in South America it promises to be equally so. Among the West India Islands education is now becoming general, even to the children of slaves; and the President Boyer, of the republic of Hayti, has declared to his black subjects, in a manifesto published some years ago, that "education and agriculture constitute the chief strength of states."

Under these circumstances, it is not our intention to invite or court the young gardener to cultivate his intellectual faculties, but rather to point out to him the absolute necessity of doing so, if he wishes to maintain any higher station than that of a country labourer. If he remains content with the elementary knowledge he has acquired, or as gardener lads acquire under ordinary circumstances, he will assuredly never advance beyond the condition of a working gardener, and may not improbably sink into that of a nurseryman's labourer of all work. To get a good place as a gentleman's gardener, it is not sufficient now-a-days to know the culture of kitchencrops and fruits; the man who gets eighty or a hundred pounds a-year must know plants well, and be able to converse on botany as a science. He must not only be a good practical botanist, but possess some knowledge of chemistry, mechanics, and even of the principles of taste. Instead of being barely able to write and guess at the spelling of words, he will never be admitted, even as a candidate for a situation, unless he writes a good hand, spells and points correctly, and can compose what is called a good letter. Drawing, at least of ground-plans, is indispensible; and for a firstrate situation, sketching landscape, and some knowledge of French, equally so. A knowledge of the rudiments of Latin and of Greek, so far as to be able to find out the meaning of nouns in a Greco-English dictionary, is preincluded in some knowledge of scientific botany. Every gardener, in short, who can now be considered worthy of the name, must understand the principles of English composition, and be capable at the desire of his master, or of his own proper motion, to write a paper on his art, fit to be introduced in the Horticultural Society's Transactions, or in the Gardener's Magazine. The gardener who has no ambition to appear as a writer in one or both of these works, must be a heartless mass of subsoil.

Viewing the subject of education as of so much importance to gardeners, we shall from time to time recur to it, more particularly with a view to enable young men who are already engaged in their profession, to work out their own scholastic education, in so far as that may have been imperfect, in the hours devoted to rest and refreshment.

But previously to entering on the subject of young men instructing themselves in science, we shall in our next number point out what we consider the best mode by which a working gardener who is too old, or whose mind is not sufficiently pliable to derive instruction from books, may improve his circumstances, and prevent him from falling back in the latter period of life into the condition of a jobbing gardener; the miseries of which have been so feelingly depicted in our last number, by our worthy correspondent, Mr. M'Naughton.

ART. XI. Biography.

Andrew Thouin, (fig. 42.) born in Paris, 1745, devoted himself from his infancy to the study of botany, and merited being chosen to replace Guettard in the garden of plants, of which his father was head gardener. In 1786 he was admitted a Member of the Academy of Sciences. It was by his care that the garden was improved, the system of cultivation perfected, and more certain methods used for preserving and propagating the numerous plants with which every day this valuable depôt was enriched. It was from his solicitation that a professorship of practical cultivation was established, and the first public lecture on the subject given in France. M. Thouin was

chosen by government, professor to the Normale School, established in 1794, and was sent about the same time into Holland and Italy to examine the agriculture of these countries. He was commissioned to add to the Garden of Plants fruits of the best quality; and we find in them not only a great variety of fruit trees, but also plants used for the food of men and animals, and those used in the different arts. The school which he founded contains examples of pruned trees, grafts, inclosures, and hedges of different kinds. The public regrets that M. Thouin has not published the Lessons of Agriculture which he arranged in the form of tables, and there specified the knowledge acquired by profound theory, and daily practice. A member of the institution of the central Society of Agriculture, &c. he has published in the Memoirs of that Society, in the Annals of the Museum, and in the Diction

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ary of Natural History, several memoirs and articles. He wrote a great part of the Agricultural Dictionary; of the Methodical Encyclopedia; and also the 11th and 12th vols. of Rozier's Course of Agriculture. The 27th of October this respectable man finished an honourable career, every period of which is marked by studies useful to the progress of agriculture. The 29th of the same month his mortal remains were deposited in the burying ground of Père la Chaise. Deputations from the Academy, the Society of Agriculture, and other learned bodies, assisted at the ceremony. The Baron Cuvier delivered a speech in the name of that learned assembly. We shall extract some passages of it, which display the virtues and merits of a man so justly regretted :

"Gentlemen, it is modesty and science, united to the most amiable simplicity, we lose to day in the good old man whose remains this tomb is about to cover. This coffin, surrounded at once by the members of an illustrious body, and the humble workmen of a great establishment, equally watered with their tears, is that of a man, who belongs to both families, and by which he was equally beloved and revered. Born in the king's garden, succeeding two or three of those patriarchal generations whose labours for nearly a century embellished and improved this magnificent depôt of the riches of nature, M. Thouin there found in some respects an hereditary domain; considered it his country, and placed his existence there. Those celebrated men Buffon and Jussieu thought themselves honored to see him seated beside them, and learned Europe no longer omitted to sound his fame. From that time his modest career became better known, and few men have displayed a more useful influence. Become the centre of a correspondence which extended to all parts of the world, he did not

cease for half a century to encourage amongst the different countries the exchange of their vegetable riches. Productions from the most distant parts of the East Indies, received, valued, and multiplied by him, are sent to increase and enrich our American islands; America in her turn sent to our Indian colonies the most valuable things she possesses. How many fine trees which now shade us, would have remained unknown to us without the indefatigable activity which animated him! Where is now, not only in France, but in Europe, and in the two hemispheres, the park or garden which does not boast of shrubs and flowers indebted to his zeal and industry? Where is the orchard where he has not distributed some well flavoured fruits? Such services during a nation's infancy would make its authors be worshipped; they will always at least be sure to excite the gratitude of the friends of humanity, who know, that by multiplying a useful plant, we multiply men, and that it is a more certain and durable property for the country that receives it, than the best written laws; because, like them, the combinations of men are transitory; the gifts of nature once acquired by a nation are inexhaustible.”

M. Cordier, in the Museum of Natural History, also delivered an eloquent speech, prompted by the esteem and friendship which he bore this respectable old man.

A list of Mr. Thouin's writings will be found in the Bulletin Universel des Sciences Agricoles, tome 1. His library was sold by auction in Paris, in the beginning of last March.

ART. XII. Obituary.

Died at Knowlesley Hall, near Prescot, Mr. Richard Keyte Yarnall, twenty-nine years and nine months head gardener there. Mr. Yarnall was born at Ebrington, in Gloucestershire, on the 20th Sept. 1752; he was educated at the free school of Campden, and served his apprenticeship to his uncle, then gardener at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire. He then went as a journeyman to Hampton Court Gardens, at that time under the celebrated Landscape Gardener, Mr. Brown. At the age of twenty-two he was engaged as gardener to the Earl of Waldegrave, at Navestock, Essex, where he lived sixteen years, till his Lordship's death. He next was engaged by the Earl of Shrewsbury, for the gardens at Heythorpe, in Oxfordshire; but being solicited by the Countess of Waldegrave to return to Navestock, he did so, and remained till the death of young Lord Waldegrave. After this event, her Ladyship entirely gave up the gardens, and Mr. Yarnall, in May, 1796, became gardener to the Earl of Derby, at Knowlesley, where he remained till he died, on the 19th of February last, in his seventy-fourth year.

As a man, Mr. Yarnall was respected by his fellow servants, and his employers; and as a gardener he gave the highest satisfaction. We first called at Knowlesley Gardens, in July, 1805, and then observed in a cucumber-house, heated by steam, the plants trained like vines on a trellis, close under the glass, and a large crop of fruit hanging from them. This house, the mode of heating by steam, and of training the plants close to the glass, was the invention of Mr. Butler, Mr. Yarnall's predecessor. We again called at Knowlesley, in Feb. 1819, on the day of the burial of George the Third, and saw the same cucumber-house in full bearing as before, and also twenty-one cucumbers cut from it that morning, to be packed up and sent to the family at the Oaks in Kent. If we are correct in our recollection, Mr. Yarnall then told us, that there had been a crop of cucumbers hanging in that house, without any interruption

farther than that of a month or two in summer, when they were abundant in the frames, for twenty-five years.

The greatest humanity and kindness was shown to Mr. Yarnall, in his last illness, by his noble mistress and master; who rather than hurt the worthy man's feelings by superannuating him, or appointing his successor during his life-time, chose to submit to various privations, and irregularities of management, the inevitable consequence of the want of an active superintendant.

Mr. Yarnall had a son, who was gardener to Lord Vernon, at Sudbury, in Derbyshire, who died some years ago, and left a family of young daughters.

Died on the 13th of March, at his house in Hackney, Conrad Loddiges, Esq. in his eighty-eighth year, the founder of the celebrated nursery of that place, now carried on by his sons.

Died on the 14th inst. at his apartments in the British Museum, Dr. Noehden, author of various interesting papers in the Horticultural Transactions. He is said to have been principally instrumental in inducing Mr. Harrison, of Wortley Hall, to publish his valuable Treatise on Fruit Trees.

ART. XIII. Queries and Answers to Queries.

4. S. would be glad of information respecting the best mode of breeding gold and silver fish; and he asks if it be true that the spawn when newly spawned, if collected and dried, will in that state preserve its vivifying principle so as to be kept some time, or sent to a distance?

Ribes is desirous of knowing if any hybrids have been originated between the black and red currant, or between the raspberry or bramble.

"A Subscriber," who dates from Dawn in Kent, enquires if pines can be raised in the same manner as melons, and if so, how so. To this we answer, that pines may be grown in large melon frames by the heat of dung alone, as well as in hot-houses by tan and fire flues. The "process" will be found in the Encyclopædia of Gardening, Part 3. Book 1. Chap. 7. Sect. i.; and more at large in The different Modes of cultivating the Pine Apple from its first Introduction to Europe, to the Improvements of T. A. Knight, Esq. in 1822. 1 vol. 8vo.

"A young Gardener," who has heard it asserted, "that many of the apples in France are grafted on willow stocks, in consequence of which the fruit is woolly, and flat in flavour," may rest assured that the whole is nonsense; for reasons which he will find detailed in our Encyclopædia, Part 2. Book 4. Chap. 3. Sect. 2. Subsect. 4.

"A Constant Reader" is informed that the yellow rose will grow and bloom very well upon the Rosa Arvensis; which is common in every hedge. If no stools are already prepared, take the buds out to the fields, and insert them on any shoots, whether strong or weak, or long or short. One long shoot may have a bud put in at every 10 or 12 inches. In autumn cut the shoots off, bring them home and make cuttings of them, taking care that there is a yellow bud in each cutting. They will strike freely, and make neat little plants. The same thing may be done with every other species and variety of rose, and hence a complete collection, budded on rosa arvensis, might be had for the labour of budding, provided buds could be had of the different kinds. Rosa sempervirens and Doniana strike almost as freely by cuttings as rosa arvensis.

"Amateur" is informed that the Maclura aurantiaca is to be had both in Paris and London, at from thirty shillings to two guineas a plant, layers, or budded on the mulberry. In compliance with his wishes, we shall endeavour, in next number, to give a figure and description of this new hardy fruit, which promises to be a most valuable addition to the dessert.

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PART IV.

ADVERTISEMENTS CONNECTED WITH GARDENING AND RURAL AFFAIRS.