Retrospective Criticism, 201 



our gardens contain, that possesses four-edged leaves, and this character is 

 (hdy obvious in the leaves of the plants in question. The address of Mr. 

 Goode's brother is, " Mr. E. Bell, No. 70. Portland Square, Plymouth ; " 

 by a post-paid letter to whom more definite particulars may be learned. 



To blossom 7Vis tuberosa satisfactorily, do thus : — Let it stand two or 

 three years in succession in the same spot ; then, and oftener if you wish 

 to increase it, dig up its tubers as soon as its leaves, by turning yellow, 

 indicate its growth finished for the season : this will be usually in July. 

 Divide the tubers all you please, for even small fragments of these will 

 produce plants ; but just in proportion to the smallness of the divided 

 portions will be the time occupied in their acquiring sufficient vigour to. 

 produce blossoms. The tubers are shrivelled and weakened by being dried, 

 being very far less patient of drying than bulbs of crocus, tulip, and 

 hyacinth. Divide them, therefore, as soon as dug up, and replant them 

 immediately, 6 in. deep, in a compost formed of half friable loam and half 

 leaf mould or old hot-bed dung rotted to the consistence of soil. Let the 

 situation be a dry bed or border at the base of a wall, with a southern 

 aspect, and plant the tubers close to the wall, or only at a few inches from 

 it. Thus treated, 7'ris tuberosa, in the Botanic Garden at Bury St. Ed- 

 munds, every spring exhibits its peculiarly coloured and constructed and 

 delicately fragrant flowers, and occasionally also produces seeds : these, if 

 sown the moment they are ripe, produce plants which flower in the fourth 

 year of their age. One observance in the cultivation of this plant should 

 be absolute ; never to stir the soil within a foot of it after the 1st of Septem- 

 ber, for it will by this time have commenced the emission of roots for the 

 imbibition of the requisite energies for its next year's flowering, although 

 it may not send its foliage above ground to tell you so until even Novem- 

 ber. " This last remark applies to most, perhaps all, hardy bulbous plants, 

 and to many hardy tuberous plants : but this is gardening. 



The figure of /'ris tuberosa in Vol. IV. p. 29. fig. 9. is admirable in its 

 general outline, but does not portray the peculiar four-edged character of 

 the foliage, and the plant has, I believe, never such a scaly creeping sucker 

 at its root as is there represented. — J. D. 



Ile-ply to the Remarks by Sir Richard Phillips on Sir J. Byerley'^s Theory 

 which accounts for Geological Phenomena by the Precession of the Equinoxes. 

 — Sir, Your last Number contains (p. 102.) a testy article by Sir Richard 

 Phillips against his former " correspondent," myself. I am sorry to have 

 disturbed the philosopher's bile. In attributing to him the priority of 

 an important discovery, I confess I purposely strained a point in favour of 

 an old and worthy servant of the public whom the world has used unkindly. 

 He says 1 have not read his work. I should be ashamed to own that I had 

 not, as he presented me with each successive modification of his infallible 

 doctrines. Alas ! I had to do more than read it ; for on the titlepage of 

 his last present he wrote, " Lend it to Count Lanjuinais and Benjamin 

 de Constant." Lending was not enough : I was called upon to explain it 

 to those two friends of mine, to whom I had introduced Sir Richard ; and 

 I was obliged to confess, with the members of the French Institute, that 

 there was very little of it I could understand, having the misfortune to 

 believe in Newton and " attraction, gravitation, and other superstitious 

 fancies," which Sir Richard has blotted out from his creed. 



As to his real theory, he has laid it before your readers ; and far be it 

 from me to prevent his making one proselyte. Mine, too, or rather that of 

 Hipparchus, applied by M. Guesney and myself, is also before the public. 

 Innumerable phenomena are capable of a rational solution by it; but I am 

 no dealer in infallibilities, like my quondam friend. Sir Richard, and 

 I therefore point out in an article sent herewith (p. 172.), an easy method 

 for astronomers to decide definitively on its truth or falsehood, by direct 

 observation, at the approaching equinox. I am, Sir, ^ours, &c. — J. Byerlctf. 

 Jan. 15. 1832. 



