VEGETABLES AND EBUITS. 
273 
VEGETABLES AND FRUITS. 
NECESSITY AND ADVANTAGE OF AN AUTHORITATIVE RECORD OF 
THEIR CHARACTERISTICS AND MERITS. 
One of the most useful labours undertaken by the Horticultural 
Society of London, and one perhaps, too, in which it was more 
successful than in many of its pursuits and objects, was the test¬ 
ing and permanently recording the qualities and characteristics of 
the different, sorts of vegetables and fruits, of which numerous 
varieties existed in our gardens. To say that, in the execution 
of this task, no error was committed, would be imputing to it an 
infallibility, to which of course it can have no claim; but, taking 
a fair estimate of these labours in the aggregate, they must have 
been beneficial to gardening. Of one branch of these observa¬ 
tions we have, indeed, a permanent and separate record in the 
‘Catalogue of Fruits,’ published by the Society—a work of great 
importance, exceedingly well executed, and which, it is perhaps 
not too much to say, no other body corporate nor any individual 
could have surpassed or even equalled; and this because of the 
extensive series of materials from which it was compiled, and the 
diligent and undivided attention bestowed on it. 
In providing these records the Society did well: its objects, 
and the cause to which it is devoted, could hardly have been 
rendered a more useful service in any other way. Why, then, 
has it abandoned its task? We cannot tell, unless more fashion¬ 
able, though less useful engagements should have occupied its 
garden, engrossed its time, and drained away its resources. As 
it is, what was by it well commenced, and in the case of the 
fruits tolerably well sustained, stands now as a monument of its 
shame ; for, while the Society has gone on flourishing and pros¬ 
perous, these—the most legitimate and useful of its objects and 
operations—have been rendered useless from their incomplete¬ 
ness. The Society has progressed, but it has suffered these 
things to remain stationary. 
At the present time, when the rationale of gardening is pretty 
well understood—when, in fact, a greater number of persons 
than at any former period know more or less of the principles 
