REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
487 
nature of the undertaking; but surely no one will venture to assert that the 
production of a really good compilation is either an easy matter or of little value. 
We alluda not to a scissors-and-paste affair, but to a work which would require 
as much labour, skill, and reflection, perhaps, as an original treatise. It is in this 
capacity that the meed of praise must be conceded to Dr. Neill, for the able and 
judicious compilation emanating from his pen. What avails it to assert that 
the major part of the matter introduced into his volume has been published 
elsewhere ? since it required the mind of a skilful and experienced horticulturalist 
to condense, enlarge, expunge, amend, and explain. In publications similar to 
“ woorthy ” old Gerarde’s Herbal , there lies much valuable information; but 
where is the beginner, the learner, who can be expected to cull the good alone, 
and reject the worthless? In Dr. Neill’s treatise, and works of a similar kind, 
the student will find friends good and true—saving an infinity of useless labour, 
and well repaying an intimate acquaintanceship. 
Dr. Neill sets out by admitting that, without calling in question the undoubted 
advantage to gardeners of a knowledge of Botany, Chemistry, Meteorology, and 
other sciences, Horticulture has hitherto been most successfully practised as an 
empirical art, few of those who are minutely conversant with its numerous 
manipulations having undergone such an intellectual training as to enable them 
to wield general principles with effect. Many who succeed passably so long as 
they pursue the routine practice, egregiously fail when they attempt to strike out 
new paths for themselves. To the great mass of gardeners in the present day, 
accordingly, it must be recommended that they do as their forefathers did. At 
the same time it must be obvious that the necessity for this advice arises, not out 
of the little benefit derivable from Chemistry to Horticulture under any circum¬ 
stances, but either on account of the injudicious application of the two studies 
made by writers in general or practitioners in particular, or else from the 
imperfect state of the science of Horticulture. Therefore while the young 
gardener is ensuring safety by following a plan sanctioned of old, let him store up 
a general knowledge which will be available to himself in riper years, and to his 
immediate posterity when he shall have departed to his 4< long account.” The 
utility of such a course will not be called in question at the present day; for it 
, has at length been discovered that knowledge of every kind is useful to all classes 
of the human race. The thirst for knowledge almost universally displayed of 
late years by the gardening fraternity is truly gratifying, not only to the well- 
wisher of Horticulture, but likewise to the man whose philanthropy knows no 
bounds either of climate, colour, or rank. If some of the periodicals supported 
by gardeners be not of the highest character, that can only be considered a 
necessary consequence of a first craving for information. Quacks will speculate 
upon this as on every other craving, and may for a time appear to damage the cause 
