HOUTICULTURAL MUSEUM. 



187 



forgotten. Those who have examined the agricultural 

 museums now being coUected in various parts of the 

 empire will easily imagine the benefit which might be 

 derived from kindred collections ia public gardens. To 

 these museums we would recommend the addition of a 

 well-chosen horticultural and botanical library^ composed 

 not merely of treatises which ought to be in the hands 

 of every one, but of books of reference, such as the 

 works of Lindley, Loudon, Diel, Hooker, De Candolle, 

 Balfour, and others, to which should be added the 

 various horticultural and botanical periodicals of the 

 day, and many other illustrated works, which persons of 

 moderate fortune, unless they enjoy peculiar facilities of 

 access to public libraries, have no opportunities of con- 

 sulting. There might also be a collection of elementary 

 treatises for the instruction of the operatives employed 

 in the gardens : indeed, such a library has, with praise- 

 worthy liberality, been formed by the Horticultural 

 Society of London for the benefit of the young men in 

 the garden at Turnham Green. It may seem more 

 connected with our present object to recommend the 

 keeping of a register of observations made from time to 

 time in the garden. In this book we would insert all 

 the judgments formed of fruits and fiowers, the reception 

 of every new plant, with its date, the rejection of every 

 worthless article, and the reasons for the same, and all 

 the comparisons of products made iu respect to quantity 

 and quality. Selections of the more interesting parts 

 of this information might be published occasionally; 

 but undoubtedly there would also be much which, 

 though it might not be of sufficient importance to 

 be presented to the eyes of the world, might yet be 

 highly worthy of preservation as a part of the his- 



