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evidence of the great works of nature, and their en- 

 during beauty. In this age of progress, when science 

 and learning are its daily companions, we have a right 

 to seek for the accomplishment of what we so much 

 desire, and all should be engaged in throwing into the 

 future, a higher and more exalted destiny. In jDro- 

 ducing this most desired result, we trust that we have 

 added our feeble effort in its promotion. Our period- 

 ical exhibitions have certainly been eminently success- 

 ful ; amid these public displays have been offered a 

 large variety of nature's brightest gems, and collected 

 from localities far remote from each other, and they 

 have been the offering of the amateur, as well as 

 those engaged in public green houses and conservato- 

 ries ; and if it were not for this mode of congregating 

 them together, the progress of science would be slow 

 in its advancement, and many would remain unac- 

 quainted with many of the varieties with which the 

 vegetable kingdom abounds. At our exhibitions we 

 are often greeted with the enthusiastic exclamation, 

 " how truly beautiful," and perhaps this was nothing 

 more than a deserving commendation of the object 

 which excited their pleasure ; the contributor no 

 doubt felt gratified with the laudatory approval, but 

 still the interest with him was far beyond the momen- 

 tary effect ; it was buried deep in the causes that had 

 brought it to its present state of j)erfection. There is 

 a two-fold object to be acquired by exhibitions, the 

 one is immediate, and founded on our admiration; the 

 other is more remote, and its tendency is to "produce 



