become a 

 purchaser, or an occupier at a fixed rent, and show that he 

 has sufficient capital to bring what he purchases or hires into 

 proper cultivation. It is easy to conceive that the application 

 of this principle will have a tendency to produce a great num- 

 ber of small estates, all lying near together, and within an easy 

 distance of a town occupied by tradesmen and labourers, who 

 will supply the wants of the agriculturists, in return for a por- 

 tion of the produce of their farms. In such a colony, it will be 

 long before there can be any overgrown estates ; and it may 

 probably grow up a second Norway, where every head of a 

 family, among the rural population, is an owner of land, which 

 he cultivates himself. A number of portable houses, such as 

 those figured and described in our Encyclopedia of Cottage, 

 Farm, and Villa Architecture, p. 251.; a portable school and 

 church ; and a portable banking-house, of two stories ; have been 

 constructed in London, and sent out to this colony, for the 

 convenience of the first settlers. Mr. Allen, an early corre- 

 spondent of this Magazine, has gone out as a nurseryman and 

 garden architect ; and we have already seen, in a South Aus- 

 tralian newspaper, one of his advertisements, ofifering his ser- 

 vices in laying out and planting small gardens. From the lati- 

 tude of Southern Australia, we should expect the climate to be 

 more analogous to that of Van Diemen's Land than to that of 

 Sydney ; and, consequently, that it will be found better adapted 

 for the health of British emigrants, and for the growth of Bri- 

 tish productions. The great article of export from Australia 

 to Europe continues to be wool ; but it is highly probable that, 

 at no great distance of time, cotton and silk will be added. 

 Wine and oil may, doubtless, be produced there in sufficient 

 abundance for home consumption, if not for exportation. 



