Forei(jii Notices : — New Zealand. 325 



plants, five of which have failed. The last bankrupt notice I had was a few 

 days ago, from the old, and considered wealthy, house of M'Mahon and Co. ; 

 an event which has been daily expected since last September. I think we 

 have now touched the bottom, and that our star is again on the ascendant. 

 We anticipate, therefore, the dawning of brighter days. I cannot close this 

 without calling your attention to the tact and talent of the gardeners that are 

 required for this world of labour. It grieves me to see many of our profession 

 arrive without a solitary reference as to their abilities and character, which 

 should be from men of public standing in England to some nurseryman of the 

 United States, who then can with confidence recommend such to situations ; 

 which, by the by, are " few and far between," but yet, when obtained, are 

 generally worth keeping. It is working, reading, thinking, temperate men we 

 want ; and, as we go on the locomotive principle, they must move actively ; 

 and independently of these qualities, if they have not a knowledge of trees and 

 plants, they had better not cross the Atlantic. The period of arrival should 

 be in March and April : at any other time it will be difficult for strangers to 

 find employment. It is a fact, that many come as ignorant of the present 

 advanced state of horticulture, as if they had just emanated from the middle of 

 the sixteentli century in a confused dream of the science of British gardening 

 in the present day. — U. Philadelphia, Feb. 14. 1843. 



The Culture of American Vines in Germany. — You will perhaps be surprised 

 when we tell you that, of the American species and varieties of grape vine, 

 there are not less than 200 sorts deserving cultivation for the table or the 

 wine-press, and that we have this month executed an order for 120 plants, of 

 thirty varieties, for the Margrave of Baden. — W. R. Prince and Co. Flush- 

 ing, near New York,, Ian. 30. 1843. 



NEW ZEALAND. 



The New Zealand Horticultural Society. — I have the pleasure to inform 

 you that tlie Jardin des Plantes of Paris has last autumn made a large col- 

 lection of seeds, and sent them to Mr. Ward, New Zealand House, London, 

 to be forwarded to the Horticultural Society at Wellington, New Zealand. I 

 expect that by this time the word Zoological is added to the term Horticul- 

 tural, and that the Society will print their Transactions quarterly, and forward 

 them to England. I have no doubt that the settlements which have been 

 made in this island will, in a few years, be among the most important of 

 English colonies. Nelson ap])ears to be backed by an almost boundless extent 

 of country, admirably adapted for English agriculture and gardening, with 

 a superior climate, and land of inexhaustible fertihty. The river Nelson 

 flows through a valley of 10,000 acres of rich alluvial soil. — E. W. Blois, 

 March 12. 1843. 



The Wellington Horticultural and Botanical Society was formed at Port 

 Nicholson before that settlement was two years old. It is prosperous, and 

 has already been extremely useful. The secretary of the Society, Ur. Feather- 

 stone, is in correspondence with Mr. Robertson, the superintendant of the 

 Botanical Gardens, Sydney, who has already contributed a number of plants 

 and cuttings ; and with Messrs. Loddiges, who, in a letter to li. Stokes, Esq., 

 treasurer to the Society, published in the New Zealand Colonist of Sept. 9. 

 1842, offer to send out boxes of whatever may be required from England, in 

 exchange for the same boxes returned full of native plants, more especially 

 Coniferaj, Orchideae, and Ferns. Of all the countries that we have ever heard 

 of. New Zealand is the one that a person whose delight is in plants should 

 prefer to emigrate to ; because, though its native flora is one of the most 

 limited found in territories of equal extent, yet such is the mildness of the cli- 

 mate, that plants from a greater number of different regions may be grown in it, 

 than can be grown, as far as we know, in any other part of the world. Under 

 the protection of glass, with scarcely any artificial heat, we believe the pine- 

 ajiple, and every other sub-tropical and tropical i)lant, may be cultivated ; 



