VISITS TO NURSERIES. 
79 
stoves and green-houses, and that the names of the plants had not 
been affixed by some one eminent in botanical science ; for they 
do not, as we have said, allege that any of the names are wrong. 
And we may remark, that, in the very important department of 
the grasses, which are of more value, in a national point of view, 
than all the other families taken together, the nomenclature has 
been so well managed by Mr. Smith, that a very short time spent 
in the department allotted to these plants would suffice to enable 
the farmer or the grazier to know the more valuable ones at sight. 
Now, it must be admitted that, if we are to have a national 
botanic garden, instead of one appended to the royal household, 
as Kew gardens have hitherto been, the plants most useful to the 
country should be preferred, and not those most curious to learned 
professional botanists, who, like the men of Athens, are always 
seeking after “ some new thing”—we beg their pardon, some new 
name. The species of plants are as old as the creation ; and, 
though Dr. Lindley, somewhere in his multiplicated writings, hints 
that there is a sort of sub-normal or semi-organic matter which 
lingers on the margin, waiting the wind,—and if the said wind 
shall blow it landward, it becomes a lichen, but if sea-ward, lo 
and behold it is a fucus !—yet, notwithstanding this, and though 
the Doctor were aided by “ the prince of the power of the air,” 
we shall not believe that he ever originated a new species, until 
we actually see it done, and have analyzed the process. 
The reporters hint that, if her Majesty pleases, it would be 
better to relieve the lord chamberlain of his control of these 
gardens, probably for the purpose of getting them placed in more 
manageable hands ;—but this is not stated. Next come the alter¬ 
natives, in the event of the chamberlain’s relinquishment: the 
gardens should at once be abandoned (to whom, or for what, is not 
said), or they should be taken for public purposes. 
It is upon the latter of these alternatives that the suggested 
changes are grounded. The postulata are : that a botanical gar¬ 
den for study is wanted in the neighbourhood of London ; and 
that the gardens in the British colonies and dependencies have 
their utility sadly diminished by the want of proper superinten¬ 
dence and control; and the corollary from these postulata, the 
latter especially, is, that there should be a sort of botanical pope 
and conclave at Kew ; and that the bulls of his vegetable Holiness 
should trot forth with anathemas thundering at their heels, and 
