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FAMILIAR HINTS TO YOUNG GARDENERS ON MENTAL 
IMPROVEMENT. 
To the citation with which we closed our previous article on this suhject, we 
may now add that observation alone can test and confirm the opinions imbibed by 
reading, or furnish matter for original and creditable composition and converse. 
Hence, it is obviously the key-stone which crowns and completes the educational 
structure, and secures to it the requisite strength and stability. Indeed, without 
observation, reason is easily deluded, and we are borne along on the wings of every 
airy notion which men of genius, who are lacking in practical acquirements, may 
conceive. 
Subordinate only in importance to observation itself, is a knowledge of the 
readiest and most ' profitable manner in which it may be conducted. To afford a 
hurried sketch of the system we ourselves have practised, these present endeavours 
will be directed. What is deficient in detail, or but imperfectly connected, we 
leave to the adroitness of our youthful readers to elaborate and supply ; only 
premising that, to ensure the attainment of its advantages, it must be perseveringiy 
and indefatigably pursued, and promptly and judiciously applied. 
Of all subjects of observation, that most useful to the gardener is the efiect and 
extent of the agency of the elements, processes, and phenomena of Nature upon 
vegetation. The cultivation of plants — whether of an ornamental, culinary, or 
otherwise useful character — being the principal aim of his profession, and the 
treatment of these having to be regulated according to natural circumstances, will 
account for the importance we attach to this comprehensive palrticular. It being 
almost impossible for the memory to preserve a faithful register of daily-revealed 
facts and circumstances, we must commence by suggesting the use of a diary, 
wherein to record the occurrence, consequence, and, as far as practicable, the cause 
of any remarkable incident, either directly horticultural or relative tliereto, with 
notices of such newly-presented feature of, or deviation from, the ordinary course 
of culture and development, as may be deemed worthy of remembrance. To the 
slothful, we are aware that this practice is open to insuperable objection ; — but it is 
not such we address ; — and the highly beneficial efiocts of the habit, which speedily 
manifest themselves, will be a sufficient stimulus to the aspiring gardener. 
Diurnal changes of temperature, of humidity, and of the general state of the 
atmosphere, not forgetting winds and clouds, will form matter for some of the items 
of such memoranda; and though these are uninteresting and unsatisfactory in 
themselves, yet, when noted with a view of ascertaining their influence on vegetable 
life and functions, they will be invested with peculiar and permanent inducements 
to proceed. It has been the failing of those who have commenced such accounts, 
usually to neglect that which alone can render them either gratifying or useful ; 
hence, they have soon become weary of the task. We would wish it to be 
