It is horticulture that has given us the longest series of illustrated journals that have ever been published: and here I must do justice especially to the English horticulturists. No doubt the science of our time requires a larger amount of analytical details than is contained in the plates of the Botanical Magazine,' 'Botanical Register,' 'Andrews's Repository,' Loddiges' Botanical Cabinet,' 'Sweet's British Flower-garden,' 'Paxton's Magazine and Flower-garden,' and other English journals; but what a number of forms are thus fixed by the engravings in these books, and what a fund of valuable documents for consultation they afford! One must admire the Botanical Magazine,' commenced in 1793, continued from month to month with an exemplary regularity, and which is now at its 5580th plate. Not only has it always represented rare and new species, but it has ever been conducted on a simple and uniform plan, which renders it convenient to consult.

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The series of plates is unique from the very beginning. Each plate has its number, and each article of letterpress refers only to one plate, by which means the quotations from the work are rendered brief and clear. Many editors have not understood the advantage of this simple arrangement. They have varied their titles, their series, their pagings; they have affixed to their plates numbers, then letters, then nothing at all; the end of which is (and this ought to serve as a warning for the future) that the more they have altered and complicated the form of their journals, the shorter time have they lasted.

How is it that these purely bibliographical details cause in us such sad recollections? Of the men just mentioned, who have rendered such eminent service to botany and horticulture, England has lost three during the year 1865-Sir Joseph Paxton, Dr. Lindley, and Sir William Jackson Hooker.* I should certainly fail in what is expected of me if I did not express, in the name of the foreigners attending this meeting, our deep regret at such serious losses. We know them all by their writings, and many amongst us have known personally the distinguished men I have mentioned. Their names follow us at each step in this the scene of their labours. If we admire the boldness of construction of the iron domes that characterize modern buildings, we

*Since these lines were in the printer's hands, British science has sustained a severe loss in the death of the truly amiable and learned Professor W. H. Harvey, of Dublin.

think of the Crystal Palace, of Chatsworth, and of the humble gardener who became a great architect. If we visit the beautiful establishment at Kew, we see everywhere around us proofs of the indefatigable activity of Sir William Hooker. Lastly, if we ask the origin of the garden of the Royal Horticultural Society at Kensington, we are told it is only a development of that at Chiswick, where Lindley stood pre-eminent by his knowledge and his energy; and of that society where botanists of my age found in their youth such valuable encouragement in their studies.

The names of Sir William Hooker and of Dr. Lindley, thanks to their special works, will ever remain distinguished in science. These two botanists have, moreover, been directors of horticultural journals, and of great horticultural establishments, and since their influence has been so fully acknowledged by practical men, I shall have little trouble in showing that science is as useful to horticulturists as horticulture is to botanists,—and this will form the second part of my discourse.

2. The Advantage of Botany to Horticulture.

The principles of vegetable physiology are what horticulturists and agriculturists usually study in books on botany. They do not always find direct answers to their questions; but they can draw from them certain rules, certain ways of experimentalizing and reasoning, which save them from falling into many errors. Should some ridiculous idea be promulgated by some ignoramus or charlatan, it is by an appeal to the general rules of physiology that a practical man may at once reject them, or, at least, hold them in distrust. On the contrary, innovations, if in harmony with the principles, may be, and I will even say, ought to be readily accepted.

Do not let us put too much faith in the lucky results of experiments made absolutely by chance. It is with some of these experiments as with dreams and presentiments,--if they come true once in a thousand times they are talked about, otherwise they are passed over and forgotten. Besides, it must be said, men nearly always are guided by theories; but the theories of the ignorant are often absurd and without foundation, whilst those of educated men are based on probabilities, or on an accumulation of facts.

Conjointly with physiology, botanical geography shows the distribution of plants all over the globe, their struggle with the elements, their

migrations, and already raises a portion of the veil which covers the obscurity of their origin. All this ought to offer a real interest to horticulturists. We are beginning to have the power of stating in figures the effect of each climate upon vegetation; consequently, the possibility of a given species enduring the mean or extreme climatal conditions of that country to which it is desired to introduce it. Already we can show, in the clearest manner, the analogy between the vegetation and climate of certain regions widely separated the one from the other, and point out in which cases new attempts at cultivation should be tried or where they should be discouraged. A celebrated geologist was able to say, beforehand, there is gold in such a part of New Holland; and gold was found there. We can also say the Olive-tree and the Cork Oak will succeed in Australia; the eastern and temperate region of the United States is favourable to the growth of Chinese plants, more particularly to that of tea; and we can assert that that part of America included between San Francisco and the Oregon territory will one day supply wines as varied and as excellent as those European ones produced between Portugal and the Rhine. It is a singular fact that the two principal beverages of the civilized world, wine and tea, which produce similar stimulating effects, but which to a certain extent are the substitutes one for the other in different countries, present also in the mode of cultivating them the most marked resemblances and differences. The Vine and the Tea-plant succeed best on stony, barren hillsides, of which they sometimes increase the value a hundredfold.

According to the exposure, the soil, the cultivation and manner of preparing the produce, wine and tea are obtained of unquestionable excellence; whilst the neighbouring crops, but a short distance off, may be more or less ordinary in quality. The two shrubs require a temperate climate, but the Vine needs heat and no rain during summer, whilst the Tea-plant requires rain and but little summer-heat; the result of which is that these two species are almost geographically incompatible. Vine-growing countries will never produce tea, and vice versa.

But you will say these examples belong rather to agriculture, and concern neither botany nor gardens. I maintain the contrary. It is science, in the present day, which points out what plants to cultivate, and into what countries to introduce them. Horticulture makes the

trial with infinite pains. If successful, the young plants are submitted to the less careful treatment of agriculture. Before the happy introduction of Cinchonas into British and Dutch India could be effected, botanists were required to collect, distinguish, and carefully describe the various species of American Cinchonas; horticulturists were then called on to make cuttings, gather the seeds, raise the young plants, transport and establish them in another part of the world; and so at last they were passed over to the care of the agriculturists. The Coffee-plant did not spread gradually from Arabia to India, from India to Java; nor was it the American colonists who brought it from its original country to their fazendas or haciendas. The shrub was first described by botanists, and was afterwards introduced by the Dutch into a garden at Batavia; from thence it was taken to the Botanical Garden at Amsterdam, from whence a specimen was sent to the King of France in 1714. De Clieu, a naval officer, transplanted it from the garden at Paris to the French colonies in America. A multitude of such instances might be named. In the present day science has progressed, practical men avail themselves of it, governments and nations have abandoned those mistaken ideas in accordance with which it was supposed that a cultivation advantageous to one country was injurious to others. Hence we may hope to see, before long, useful species planted in all regions where they can thrive, to the great advantage of mankind in general.

One of the most evident effects of science has been to create in the horticultural public a taste for varied and rare forms. Formerly in gardens there were only to be found certain kinds of plants which dated back to the time of the Crusades, or even of the Romans. The discovery of the New World did not produce a change in proportion to its importance; perhaps because horticulturists did not travel enongh, or acquaint themselves with those countries whose species were most suitable for cultivation in Europe. Botanists, fortunately, were more ambitious. Their collectors were numerous and daring. They enriched their herbaria with an infinitude of new forms, and published works upon exotic plants, such as those of Hernandez, Rumphius, Sloane, etc. The immense variety in the forms of plants was thenceforth recognised, and in point of taste the elegant simplicity of the primitive flowers was able to vie with the gaudiness of the double ones. Then ceased the reign of Tulips and Pæonies in flower-gardens.

Curiosity, that great incentive to all science, having penetrated horticulture, the change in gardens became rapid. Instead of a few hundred species such as were cultivated at the commencement of the last century, there are now 20,000 or 30,000 to be found in most of the present catalogues. The single family of Orchids has probably more different representatives in our hothouses than was the case with all the families of plants put together a hundred years ago. Fashion, united to the present curiosity of amateurs, causes from time to time old plants to be abandoned for new ones; and thus the entire vegetable kingdom will ultimately pass under the observation of civilized

men.

What would horticulturists do, amidst this invasion of thousands of species, had not botanists devised convenient plans of classification and nomenclature? The families, genera, and species have all been arranged in books, just as the districts, streets, and numbers of the houses are in our great capitals—with this superiority of method, that the form of the objects indicates their place, as if, in looking at a house in town, one might discover at a glance to what street and what quarter it belonged. The plan of giving a single name to each species, besides its generic name, together with the prohibition of changing names without due reason, of giving the same appellation to two different species or two genera, far excels our plan of distinguishing individuals. How much it would simplify our intercourse with men, and facilitate our inquiries, if, in the whole world, the members of one family only bore the same name, and if each individual had but one christian name, differing from those of the other members of his family. Such is, nevertheless, the admirable plan of nomenclature that science has provided for horticulturists, and which they cannot too much appreciate and respect.*

* Two years ago I made a request to the "Fédération des Sociétés d'Horticulture Belges," which appears to have been favourably received, and it may not be useless to repeat it here. It consisted in begging the horticulturists who obtain new varieties not to give them botanical names, with a Latin designation, but merely arbitrary names of quite a different nature, in order to avoid confusion and useless researches in books. For example, if they called a Calceolaria Sebastopol, or Triomphe de Gand, every one would understand it meant a garden variety; but if they named it Lindleyi, or mirabilis, one would think that it was a botanical species, and would search for it in scientific works, or in the Floras of Chili; and botanists, happening perhaps to mistake it, add it to the end of the genus in their books as a species imperfectly known. The more horticultural names differ from Latin ones the better it is, unless