624 Vie'w of the Progress of Garde7iing, 



the cattle shows of the Smithfield Club, and of the Highland 

 Society of Scotland : but it remained for a spirited commercial 

 house, Messrs. Drummond, seedsmen, Stirling, to be the first to. 

 form an agricultural museum in Britain. Similar museums have 

 since been established by Messrs. Dickson and Turnbull, seeds- 

 men, Perth ; by Mr. Lawson, seedsman, Edinburgh, and others. 

 The establishment of such exhibitions, by individuals, argues an 

 extraordinary degree of public spirit and enthusiasm ; and, in- 

 deed, it is more than can be expected to arise from any source 

 but that of a public body. They are so exceedingly useful, that 

 it is to be hoped that they will be as generally adopted by the 

 agricultural societies throughout the country as horticultural 

 gardens are by the societies for the promotion of horticulture. 

 We are happy to find that the present enlightened professor of 

 agriculture in the University of Edinburgh, Mr. Low, is form- 

 ing a museum of models and specimens of productions for the 

 use of his class. It appears to us, that in every college there 

 ought to be, not only a professorship of agriculture, but such a 

 museum as that which is being formed by Professor Low. There 

 is no man likely to be sent to college, whatever may be his pur- 

 suits in after life, to whom a knowledge of botany and agricul- 

 ture would not be extremely useful. 



In the science of agriculture, we are not aware of any im- 

 portant improvement that has been made during the last year. 

 The result of various experiments to determine the cause of the 

 failure of the potato crop for two years past has not been alto- 

 gether satisfactory, though it has shown that the sets may lose 

 their vital principle when taken up before they have attained a 

 certain degree of maturity ; and also that, when kept too much 

 exposed, they are liable to have their moisture evaporated from 

 them during the winter. Mr. Niven, in the Irish Gardener's 

 and Farmer^ s Magazine, thinks that the failure of the crop in 

 Ireland may have been owing partly to some change in the elec- 

 tric state of the atmosphere, and partly to the careless manner 

 in which the potato is ti'eated after it has been dug out of the 

 ground till it is replanted ; and the experience of Mr. Munro 

 (p. 416.) is in accordance with that of Mr. Niven. The supe- 

 riority of whole potatoes to sets, when an early crop is desired, 

 has been proved by Mr. Niven in the same paper ; and also the 

 superiority of sets to whole potatoes, when the object is a main 

 crop, more especially when the bud, or rose end, as it is called 

 in Ireland, is used. This superiority of sets to whole potatoes 

 has been also proved by the experiments conducted in the Hor- 

 ticultural Society's Garden, and by various others which will be 

 found stated in the First Additional Supjplement to our Encyclo- 

 pedia of Agriculture, p. 1^55. The culture of the Trifcilium 

 incarnatum has greatly increased in different parts of the country; 



