592 Botanical, FloricuUural, and ArboricuUural 'Notices, 



stronger language than we could apply, without the risk of being accused of 

 bad feeling on the subject. 



It is difficult to conceive anything worse than the entrance at the west 

 end, which forms the terminating object to a straight walk. We are totally 

 ignorant to whom the design of this mode of descending and entering is to be 

 attributed, but this we will say, that if any private gentleman's gardener had 

 committed such a blunder he would have deservedly lost his place. How 

 different might have been this entrance, if the parties connected with the 

 placing of the building had only taken the levels of the ground, and con- 

 sidered the structure with reference to all the details connected with it, such 

 as the west entrance, the boiler, the hot-water pipes, the surrounding terrace, 

 &c., previously to putting it down ! Even admitting that it had been deter- 

 mined to enter this large hand-glass, as it may be called, under the rim, how 

 different would the appearance have been if this I'im had been raised a few feet 

 higher ? The heating pipes, in that case, might have been placed under the 

 level of the path, and a current of air established, not by communicating 

 with the open air, as is now done, but with the air of the house, in Mr. 

 Kewley's manner ; reserving the power of admitting the exterior air also 

 among the pipes at pleasure. Besides this mean entrance, we have a hideous 

 chimney to the hot-water apparatus. Surely this object might have been 

 built in better taste. Even the commonplace idea of a Grecian column, 

 carried into execution so as to produce a very striking effect at the Coventry 

 railway station, and not higher than the chimney in the Horticultural Society's 

 Garden, would have been incomparably better. At present, the little zinc tube, 

 stuck into the thick clumsy mass of compoed brickwork, reminds us of the 

 third-rate houses of the suburbs. But we object altogether to entering this 

 structure under the rim ; and we also object to the tameness and monotony of 

 the round end, which would have been relieved by a porch, either of glazed 

 work or of masonry. These remarks should have been illustrated by a section, 

 to show the descent into the west entrance ; by a ground plan, to show that this 

 west entrance forms a termination to a straight broad walk; and by a view, to 

 show that the sides of the descent are decorated with some stones in the 

 way of rockwork, unworthy of the dignity of architecture, but certainly very 

 well worthy of the scene of which they form a part. 



In the arbori cultural department a great many new pines and other ligneous 

 plants have been raised from seeds sent home by M, Hartweg, with the 

 greatest success, by Mr. Gordon. The taste which the Society is creating for 

 rare and beautiful trees and shrubs throughout the country, by the distribution 

 of the seeds of plants sent home by their collector, and of the plants raised 

 in the garden from these seeds, is a redeeming point in its character ; and must 

 be considered, along with the Catalogue of Fruits prepared by Mr. Thompson 

 (known throughout Europe and North America as perhaps better skilled in 

 fruits than any other man in existence), and the distribution of grafts of 

 selected and new fruits, as veiling the sins of the garden with reference to 

 design and taste. 



Art. II. Botanical, FloricuUural, and ArboricuUural Notices of 

 the Kinds of Plants newly introduced into British Gardens and 

 Plantations, or which have been originated in them ^ together tvitk 

 additional Lifo^-mation respecting Plants {whether old or nevo) already 

 in Cultivation : the whole intended to serve as a perpetual Supplement 

 to the " Encyclopcedia of Plants," the " Hortiis Britannicus," the 

 " Hortus Lignosus," and the " Arboretum et Fruticetum Brita^i- 

 nicum." 



Curtis' s Botanical Magazine ; in monthly numbers, each containing 

 seven plates; 3s. 6fT. coloured, Ss. plain. Edited by Sir William 



