LAYING OUT OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN. 



237 



and adequately completed, such museums may ba 

 made to exhibit nearly the whole vegetable system. 

 In a* former paragraph, we have recommended terri- 

 torial arrangements of plants in the open ground ; and 

 we may here add, that we do not know any more in- 

 teresting materials for the museum than well-arranged 

 collections from various countries ; not merely for dis- 

 playing their native botany in its technical form, but 

 also for exhibiting their vegetable products reared by 

 agriculture, and employed in domestic economy and 

 the arts. Great Britain and its colonies, by them- 

 selves, might yield a most instructive exhibition of 

 this kind. The museum in the Royal Gardens at Kew 

 is the object of high patronage, and is rapidly increas- 

 ing in magnitude and importance. A promising be- 

 ginning has also been made at Edinburgh, which, it is 

 to-be hoped, will continue to make progress. In both 

 cases, however, much remains to be done before they 

 can be said to have accomplished their proper object. 

 Meanwhile, they are worthy of all aid and approba- 

 tion, as most useful and instructive parts of the insti- 

 tutions to which they belong. The territorial principle 

 was well exemplified in the Great Exhibition of 1851. 



Laying-out of the Botanic Garden. — The lotanic 

 garden, particularly when extensive, may be regarded 

 as a combination of the pleasure-ground and the flower- 

 garden — the former character predominating in the 

 arboretum, and the latter in the smaller and more 

 ornamental flower-beds and borders. Erom the lim- 

 ited extent of space, and the variety of special adapta- 

 tions to particular purposes, it is difficult to introduce 

 much of the pictorial effect arising from the groups 

 of trees and shrubs, interspersed with lawns, which is 



