MAGAZINE 



OF 



ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



I. — On the requisites necessary for the advance of Botany. By the 

 Rev. J. S. Henslow, M. A., Professor of Botany in the Univer- 

 sity of Cambridge. 



That we are, as a nation, behind our continental neighbours in 

 almost every branch of scientific research, is an assertion which has 

 often been made of late ; and has been more formally pronounced in 

 several of the reports which have been read within the last three 

 years at the anniversary meetings of the British Association. That 

 this censure may be extended to botany, is rendered probable by the 

 fact, that we have had no journal devoted to this science, and con- 

 ducted on strictly scientific principles, which has ever met with suf- 

 ficient encouragement to allow of its being carried on for several 

 years together. But, in admitting the fact of the inferiority of our 

 scientific character, as a nation, we must still venture to assert the 

 claim of Great Britain to the possession of some botanists whose at- 

 tainments and reputations are on a par with those of the highest en- 

 joyed by their continental brethren. But in speaking of our national 

 inferiority we do not allude to the attainments of a few ; and the 

 want of encouragement which such periodicals as the Annals of Bo- 

 tany formerly, and the Botanical Miscellany, and Journal of Botany, 

 more recently, have met with, clearly prove the low ebb at which 

 botany as a science stands among us. It is true that the two last 

 mentioned periodicals are still continued under the title of a " Com- 

 panion to the Botanical Magazine," but this very fact confirms our 

 assertion. It may perhaps be thought that we make no slight preten- 



NO. II. H 



