leisure from severer study, they will interest his best feelings, and tend to improve his heart. The Prayer is worthy his attention. To those particularly who look to the ministry, it may not be quite useless to reflect, with what elevated ideas, and preparation of the heart, so enlightened a young man felt it necessary to meet so important an assumption; and if it should cause one or two to pause before they take up the profession from mere motives. of interest, or of indolence, without a due consideration of the important character and duties annexed to it, no harm will be done.

Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London. Vol. I. Part II. 4to. pp. 44. 3 Plates. 7s. 6d. Hatchard; White. ISOS.

IN the preceding number we noticed the first publication of the Horticultural Society with considerable satisfaction. The second part is now before us, and although somewhat less copious, is not less interesting. It contains seven papers, two of which are by Mr. T. A. Knight, two by Mr. Salisbury, and one by Sir Joseph Banks.

The first paper in this part, and twelfth in the order of the volume, is "On the Cultivation of the common Flax (Linum Usitatissimum of Linné), as an ornamental Plant in the Flower Garden. By Mr. John Dunbar, Gardener to Thomas Fairfax, Esq." The author declares, that his observations are the result of several years experience, by which a family consisting of five persons has been supplied with all the linen they [it] required." We have before stated our sentiments on the best mode of preparing hemp or flax, in noticing Wisset's "Treatise on Hemp," (Antijac. Rev. Vol. 29, p. 327,) which Mr. Dunbar would have found his account in consulting. It is probable, however, that he can rear good crops of flax, although his account of the process of steeping and cleaning is very imperfect. But his proposal deserves the highest attention, by immediate and universal adoption at the present crisis. It is to substitute "flax for the cumbersome yellow lupine in our flower-borders, the annual revenue arising from which would amount to several thousand pounds." Mr. Dunbar proposes that the flax so raised should be allowed to ripen for seed, and that the gardener's wife should steep, dress,

and spin it into yarn, to be woven into linen fit for labouring people's use. "In many districts this operation," he says, "is well understood, and if carefully performed, home-spun linen from such flax will last twice the time of most of the Irish linen that is now to be purchased in our shops." By this method of sowing flax-seed as an ornamental plant "in random parcels or little clumps of from ten to twenty plants, towards the back of the flower-borders, and in the front of the shrubbery," as much seed might be annually raised as would prevent the entire dependence on foreign countries, and at the same time furnish a cheap and valuable article of clothing. Even should flax-seed again become abundant, still the whole produced in this manner would be clear profit, and the value of oil and oil-cake will always render it an object worthy of cultivation, as well for emolument as ornament.

An "Account of the Method of cultivating the American Cranberry, Vaccinium Macrocarpum, at Spring Grove, by Sir Joseph Banks," shows with what facility and advantage this agreeable fruit may be raised in this country much superior to the berries "imported, which have in general been gathered unripe, and have become vapid and almost tasteless by long soaking in the water in which they are packed for carriage." The vaccinium, with a variety of other curious bog plants, was planted in an artificial island in a pond near Hounslow Heath; it flourished in an unusual degree, and ripened its fruit the first year. The second year it likewise produced a plentiful crop, and began to send out runners resembling those of a strawberry. This circumstance, added to the delicate flavour of the fruit, induced the President to pay more particular attention to its cultivation, and to give it a place on the same bank with the strawberries. The annual product of two cranberry beds, containing three hundred and twenty-six square feet, after seven years of cultivation, was "five dozen bottles of berries, besides a small basket reserved for present use. It is remarkable," adds the author, that during the seven years these cranberries have been cultivated at Spring Grove, no circumstance has arisen, from the variety of seasons, from blight, or any other circumstance [cause], that has diminished the quantity of a full crop."

From observations and "experiments made to ascertain the influence of gravitation on the descending sap of trees, and the cause of the descent of the radicle, an ascent

t

of the expanding plumule of germinating seeds," we have a New Method of training Fruit Trees, by T. A. Knight, Esq. F. R. S." This naturalist apprehended, that "none of the forms, in which fruit-trees are generally trained, are those best calculated to promote an equal distribution of the circulating fluids, by which alone permanent health, vigour, and power to afford a succession of abundant crops, can be given." In consequence of this conviction, he began his experiments on the peach, but they are equally applicable to the cherry, plumb, and pear-tree. When trees are by any means deprived of the motion which their branches naturally receive from winds, the forms in which they are trained operate more powerfully on their permanent health and vigour than is generally imagined. Mr. Knight therefore commenced his operations on plants of one year old, and made two opposite branches or arms to form a horizontal line; these branches or principal runners the second and third year were allowed to retain such shoots as could grow and bear branches without over-shadowing others, and which were generally projected at angles from the horizontal branches until that they assumed nearly the appearance of radii from a semicircle. The principal advantage of the author's plan, which cannot be explained without the plate, is that it exposes a "greater surface of leaf to the light, without placing any of the leaves so as to shade others, than can probably be done by any other mode of training. In consequence of this arrange ment, the growth of the trees was so great, that at two years old some of them were fifteen feet wide." Mr. Knight made little use of the pruning knife in winter,

"I must remark," (says he,) "that the necessity of winter pruning should generally be avoided as much as possible; for by laying in a much larger quantity of wood in the summer and autumn than can be wanted in the succeeding year, the gardener gains no other advan tage than that of having a 'great choice of fine bearing wood to fill his walls,' and I do not see any advantage in his having much more than he wants; on the contrary, the health of the tree always suffers by too much use of the knife through successive seasons.

"To enter into the detail of pruning in the manner in which I think it might be done with most advantage, would of necessity lead me much beyond the intended limits of my present communication; but I shall take this opportunity of offering a few observations on the proper treatment of luxuriant shoots of the peachtree, the origin and office of which, as well as the right mode of pruning them, are not at all understood, either by the writers on gardening of this country, or the continent.

I have shown in the Phil. Trans. of 1805, that the alburnum,

or sap wood of oak-trees loses a considerable part of its weight during the period in which its leaves are formed in the spring; and that any portion of the alburnum affords less extractive matter after the leaves have been formed than previously. I have also shown that the aqueous fluid which ascends in the spring in the birch and sycamore becomes specifically heavier as it ascends towards the buds, which I think affords sufficient evidence that the alburnum of trees becomes during winter a reservoir of the sap or blood of the tree, as the bulb of the hyacinth, tulip, and the tuber of the potatoe, certainly do of the sap or blood of those plants. Now a wall-tree, from the advantageous position of its leaves relative to the light, probably generates much more sap, comparatively with the number of its buds, than a standard-tree of the same size; and when it attempts to employ its reserved sap in the spring, the gardener is compelled to destroy (and frequently does so too soon and too abruptly) a very large portion of the small succulent shoots emitted, and the aphis too often prevents the growth of those which remain. The sap in consequence stagnates, and appears often to choke the passages through the small branches; which in consequence become incurably unhealthy, and stunted in their growth; and nature then finds means of employing the accumulated sap, which if retained would generate the morbid exudation, gum, in the production of luxuriant shoots. These shoots our gardeners, from Langley to Forsyth, have directed to be shortened in summer, or cut out in the succeeding spring; but I have found great advantages in leaving them wholly unshortened; when they have uniformly produced the finest possible bearing wood for the succeeding year; and so far is this practice from having a tendency to render naked the lower, or internal parts of the tree, whence those branches spring, that the strongest shoots they afford invariably issue from the buds near their bases. I have also found that the laterals that spring from these luxuriant shoots, if stopped at the first leaf, often afford very strong blossoms and fine fruit in the succeeding season. Whenever therefore space can be found to train in a luxuriant shoot, I think it should rarely or never be either cut out, or shortened: it should, however, never be trained perpendicularly, where that can be avoided." p. 81.

The Sib paper presents us with a systematic description of a new genus of beautiful flowers, which bloom in September, Octo, and November. "Observations on the different Species of Dahlia, and the best Method of cultivating them in Great Britain, by R. A. Salisbury, Esq. F. R.S." The first notice of this South-American plant is made in the History of Mexico, by Hernandez, in 1651. M. Thiery Menonville, who was sent by the French government to steal the cochineal insect from the Spaniards, observed it on his journey to Guaxaca, published in 1787: but Señor Cavanilles was the first who described it scientifically, and in 1790 gave the genus the name of Dahlia, from Andrew

Dahl, a Swedish botanist. He also sent some of the plants from Madrid to M. Thouin at Paris, who described them as three species, the Dahlia rose, which grew seven feet high; the D. ponceau, which only attained four; and the D. pourpre, which rose to the height of five feet. Willdenow however changed the name Dahlia into Georgina, alleging that Dahlia was already appropriated in Dioecia, Mr. Salisbury has restored to it the name given by its original author; but as the propriety or impropriety of this appellation rests on no other basis than that of priority, and as Cavanilles's account of this genus was published only three months before that of Willdenow's, the best argument for retaining it, is the respect due to the memory of the Spanish professor. Nevertheless, the high reputation of Willdenow, the universatility of his work, and the immense number of followers it has obtained, must create a confusion adverse to the progress of botanical science. This is an evil every good botanist will sedulously endeavour to avoid. It may be, indeed, that Mr. Salisbury has adopted the name still most generally known, and if so, it is certainly just. Our author himself, however, deviates from the specific names given by Cavanilles, and describes the Dahlia sambucifolia, and its six varieties, the last of which is the D. pinnata of the Spanish botanist. D. sphondyliifolia has only two varieties, the first of which is the D. rosea of Cav: and the D. bidentifolia, the D. coccinea of Cav. of which Mr. Salisbury describes two varieties. The seeds of the three species here described, Dahlia sambucifolia, D. sphondyliifolia, and D. bidentifolia, were sent from Madrid to this country, in 1804, by Lady Holland; "but one plant of the D. sphondyliifolia had been previously introduced from Paris, by E. J. A. Woodford, Esq., and flowered in his garden at Vauxhall in the autumn of 1803." We hope this is not the gentleman of patronage notoriety. Here, however, for the honour of the natural sciences, we must observe, that there is a great difference between the mind of a person actuated by the vanity of collecting curious flowers, and that of one greedy of knowledge, and solely devoted to explore the economy of nature. The former is not incompatible with the greatest political and moral vices, while the latter may have some virtues, but cannot be grossly polluted with crimes. If the following statement of the climate between Harrow, Stanmore, and Finchley, be correct, of which we entertain some doubt, it is very inadequately explained.