Excerpt from The Florist and Horticultural Journal, Vol. 3: A Monthly Magazine of Horticulture, Agriculture, Botany, Agricultural Chemistry, Entomology, &C It is generally acknowledged that England possesses no example of pwb lic gardens worthy of her intelligence and limitless resources, and that in this respect she has hitherto been greatly outstripped by her neighbor France. Of recent years the Royal Gardens at Kew have been greatly en-r larged and vastly improved, and now certainly occupy the first place in Europe as botanical gardens. But although these are tastefully laid out, their artificial decorations hardly deserve the name when compared with such as are to be seen in France. The reason of this inferiority on the part of England is no doubt to be found in the fact, that while the government of France has been in the habit of undertaking the execution of great public works for the people, the English government leaves all such works to be executed by the people, or by private companies; and until Sir Joseph Paxton's happy idea of combining gardens with the Crystal Palace, no com pany seems to have ventured upon the formation of highly artistic gardens for the people. Now, however, the Crystal Palace Company, aided by the genius of Sir Joseph Paxton, bids fair to produce such a work as will place England as much in advance in this respect as she has hitherto been behind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.