Gardener's Magazine, Vol. 7: And Register of Rural Domestic Improvement (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

Excerpt from Gardener's Magazine, Vol. 7: And Register of Rural Domestic Improvement

The principal improvement introduced in this Seventh Volume of the Gardeners Magazine is, the collection into one list, in each Number (p.344 . 503.and 615.), of all the plants mentioned in that Number as introduced to our gardens, but which are not included, or are mentioned under a different name, or imperfectly described, in the H6rtus Britdnnicus. This list is prepared and printed with a degree of care and accuracy, and at an expense, which, it is but justice to ourselves to state, has not hitherto been equalled in any botanical publication in this or in any other country. At the end of every year these lists will be rearranged, and published separately on the 1 st of the succeeding February, as a Supplement to the Hortus Britanicus, The Supplement for 1831 will appear on February 1. 1832.

In the course of the publication of this Volume, the Conductor has had an opportunity of personally ascertaining, during an extensive tour, the state of gardening, and the wants and wishes of a number of his readers, in the central and northern counties of England, and in the west of Scotland. He has been confirmed in his intention of continuing the reports of the Provincial Horticultural Societies, subject to the modifications laid down in p.626. He has ascertained, beyond all doubt, that gardening has made much more progress during the last quarter of a century as an art of culture than as an art of design and taste; and that, in consequence, the wants of his readers, whether gardeners, their employers, or amateurs, are chiefly in the department of taste; in other words, in landscape-gardening and garden architecture.

While the newest varieties of fruits, culinary vegetables, and. flowers have found their way almost every where, the same commonplace manner of laying out shrubberies and flower-gardens (seep.400, 401, and 402.)which existed at the end of the last century is still prevalent. Trees in parks are planted in the same formal belts and clumps, or scattered singly over the surface in what is familiarly called dotting. The same indiscriminate mode of mixing trees in plantations still prevails; and, in regard to thinning and pruning (which, however, have more to do with profit than with picturesque effect), there is not one proprietor in twenty that has the courage to set about either operation. The order and keeping of gardens and pleasure-grounds seem, on the whole, to have retrograded rather than advanced; partly because, while the extent of most places has been increased, the number of hands allowed for keeping them has been diminished; but partly, also, from misapplied exertion and labour on the part of the gardener, and from his, in almost every case, confounding the means of high order and keeping with the end.

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