The first Manual of Horticulture was issued in 1845 by Daniel Bunce, C.M.H.S., author of Hortus Tasmaniensis, Guide to the Linnceau System of Botany, Manual of Practical Gardening, dVr. This work sold at 2s. 6d. per copy, and ran through more than one edition, for it was cheap and useful. THE FIRST MAGAZINE.
In 1843 a pretentious monthly periodical was adventured as The Port Phillip Magazine, at 3s. per number, or 7s. 6d. per quarter. It was under the joint editorship of M r . G. A. Gilbert, a recently-arrived drawing-master, and Dr. W . B. Wilmot, the Coroner. Gilbert was an accomplished gentlemanly man, who knew a good deal about many matters, and rendered himself m u c h of an acquisition to the Mechanics' Institute, of which he was for years Honorary Secretary. H e was a very plausible and pleasant speaker, and at pen and pencil equally an adept. T h e magazine professed to be a scientific, literary, agricultural and commercial journal of about fifty pages, and N o . 1 was illustrated with three rather poorly-executed lithographic sketches, viz.—(a) Williamstown; (b) Shortland's Bluff (Queenscliff) Lighthouse ; and (c) the Landing-place at Sandridge—water, sand, and two hotels. The articles were on Land Drainage, Physical Geography, Agriculture and Immigration. Then followed some Statistics, and a Metrical Story on two Aborigines executed in Melbourne in 1842. For the time the ambitious attempt was as good as could be expected. Generally speaking, its whole style was defective ; it found little favour with the public, and it ended in an abortion. In 1847 an attempt was made to establish the Australasian, a monthly reprint of articles from the English Reviews, at 5s. per number, but its second appearance was its last. A nearly similar project was revived in 1850 under the same name, at 2s. 6d. per number. The publisher was John Pullar, Melbourne, and there was to be not only a reproduction of selections from the leading periodicals of the United Kingdom, but also original contributions, chiefly on subjects of colonial interest. No. 1 failed to hit the public taste for two very good reasons—viz., because the articles reprinted were rather stale, and the original papers were the reverse of interesting. No. 2 perished in embryo.
THE ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE,
Printed by Samuel Goode, Swanston Street, for Thomas, Jabez, and Theophilus Ham, of Collins Street, sole proprietors, was commenced under the motto " Non progredi est regredi," in July, 1850, and the promoters promised "that for one year the work shall be continued at all risks; nor shall any expense be spared, or any expedient untried, in order to render it worthy of a permanent and increasing popularity." T h e object of the undertaking professed " to further the development of the great natural resources of our Southern clime ; to stimulate and direct colonial enterprise; to give efficiency to industry, and increased productiveness to human labour; to foster native talent; and thus to promote both the interest and the happiness of all classes of society;" and it was carried out with a laudable public spirit. T h e Magazine was a half crown monthly issue of some eighty medium-sized pages stitched in a wrapper with a picturesque cover. T o take N o . 1 as a sample, it contained a well compounded prescription of reading, its illustrations numbering five—viz., the Mechanics' Institute, the Alpaca and a North-western Passage Expedition in search of Franklin, with descriptive art.cles referring to each. There were also a well-written Editorial Address, a Paper on Nineveh, two short Tales of Fiction, a Metrical Enigma, a Monthly Retrospect of Events, and some Stat.stical Reports supplied by Mr. William Westgarth. It was, on the whole a favourable specimen, and well deserved public patronage. Subsequent issues showed an improvement, and the pictorial enrichments were more Australian in design. T h e promise to keep the venture going for twelve months was more than fulfilled, for it was continued to thefifteenthnumber, when it exploded (October 1851) through the action of the strange and unlooked-for gases generated in the community by the preliminary rumblings of the gold revolution. " H a m ' s Magazine," as it was familiarly called, went to pieces the same as many another early enterprise, and in October, 1851, its epitaph was good humouredly chanted in something like the wail of the dying s w a n : - " N o t only
