other Gardening Publication tas adopted the same com-se; and The Gardeners^ Magazine of 
Botany will thus supply a positive desideratum in opening a portion of its pages to such 
communications. Clergymen of oru- venerated Church, and Medical men ^yho possess profes- 
sionally the advantage of an university training to habits of observation, as wcU as Gardeners, 
and Garden Amateurs, are in^ated to co-operation. 
One word more — If there be those who look iipon The Gardeners' Magazine of Botany as a 
rival or ojiponent of any previously-existing, or sinndtaneously-announced gardening publica- 
tion, we would assiu'c them that no such feelings are entertained by the Conductors, or by the 
Publishers, who, oecupj'ing groimd which has been abandoned by others, and which may, 
therefore, in all fau'ness, be maintained by themselves, — have determined on " Friendly 
co-operation -^-ith all," in the one great object of aU — the advancement of the Science of 
Gardening. 
With these few remarks we proceed to present the reader with a few suggestions fi-om a 
valued fi'iend and contributor, Mr. D. Beaton, of Shi'ubland Park, being extracts from a letter 
in the form of an addi-ess to the conductors : — 
" I EEJOICE to learn that you have taken the helm of a successor to the good old cmizer, which, for 
so many years, conveyed very pleasant and useful instructions, under the able and amiable guidance of 
om' worthy fellow-labom-cr, Mr. Paxton. I [trust you will meet with ample cncom'agement from men 
of your own practical standing, and that contributions to all the departments of the work -wiW 
pour m upon you from week to week. A weeldy Magaziuc wiU be a great novelty at first ; 
you must not, however, trust to the charms of novelty for success in the undertaking, hut rather 
to the amount of sound practical information which you will he able to furnish to yom- readers. 
If you leave affectation, bombast, and wi'angling to softer heads, and rely on the heai'ty co- 
oiicration of respectable gardeners in yom' own circle, you cannot fail of success. Plain common sense, 
conveyed in simple language, is what is now found to gain the ear of the great body of the people who 
are seekmg after useful knowledge, as is abundantly exempUficd in the great success of the Cottage 
Gardener — humble as its pretensions have been from the fii'st. In youi' higher flight you may well 
calculate on the assistance of many good gardeners, who would, no doubt, tldnk it beneath thefr station 
to sit down to write the simplest elements of then- art for the information of the million, as we now are 
doing in the Cottage Gardener — for I too belong to the staff engaged on that useful work. 
" In promising you what httle assistance I can afford from time to time, I may as well teU you 
at the outset, that I shall often have to appear in yom- pages seeldng mformation for myself, from 
one of yourselves. I allude more particularly to the fascinating tribe of Ferns, which is now becoming 
more and more fashionable, and deservedly so, every year. I look upon it as a fortmiate cu'cum- 
stancc, and as rndicatuig the utilitarian tendency of om' day, that the services of an author as 
editor, who has aheady earned his lam'cls among the Ferns, has been obtamed by the proprietors 
of this work as co-editor -with another who, we ah know, is a host in himself. And I congratidate 
yom' readers in having thus a ready access to soimd information on all topics that relate to Ferns 
particulai'ly, of which it is said by Humboldt, on the authority of Professor Kunze, of Leipsic 
("Aspects of Nature," vol. ii., p. 188), that more than three thousand species ai'e afready known 
or described. It is fui'ther stated by this illustrious pliilosopher, who is deeply versed in the geo- 
graphical distribution of plants, that many more of them arc yet confidently expected to enrich our 
collections. He says, in the work referred to, that we are still " completely unacquainted with the 
larger portions of the interior of South America, (jNIato-Grosso, Paraguay, the eastern decUv-ity of the 
Andes, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and all the countries between the Orinocco, the Rio Negro, the Amazons, 
and Pm-uz), of Africa, Madagascar, Borneo, and Central and Eastern Asia, with the mterior of Aus- 
traha ;" and he remarks, that " the thought rises mvoluntarily in the mind, that we may not yet know 
the tliii'd, or probably even the fifth part of the plants existmg on the earth." And yet he teUs us that 
seven ty-fom' thousand species of plants are preserved in the Royal Herbarium at Schonbrunn, ncai' 
Berlin ; — nearly thi'ee times the number of flowering plants enumerated m Loudon's " Hortus Britannicus." 
We may, therefore, reasonably conclude, that a large accession to om' present knowledge of Ferns must 
acci'ue from the share they must occupy of these unexplored regions, although the nmnerical proportions 
of the existing divisions of the vegetable kingdom are not yet well determined. But instead of thus 
speculating on a futm'e supply of materials to enrich yom' pages, let me rather recommend to such of 
yoiu' readers as may have a tm'U for curious experiments, to try the following, which I have proposed to 
