August 11. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
355 
Still following Mr. Sabine’s narrative, we find, that as 
the garden stores of China were known to he still un- 
| exhausted, the Society sent thither, in the spring of 
1823, Mr. John Damper Parks. “ The success of this 
second mission was great; the plants obtained by it 
being, for the most part, of great novelty and interest, 
and nearly all of them having been received in excellent 
health.” He returned in 1824. In the spring of 1823, 
Mr. David Douglas was also taken into the Society's 
service, and from New York and Canada “ obtained 
many plants which were much wanted, and greatly 
increased our collection of fruit trees by the acquisition 
of sorts previously known to us only by name.” So 
entirely satisfied was the Society with his services, that 
in the summer of 1824 he was despatched to the north¬ 
west coast of America. “ His return,” said Mr. Sahine, 
“ is expected in 1820 ; and when we consider how rich in 
plants is the country to which he is gone, we may 
indulge the hope that most valuable additions will be 
made by him to the hardy inhabitants of our gardens.” 
That hope was fully realized, as it was again when he 
was sent to California in 1830-32, and the gardener, 
when he looks upon the Ribes sanguinea, which Mr. 
Douglas introduced, may accept the specific name as a 
memento of his sanguinary death in the last-named of 
those years. 
In 1824, Mr. James Me. Rae, “ a practical gardener 
! of considerable experience,” was sent on a similar 
mission to South America and the Sandwich Islands. 
We are indebted to him for Plvycella corusca, and 
j several other plants. Mr. Me. Rae returned in the 
j March of 182(5, having visited various parts of Brazil, 
j Chile, and Peru, botanizing among the still-too-little- 
j known vegetation of the Cordilleras. He would have 
! done well if he had effected no other good than bringing 
home living nuts of the Araucaria; but, in addition, his 
valuable collections of seeds and plants were very large, 
and he introduced to the Sandwich Islands not only a 
large supply of European fruits and vegetables, but 
most of the Brazilian valuable productions of the same 
kind. So efficient were his services, that, on the re¬ 
commendation of the Society, our government appointed 
him Curator of the public Garden at Colombo, in the 
Island of Ceylon. 
In 1836, Mr. Theodore Hartweg, a German, and at 
that time clerk of the Society's garden, was sent to 
explore the elevated regions of Mexico. He remained 
there until 1843, and the Society agreed “ that the 
coniferous seeds alone, which were so abundantly raised 
j and extensively distributed, amply compensated for the 
expense of the mission, independantly of the great 
variety of Epiphytes and Cactaceae, besides the con¬ 
siderable number of miscellaneous greenhouse, hardy 
and half-hardy plants, introduced to the country by this 
means.” 
In 1842, Mr. Robert Fortune was delegated to ex¬ 
amine the vegetable riches of China ; but the success of 
his researches are too fresh upon our memories to re¬ 
quire more particular detail. 
We have thus enumerated the explorators employed 
by the Society, and have dwelt upon their uniform 
success for the purpose of justifying, if justification be 
necessary, the heavy expenditure it is again about to 
incur. From this new expedition we anticipate very 
considerable success; for we have no doubt that the 
Society will say to M. Botteri, as it said to Mr. 
Hartweg—“ Tray bear constantly in mind, that the 
great object of the Society is hardy and half-hardy 
plants, and that your efforts must be most particularly 
addressed to the collection of such species. We are 
glad to receive Epiphytes, Cacti, and other things, if 
they come in your way, or even if they are procured 
without too great a loss of time; but the mountain 
plants, Pines, Shrubs, and Herbaceous Plants, are what 
we chiefly want.” 
The following letter is from Dr. Gwynne, one of our 
most persevering and successful poultry exhibitors. It 
is dated at Sandbacli, August 2nd. 
“ ‘ There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.’ I 
am once more—for it is of periodical recurrence after exhibi¬ 
tions to which I send birds—thoroughly out of love with 
Poultry Shows and their incidentals. My birds from the 
Baker Street Bazaar have only just returned (to-day being 
the tenth of their confinement), two-thirds of them having 
that abominable and infectious running at the nostrils 
which has been so prevalent this season, but which, by an 
infinity of care and trouble, I have happily hitherto escaped. 
! You know how full one’s yards are of young birds at this 
\ season, and the almost impossibility, to say nothing of the 
amount of trouble involved in the attempt to do so, of pre¬ 
venting infectious disease, once introduced, from spreading 
through the whole stud. Truly, it is paying dear for one’s 
ambition of Exhibition honours, to run even a chance of 
such a foul catastrophe. Time after time have I sent some 
of my most valued birds to shows, and always in the hopeful 
belief that this time they would ‘ manage things better; ’ 
but on almost every occasion have my not unreasonable 
expectations been disappointed; for scarcely ever are my 
poor birds returned to me until the third, or, as in the 
present instance, the fourth, day after the close of the show. 
Mr. Catling, in reply to a note from me, begging that my 
fowls might be sent off as early as possible on Saturday, 
and offering to pay anything that might be necessary to 
secure this object, by employing some one to attend to it, 
kindly wrote that all that man could do should be done to 
comply with my wishes. I make no doubt of the sincerity 
of this promise, and am convinced that the utmost that 
could be effected,with the aid at his disposal, was done; but 
I appeal to the fact of my birds having only returned on 
Tuesday, instead of Saturday, for proof of the inefficiency of 
the arrangement for the prompt despatch of the birds at 
the close of the show—a matter of at least equal importance 
with any of the other appointments necessary to the success 
and reputation of the undertaking, and which latter, were, I 
believe, on this occasion very good. Of what avail are some 
three or four men, under the direction of a secretary and an 
assistant, to the amount of work to be got through after the 
clearance of visitors on Friday evening and the next morn¬ 
ing ? If it is not made a question of expense, which, if the 
consequences to the owners of even an hour’s avoidable 
delay in the return of their birds is at all considered, it 
certainly ought not to be, then, I cannot believe but that by 
employing a sufficient number of hands, under the super¬ 
intendence of a few members of the committee (if committee 
there is, and if not, there ought to be, and for important 
shows, responsible ones), every bird in the exhibition might 
be. on its way home before middle-day on Saturday. There 
are, doubtless, difficulties in the way, but none, I submit, of 
an insuperable nature; and, as an exhibitor, and, with many 
others, a frequent sufferer from the evils which obtain 
under the present system of delay, I would earnestly urge— 
