Q34< Remarks on laying out 



reason is, that the taste of the employers of landscape-gardenel^s 

 is not yet sufficiently cultivated to know right from wrong ; and 

 hence such persons would be unwilling to incur the requisite ex- 

 pense of making a working plan which should indicate the situa- 

 tion of every tree and shrub that is to be planted. It is not 

 sufficient, for the purpose of improving the public taste in land- 

 scape-gardening and architecture, that there be competent artists 

 in these lines of art ; it is necessary, also, that the public should 

 have attended to the subject, to such an extent as to know what 

 is really excellent when it is placed before them. In landscape- 

 gardening, therefore, as in every thing else, the only certain mode 

 of insuring the progress and the durability of improvement is, to 

 enlighten the people generally, and to create in them a superior 

 degree of knowledge and taste; in short, to make all men critics, 

 in all that concerns the general improvement and ornament of 

 towns and the country, and the comfort and enjoyment of the great 

 mass of society. We look to the establishment of public parks 

 and gardens, in the formation and management of which the 

 rate-payers of every town or village shall take an interest, as likely 

 to be a very efficient means for the attainment of this desirable 

 end ; and we should be glad, also, to see the establishment of such 

 a society as that recommended by a correspondent, p. 280., for 

 promoting the improvement of the public taste in architecture 

 and rural scenery. 



SCIENTIFIC PUBLIC GAllDENS. 



Zoological Gardens have, from the remotest periods of civilisa- 

 tion, been connected with regal governments. In modern times, 

 they appear to have existed in different parts of Europe since the 

 era of the Crusades; and though for many centuries the ani- 

 mals were few, consisting, perhaps, of one or two lions, a tiger, a 

 monkey, &c., and the space in which they were kept was very 

 confined, yet still these limited menageries may be considered as 

 the origin of zoological gardens. In this case, as in various 

 others which have happened, and will happen, that which is at 

 first a luxury, and enjoyed only by kings, princes, and the 

 wealthy, becomes at last in general use by the great mass of 

 society. This, indeed, appears to be Nature's mode of advancing 

 civilisation. What man is capable of enjoying is first exhibitecl 

 in the case of a few solitary individuals, as a beau ideal to be 

 aimed at ; and, after ages of slow but steady progress, it at last 

 comes within the reach of the whole of mankind. 



The situation for a zoological garden should be chosen on 

 nearly the same principle as that for a dwelling-house. The 

 first considerations ought to be such a climate, such an elevation, 

 such a soil, and such an aspect and exposure, as are most likely 

 to be conducive to the health of man, when, of course, it will be so 

 to that of the inferior animals. The soil should, if possible, be 



