194 THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST. [Nov'b. 



(r\ Regent's Park Botanic Garden, London, is the next in importance. r&) 

 \d The garden of the Royal Botanical Society, a pleasant resort where ca 

 I such is most required, in the centre almost of a vast city, and yet en- V 

 tirely remote from the city dwelling-5 by a vast enclosed park, where 1 

 the Zoological Gardens are also situated. R. Marnock, the obliging 

 curator of this establishment has displayed refined taste and skill it its 

 arrangement and management. The exhibitions held in the summer 

 months renders this garden celebrated as the resort of the elite of the 

 metropolis. The Horticultural Society's garden is situated at Chis- 

 wick, a village about five miles south of London, also celebrated for 

 its extensive exhibitions in the months of May, June and July. This 

 is rather an experimental than a botanical garden, whose members are 

 entitled to seeds of newly introduced plants collected for the society, 

 and also entitled to recommend a gardener to be employed in the gar- 

 den. By means of this society many new and valuable plants have 

 been introduced ; Kew Garden is only one mile distant from Chiswick, 

 so that the visitor is at once in the very centre of horticultural attrac- 

 tion. The fruit catalogue of the Horticultural Society of London, 

 prepared by R. Thompson of the society's garden, is acknowledged as 

 one of the best authorities in pomological nomenclature; and John 

 Lindley, Ph. D., is Vice-Secretary — but he casts all other officers into 

 the shade, by his assumption at times of the duties of all the others^ 

 to the no small discomfiture of such as are vain of their peculiar pre-' 

 rogatives He is also editor of the Gardeners' Chronicle, and wo to 

 the poor gardener who dare complain of injustice done him at the so- 

 ciety's exhibitions, especially since the opposition paper conducted by 

 R. Marnock has ceased to exist, which was set on foot to try to defend 

 the working gardeners from this horticultural Hercules — but alas! 

 capital has always got the upper hand of labor, and the gardeners and 

 their journal were once more overcome. These were the days when 

 theory and practice were pitted against each other. 



We shall leave Chiswick and Dr. Lindley to enrich the Horticul- 

 tural world — one with new and rare plants gratis, in return for the 

 annual subscription to the society — the other with new and undigest- 

 ed theories and new systems of Botanical classification, each suc- 

 ceeding one superseding the former. The last and most elaborate he 

 has drawn up, is a revision of that of the late talented Prussian Bot- 

 anist Endlicher; but not considered by botanists as worthy to be fol- 

 lowed out. It may be found in his Vegetable Kingdom, London, 

 Bradbury & Evans, J 84-7 ; a work full of condensed and useful 

 hints, the history and uses of plants — cost about seven dollars. Lind- 

 ley and Sir Wm. Hooker are the two greatest British botanical wri- 

 ters ; but as botanists, both are considered inferior to the venerable 

 Robert Brown of the Bansian expedition — now curator of the Bank- 

 sian Herbarium British Museum, and author of the "Prodromus" which 

 bears his name. There is also a Botanic Garden at Chelsea; near 

 London, connected with the Apothecaries' Society, a repository for 

 medical plants especially; Mr. J.Moore is curator, author of a work 

 on British Ferns. There is also a society called the South London 

 Floricultural, but as yet no garden is attached to it. It serves to en- 

 courage the taste for Floriculture which is not within the province of 

 the other societies — at least they do not attend particularly to the 

 matter. 

 Q The Botanic Garden of Cambridge, connected with the University 



