learn, one great object of the society is to educate a certain number of young men as gardeners.  As “an inviting scene of public recreation,” it is observed, “those who are little interested in the cultivation of Botany, and who may regard the employments of Horticulture with disdain, may still be induced to frequent the Botanical garden, for the beauty of the objects, the pleasures of the society, and the animating gaiety of the scene.”

    [1] How pleasingly is the substance of these observations embodied
        in one of our “Snatches from Eugene Aram:”—­“It has been
        observed, and there is a world of homely, ay, of legislative
        wisdom in the observation, that wherever you see a flower in a
        cottage garden, or a bird at the window, you may feel sure that
        the cottagers are better and wiser than their neighbours.”  Vol. i.
        p. 4.  Yet with what wretched taste is this morality sought to be
        perverted in an abusive notice of Mr. Bulwer’s Eugene Aram, in
        a Magazine of the past month, by a reference to Clark and Aram’s
        stealing flower-roots from gentlemen’s gardens to add to the
        ornaments of their own.  The writer might as well have said that
        Clark and Aram were fair specimens of the whole human race, or
        that every gay flower in a cottage garden has been so stolen.

The Manchester Garden, we should think, must, by this time, have an Eden-like appearance.  The Committee began fortunately.  Mr. Loudon, in one of his valuable Gardening Tours,[2] refers to “a few traits of liberality in the parties connected with it; the noble result, as we think, of the influence of commercial prosperity in liberalizing the mind.  Mr. Trafford, the owner of the ground, offered it for whatever price the Committee chose to give for it.  The Committee took it at its value to a common farmer, and obtained a lease of the 16 acres (10 Lancashire) for 99 years, renewable for ever at 120l a year.”  He describes the donations of trees, plants, and books, by surrounding gentlemen, as very liberal.  Mr. Loudon does not altogether approve of the plan, and certainly by no means of the manner in which the Garden has been planted, yet he has no doubt it will contribute materially to the spread of improved varieties of culinary vegetables and fruits, and to the education of a superior description of gardeners.  He commends the hothouses, which have been executed at Birmingham; especially “the manner in which Mr. Jones has heated the houses by hot water; though a number of the garden committee were at first very much against this mode of heating.  Mr. Mowbray (who planned the Garden) informed us that last winter the man could make up the fires for the night at five o’clock, without needing to look at them again till the following morning at eight or nine.  The houses were always kept as hot as could be wished, and might have been kept at 100 deg. if thought necessary.  A young gardener, who had been accustomed to sit up half the night during winter, to keep up the fires to the smoke flues (elsewhere) was overcome with delight when he came here, and found how easy the task of foreman of the houses was likely to prove to him, as far as concerned the fires and nightwork.”