242 J. H. MAIDEN. 
delivered, and essays and other communications read and 
discussed, by awarding prizes for products of superior merit, 
and for treatises on subjects of importance in connexion 
with its objects, and by establishing an experimental 
garden. Members are enrolled on payment of an entrance 
fee of £1, and a yearly subscription of like amount, and 
must be proposed by a member and balloted for. Sub- 
scribers of £1 per annum (without proposal or ballot) have 
equal privileges with members, except in not being eligible 
for office and having no vote. Members and subscribers 
have the privilege of introducing two friends to all monthly 
meetings and exhibitions. 
‘“Monthly meetings are held for the present in the Royal 
Hotel, on the first Tuesday of every month in summer, at 
half past seven o’clock in the evening, and in winter at 
seven o’clock.”’ | 
“A list of the subjects of the papers which have been 
read’’ is given at Vol. 1, p. 2, ““Sydney Mag. Science and 
Art,’’ and a “‘list of papers read and published”’ at p. 6 
of the first annual report at the end of the same volume. 
(There were thirty-four other papers described in this 
report). The list shows a valuable amount of work accom- 
plished. The rules and by-laws follow at p. 3. 
The “‘ Herald ”’ of the 6th February, 1856, reports that:— 
“*At the Horticultural Improvement Society’s monthly 
meeting held last evening at the Royal Hotel, a number of 
splendid dahlias, in bloom, all seedlings of the last and 
present year, were exhibited by Mr. Bell, of North Shore; 
and some beautiful phloxes, hydrangeas, etc., by Mr. (M.) 
Guilfoyle. A paper was read by Mr. Graham on the 
advantage of introducing the cultivation of the Jerusalem 
artichoke into this colony, both as a food for man and beast. 
Mr. Guilfoyle thought it was one of those plants which 
might be successfully employed in covering the sand drifts 
