38 Foreign Notices: — North America. 



we cannot help expressing our surprise that it should not he more common in 

 the library of the general reader, as well as of the botanist. While the defini- 

 tions arc strictly scientific, the descriptive and historical matter is most inte- 

 resting and entertaining, the plates are beautifully engraved, and the entire 

 work, as we stated when reviewing it in a former volume, is remarkably cheap. 

 — Cond. 



Art. II. Foreign Notices. 



NORTH AMERICA. 



Botanic Nurseries, Neiu Burgh, New York, Nov. 21. 1838. — I have just 

 received the last Numbers of the Arboretum Brilannicum, and hardly know how 

 to express my admiration of its completeness and magnificence, as a history 

 of the trees and shrubs of temperate climates. I only regret that the high price 

 at which so costly a work must be sold will prevent its having that general 

 circulation here, and that deserved popularity, which your Encyclopaedias 

 have found among us. Your Encyclopaedias of Gardening and of Agriculture, 

 are not only the standard works here, but they are almost exclusively the 

 works found among our amateurs and better class of farmers and proprietors. 

 The Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture, although rather 

 loo elaborate to suit our popular taste, has already had a very visible effect 

 upon the taste for rural architecture in the United States : and although we 

 build up many edifices that set criticism at defiance, yet a wonderful pro- 

 gress and improvement in architecture has taken place within a few years 

 past ; much more, doubtless, than would be brought about in Europe in half 

 a century ; and our citizens and landholders only require good specimens, 

 plans, and models, to adopt them at once, as we have no national or ancient 

 prejudices of any sort to combat. 



The facility with which we raise good fruit in the open air, in the Middle 

 States, gives a great spur to the planting of fine fruits, and our nurseries 

 contain nearly all the very choicest varieties cultivated at present with you : 

 while such is the luxuriance of the soil, and so favourable is the climate, that 

 numbers of fine seedling varieties spring up almost spontaneously. Some 

 of the old fruits, which Mr. Knight and others of your best European phy- 

 siologists considered nearly extinct and degenerate, bear and thrive in the 

 Middle States yet, with all their primitive vigour. The Magazine of Horti- 

 culture, edited by Harvey at Boston, is slowly, though surely, labouring for 

 the good of the cause among us; and, from the report ofonr horticultural ex- 

 hibitions therein published, you may gather some idea of the efforts of our prin- 

 cipal amateurs. In pretty villas in a high state of keeping, a fondness for rare 

 plants, and forcing the better fruits, Boston is half a century in advance of her 

 sister cities. Philadelphia still holds the palm for fine exotic collections, and 

 a general green-house commercial business. New York is so purely a busi- 

 ness emporium, that in its pell-mell few find time for the indulgence of a 

 taste for gardening : but some beautiful conservatories and suburban gardens 

 have recently been erected in Brooklyn. 



Judge Buel's excellent monthly paper, the Cultivator, is working won- 

 ders among our agricultural population, which is sadly in need of enlighten- 

 ing. Its correspondents, who are numerous, lay before its readers the 

 practical results of their operations, carefully conducted in different parts 

 of the Union ; and the editorial columns are filled with matter evincing the 

 sound sense and practical science of the conductor. With a circulation of 

 20,000, including every state and territory of the Union, you may conceive 

 of the influence it wields, and the good results which it may bring about. 



The silk culture is progressing also with a zeal and assiduity which cha- 

 racterise all the enterprises undertaken among us. Several of the states 

 have offered large bounties for its production ; and our ingenious Yankees are 



