378 Catalogue of Works on Gardening, fyc. 



to form ; and form may be considered as including lines and light and shade. 

 Hence, our conclusion is, that the origin of taste in music, in painting, in 

 landscape, and in architecture, is founded in nature, and only heightened, not 

 originated, by association. We shall not enter farther into the subject, 

 because those who will not agree to what we have stated are not likely to 

 be convinced by any arguments founded on these statements. 



The volume, we think, would have been much better without this essay ; 

 but, notwithstanding, the publisher deserves credit for having produced an 

 edition of a first-rate standard work at a moderate price. The vignettes are 

 numerous and highly ornamental. 



A Treatise on Agriculture, comprehending the Nature, Properties, and Improve- 

 ment of Soils ; the Structure, Functions, and Cultivation of Plants ; and the 

 Husbandry of the domestic Animals of the Farm. By John Sproule. Second 

 edition, with corrections and additions, illustrated with numerous en- 

 gravings on wood. 8vo, pp. 695. Dublin, Edinburgh, and London, 1842. 



We noticed the first edition of this work in our Volume for 1840, p. 34., 

 and the demand for a new edition, in so short a period, may be considered as 

 a proof of its suitableness for the purpose for which it was written. As a 

 specimen of the work, we give the following concluding paragraphs from the 

 chapter on the structure and functions of plants. Most of our readers will 

 know where they are taken from, though the author has on this, and on other 

 occasions of the same kind, not thought fit to refer either to the Encyclo- 

 paedia of Gardening (see p. 463.), or the Encyclopaedia of Agriculture (see 

 p. 280.). 



" The preservation of vegetables for future use is effected by destroying or 

 rendering dormant the principle of life, and by warding off, as far as prac- 

 ticable, the process of chemical decomposition. When vegetables or fruits 

 are gathered for preservation, the air of the atmosphere is continually 

 depriving them of carbon, and forming carbonic acid gas. The water they 

 contain, by its softening qualities, weakens the affinity of their elements; and 

 heat produces the same effect, by dilating their parts, and promoting the de- 

 composing effect of both air and water. Hence, drying in the sun, or in 

 ovens, is one of the most obvious modes of preserving vegetables for food, or 

 for other economic purposes ; but not for reproduction, if the desiccation be 

 carried so far as to destroy the principle of life in seeds, roots, or sections of 

 the shoots of ligneous plants. 



" The whole art of culture is but a varied developement of the above funda- 

 mental principles, all founded in nature, and, for the most part, rationally and 

 scientifically explained on chemical and physiological principles. Hence the 

 great necessity of the study of botany to the cultivator, not in the limited 

 sense in which the term is often understood, as including mere nomenclature 

 and classification, but in that more extended signification by which the 

 student is also made practically acquainted with the structure and functions 

 of the vegetable economy ; by which he is enabled to modify his system of 

 culture in such a manner as most effectually to accomplish the end in view. 

 As this knowledge has increased, the produce of the land has increased in a 

 corresponding degree, and will further increase as physiological knowledge 

 extends. Cultivated produce has hitherto outrun population, and, to all 

 appearance, will always do so. From the increasing enterprise and scientific 

 knowledge of the cultivators of the soil, not only the merits of many of the 

 varieties of roots, grain, and grasses, now in existence, and as yet very little 

 known, will be further elicited ; but new varieties, and even genera, possessed 

 of more useful properties than any of those now cultivated, will continue to 

 be discovered." 



The following observations are judicious, and, as the author acknowledges 

 having had recourse to Loudon's Encyclopaedia of Architecture, we acquit him 

 of any intention to pass them off as his own. 



