288 Literary Notices. 



Art. V. Literary Notices. 



ILLUSTRATIONS of Indian Botany, or figures illustrative of each of the natural 

 orders of Indian plants described in the author's Prodromus Florce Penin- 

 sula India; Orientalis, with observations on the botanical relations economical 

 uses, and medicinal properties, including descriptions of recently discovered 

 or imperfectly known plants. By Robert Wight, M.D. F.L.S. &c, surgeon on 

 the Madras establishment. Imported from Madras in 4to parts. 



Icones Plantarum Indies Orientalis, or figures of plants. Also imported. 



Xollaj-'s Insects injurious to gardeners, foresters, &c, will appear in the 

 first week of June. 



Repton's Works on landscape-Gardening, No. I., 2s. 6d., to be completed in 

 ten numbers, will appear about the middle of May. 



Horticidtur at Exercises for Schools. — We observe with pleasure that, through 

 the exertions of Mr. Simpson, Mr. Wyse, and others (including Mr. Hume, 

 who was one of the very first members of Parliament who expressed a decided 

 opinion on the subject, many years ago, in a letter in the Morning Advertiser), 

 the subject of a national system of education is beginning to be agitated ; 

 and we therefore think this the proper time to give notice of a kind of school 

 book that we have had in contemplation ever since we saw the school gardens 

 of Bavaria, in 1828. (See Gardener's Magazine, vol. v. p. 692.; and our 

 French pamphlet entitled Des E'tablissemens pour VE'ducation publique en 

 Baviere dans le Wurlemberg et a Bade, &c, Paris, 8vo, 1829.) In the school 

 book which we contemplate, we intend to describe all the ordinary implements 

 of the manual labours and operations used in gardening and agriculture ; and 

 to show the mechanical principles on which the implements are constructed, 

 and the operations performed. We shall begin, for example, by showing what 

 may be called the mechanics of the human body ; viz. the different actions of 

 the muscles and bones, and the changes of position of the centre of gravity 

 that take place in the elementary movements of rising, standing, walking, 

 running, grasping, lifting, throwing, pushing, and drawing. We shall next 

 take the lever, then the pickaxe, and next the spade, and so on. We shall show 

 that the spade is a lever with a wedge at one end, and a handle at the other; 

 and how, in the operation of digging, while separating the spit it is used as a 

 lever of the first kind ; and in lifting the spitful with a view to turning it over 

 or throwing it off, as a lever of the third kind. We shall then show by wood- 

 cuts all the different positions of the operator in digging, giving under each 

 cut what may be called the word of command for that operation (such as 

 seize spade, enter spade, lift spade, turn spade, &c.), and which the teacher 

 may give to his pupils, one after another being made to go through all the dif- 

 ferent movements; or if several spades can be got, digging may be taught in 

 the garden in classes, as soldiers are drilled in corps. We shall next state the 

 uses of the spade in all the different country operations that are performed 

 with it, such as excavating, heaping up, levelling, &c. ; and, in speaking of 

 trenching and digging, we shall show the use of these operations to plants, in 

 rendering the soil more easily penetrated by the roots, increasing its nutritive 

 powers by the intermixture of manure, in facilitating the admission of rain and 

 of heat by its greater porosity, and for the same reason increasing its noncon- 

 ducting properties of both heat and moisture. 



In like manner, we shall go through all the tools, instruments, and hand 

 machines, used in the manual labour of the gardener, the forester, and the 

 general country labourer, giving engravings of every implement, and of the 

 different steps in performing every operation; thus rendering the whole so 

 clear as to be taught to boys at school in masses, and more as an agreeable 

 recreation than a difficult task.^ 



It is scarcely necessary to enlarge on the advantage that would result to 

 boys when they became men, from being taught country labours and operations 

 scientifically. It would enable the working man to perform them in the best 



