4 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
would otherwise he made by them. An acquaintance with grammar gives that degree of confidence 
which is necessary to lead you on to further improvement. I am the more anxious to impress upon 
your mind the great advantage of acquiring this knowledge, as young gardeners are often very defi¬ 
cient in this respect. Whether it is that they do not see the benefit of it, or whether they are too 
indolent to exert their mental faculties for its acquirement I know not, but this I know, that very few 
possess any acquaintance with the grammatical construction of the language. It is to be deplored that 
such is the case, more particularly when a very short but close attention will give a general acquain¬ 
tance with the subject which will extend to the more minute particulars of that branch of learning, as 
reading and other studies progress. 
Of all occupations to which a man is born, who has to depend upon the labour of his hands and 
head for an existence, that of a gardener appears to me th§ best. The variety of employment to which 
the routine of business calls him is, to a young man imbued with a taste for the study, both pleasing 
and healthful. The work is not always laborious, and the various employments give a pleasing relief 
conducive to health. Exercise is necessary to procure a sound state of the body and of the mind. A 
well spent day in the improvement of the garden 'will give a relish to the studies of the evening. 
It is the great complaint amongst young men that Nature has not supplied them with good 
memories, as they soon forget what they have read. In most instances I have observed it was not 
their memory that was to blame, so much as their own want of fixing the attention on what they 
read. They allow the eyes to roll over the book, heedless of forming a communication with the 
brain, and, when the book is closed, there is left only a vague dreamy recollection of having read some¬ 
thing, the particulars of which had vanished into “ thin air.” To read profitably it is necessary to fix 
the attention, to divest yourself of all thoughts foreign to the subject on which you are engaged, and 
at the end of each page or chapter to take a review of it mentally, that is, to close the book and to 
repeat, as well as your recollection serves, the words that you have read; when you find yourself 
deficient in the main particulars, read it again and again until you make yourself master of it. TThen 
you are about to finish the reading for the evening, take a introspective view of the whole in your 
mind’s eye, and you may be sure by a regular perseverance in that system, you will have no reason to 
complain of your memory. It is more profitable to read one page in that manner, than to run over the 
pages of a whole volume without leaving any lasting or useful impression on the mind. Head slowly 
but surely: my advice is given from experience. 
i 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
•J tine 18.—Few subjects of exhibition were present. 
. Mr. Loddiges, of Hackney, sent a Bombay orchid like 
Saccolabium Bhunei; and Mr. Cuthill, of Camberwell, 
had well-ripened examples of the Black Prince Straw¬ 
berry, a very acid but early variety. From the gar¬ 
den of the Society was Boronia spathulata, a rather nice 
species; Achimenes Escheriana, Kleei, and the small : 
bright scarlet pyropsea, together with Phyteuma violse- 
folia—a nice plant for rockwork; and the Californian 
Abronias—umbellata and pulchella. 
July 2. —No meeting was held; but as there were 
some few interesting subjects sent for exhibition, we 
shall briefly notice them. The most remarkable of 
these was an Achimenes, named Tugwelliana, sent by 
Mr. Glendinning, of Chiswick: it is of compact habit, 
with moderate-sized, shining, ovate leaves, and spurless 
flowers of a very deep rich colour, which we may call 
a true purple, as it had a very decided tint both of blue 
and rose—the blue tint more conspicuous in the younger, 
the rosy tint in the older blooms : it is a distinct and , 
pretty variety. The other plants were from the So¬ 
ciety’s garden. Among them was a hybrid Cereus, 
raised by Mr. Gordon from C. crenatus crossed with 
speciosissimus: it has the broad, flat, crenated stems 
of the former, and flowers of the same form,—the sepa- 
line divisions of the perianth being long and narrow, 
the corolline segments shorter and broader—but the 
colour is a deep rose pink; it makes a pretty variety. 
There was also a Gesnera, named primulina, a plant 
with upright stems, two feet and a half high, branching 
oppositely, having hairy elliptic stalked leaves, about 
three inches long, and furnished in the upper axils with 
a few fight scarlet flowers, having a tube an inch and a 
half long, ventricose above, and a very unequal limb, 
the upper lip being considerably prolonged, the lower 
lip short and three lobed. Besides these there was 
Achimenes Kleei, a pale rose form of the longiflora sec¬ 
tion, not of much worth as now seen; Metrosideros 
robusta, a neat shrub, ■with myrtle-like leaves, and ter¬ 
minal branches of crimson threads ; Spathoglottis For- 
tuni, a pretty greenhouse, herbaceous plant, with long, 
narrow plaited leaves, and sjtikes of yellow blossoms ; 
a small Rhyncospermum jasminoides, very full of 
flowers ; the comparatively worthless Adarnia versico¬ 
lor ; Abronia umbellata, and some others. Cut Pinks 
were sent by Messrs. Turner & Edwards. 
Mr. Mil mot, of Isleworth, sent a seedling Straw¬ 
berry, named Prince Arthur, of the merits of which we 
had no means of judging beyond that presented by its 
appearance: the fruit is deep red, averaging an inch 
and a half in diameter, variable in form from obtusely 
conical to angular, and cockscomb shaped, and some¬ 
what coarse looking. 
