CURSORY REMARKS. 
187 
ae plants. Where there are more compartments than are occupied with the pot- 
[ants, if a layer of clean cinders is placed in the bottom for drainage, and the 
fmainder filled up with a good soil, they will form excellent places for encouraging 
loice plants for propagational purposes. In spring they will be useful for 
irdening off the plants required for the flower-beds, and may be provided with 
>ht moveable frame-work and coverings for the purpose. 
In the choice of a situation, a free play of air and full exposure to the sun 
ould be secured. It is necessary also to have protection on all points from 
ihich strong or cutting winds are prevalent. The foot of an eminence and the 
ighbourhood of a stream or large surface of water, should be as much avoided as 
cumstances will admit, as plants in such places are more liable to be injured by 
ildew and frost. If they are screened from the violence of the storm, they will 
ver be injured by exposure to a slight agitation of the atmosphere. 
These remarks may appear unseasonable at first sight, as it is now too late for 
eir application during the present season. Nevertheless, we have judged it better 
lay them before our readers now, whilst the evils we speak of are most apparent, 
!i?d whilst there is yet time to make an effectual provision for avoiding their 
i:)urrence another year. 
CURSORY REMARKS. 
' ' Botanic Gardens. — Interesting accounts have lately been published in the Appendix to the 
* Jotanical Magazine,’' of the Royal Botanic Garden of Kew, and the Imperial Botanic Garden 
3 3t. Petersburgh ; and a “ notice respecting the present state of Botany and Botanic Gardens 
1 Portugal," has been commenced. It is also proposed to furnish similar notices of other 
tanico-Horticultural establishments. 
In furtherance of this proposal, Sir William Hooker writes, in the last Number of the work 
jt mentioned: — ‘‘We should be glad to receive communications of this kind from the gentle- 
]|jn under whose care they may be at present. We can hardly expect that accounts consuming 
1] ch time and labour should be furnished, and our purpose would in fact be best served by 
ilibling us to publish, in a short form, brief sketches of the principal botanic gardens in and out 
({[ Europe : a kind of synopsis of the history of botanical Horticulture. The details we should 
]|3 to have furnished might, perhaps, be — I. Date of first establishment. 2. Extent of ground. 
Number and kind of houses. 4. Annual expenditure, and source from whence derived. 
i' Names of eminent men connected at any time with the establishment. 6. Remarkable plants 
I t cultivated, introduced, named, or now particularly conspicuous — and any other notice of 
i iking importance. Such information, we hope, will be readily furnished, and we would have 
1 asure in publishing it. 
“It is satisfactory to state, that gentlemen connected with embassies and consulates are 
e ry where willing to forward papers concerning such matters, free of expense, which, as in days 
tjjyore, so even now, fair science can ill afford to defray.” 
!| As, from Sir William Hooker’s position in the botanical world, there is little doubt that this 
iluest will be ably responded to, when it becomes known, we may hope to see a vast accumu- 
lijon of matter connected with these establishments, which will be mutually advantageous to all 
t| parties concerned, severally, in conducting them, and also prove highly interesting to the 
g eral botanical reader, in exhibiting the relative state of the science in different parts of 
I:ope, and other quarters of the globe. 
