and Taste for •, Horticulture. 253 



periodicals that exist, there are none that I know whose pages are 

 entirely devoted to the use of the cultivators of cottage gardens. 

 Many a useful article slumbers in the by-gone volumes of the Gar- 

 dener's Magazine, that might be awakened into life and vigour, 

 and scattered by thousands, in the shape of monthly horticultural 

 tracts, among the cottagers of our country. Many objects have 

 been furthered by means of tract circulation, and why not gar- 

 dening ? If public taste be rapidly advancing in favour of 

 painting, sculpture, architecture, and gardening also, surely any 

 laudable means that has for its object the advancement of 

 knowledge and comfort among the labouring classes of the com- 

 munity ought to have the support and goodwill of every benevo- 

 lent individual. A little encouragement from landed proprietors 

 and horticultural societies would do much to promote the cir- 

 culation of tracts, which might even be given gratis for a time, until 

 a taste for reading them were formed in the minds of the indivi- 

 duals for whose benefit they were intended. With an extensive 

 circulation, a four-paged tract may be produced for a halfpenny, 

 or perhaps less. If the love of gardening has a tendency 

 to improve and humanise the whole man, surely the small 

 cost at which that love may be fostered should never be looked 

 upon as money thrown away. It would be employed for one of 

 the best of purposes, if, by means of these monthly messengers, 

 the cottager should be enabled to grow better vegetables, and 

 increase the quantity and quality of his fruit, and to decorate 

 his garden with finer and rarer flowers ; and be led to examine 

 the works of his Creator with a philosophic eye, to institute a 

 higher-toned morality, and become a better member of society. 



Although Chambers's Edinburgh Journal and the Penny Ma- 

 gazine have been in existence many years, yet they have never 

 reached the dwellings of thousands of our rural population. It 

 is melancholy to think that there exist such a multitude 



" Who loathe to taste of intellectual food, j 



Yet surfeit on old tales of Robin Hood." 



Instead of transmitting traditional stories, and revelling in 

 the superstitious annals of hobgoblinism, the horticultural tracts 

 might be made the vehicles for conveying intellectual aliment 

 suited to the rustic capacity. In whatever circumstances human 

 beings may be placed, there is generally one station left which 

 may be occupied by all, namely, that of physical enquiry ; and 

 perhaps there has never been any age, since the world began, 

 that could match the present for investigation into the laws 

 of nature. 



The reasoning faculty is no longer forced to tread the beaten 

 path of custom, and many are the human minds that show signs of 

 awakened energy in the various departments of nature. The 



