436 Report on the progress of the Horticultural Society, 



Department, upon the plan already adopted previous to 1830 ; and 

 a series of observations upon the variations of the temperature of 

 the earth in which plants grow, from which useful practical con- 

 clusions will, it is hoped, be eventually deduced. 



V. — The publication of Horticultural Papers and Re- 

 ports, EITHER THE RESULTS OF EXPERIMENTS AND OBSER- 

 VATIONS MADE BY THE SOCIETY, OR COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED 



from Fellows and others. 



Since the 1st of May, 1830, Parts 4 and 5, completing the 7th and 

 last Volume of the 1st Series of the Society's Transactions ; seven 

 Parts, composing the 1st Volume of the 2d series ; and four Parts of 

 the 2d Volume have been published, and the 5th part of the same 

 Volume is now in preparation, and will shortly be ready for dis- 

 tribution. During the first years of this period, two parts were 

 generally prepared in each year, but latterly their publication has 

 been much less frequent, and that from various causes. Tran- 

 sactions of scientific Societies are never undertaken as a source of 

 profit to the Society, but rather as affording a means for the pub- 

 lication of scientific papers of merit, the sale of which cannot 

 always be expected to reimburse the expense, and which might 

 therefore, without such a channel of communication, frequently 

 remain unknown. Of late years, however, the great impulse given 

 to horticulture all over the country has occasioned the multiplica- 

 tion of periodical works in this department of science, several of 

 which have a sufficient sale to enable their editors to offer pecuniary 

 remuneration to their contributors, a course which it would be 

 foreign to the objects of the Horticultural Society to pursue. 



So much has also now been published on the subject, that 



