CRITIQUE ON JULY HORTICULTURIST. 



CRITIQUE OX THE JULY HORTICULTURIST. 



The Horticulturist, its History, Progress, S)-c. — As Junius said to the Duke of 

 Grafton, " If I should happen inadvertently to say anything in praise of your 

 Lordship, it would be imputed a slander upon my usually expressed opinions," 

 or something of the sort, as I only quote from memory what I read some thirty 

 years ago, and as I am not much in the habit of praising anybody or anything, I 

 have only to say, in the classic style of Davy Crockett, alas, that he left not his 

 fellow ! " Go ahead." The discourses of its own pages are the best commenta- 

 tors on the merits of the Horticulturist. 



Buffum Pear. — A good fruit ; and when our pomologists confine their chief 

 attention to the best selections from our native pears, they will succeed much 

 better than in cultivating the refined and overworked fancy things from abroad. 

 Rely upon it, every country produces something of its own, which, in its line, will 

 prove the most valuable for permanent cultivation. It has, thus far, proved so 

 with American pears. 



Grafting by approach. — One of W\q fancy ways of doing a very necessary piece 

 of work. When a man wants something to keep him out of mischief, and hasn't 

 a pile of shingles at hand for whittling, he may set himself to "grafting by 

 approach." 



The Upas-tree. — With what horror did I use to read that dreadful story of 

 the Bohon Upas in the A7nerican Preceptor at school, when a boy I Any man of 

 observation ought to have known that the story was a downright Munchausen, 

 but with that sagacity common to most school-book compilers, into the book the 

 story went, and so we, young noodles, believed it then, as half of the older ones 

 believe it now. 



William Coxe, the Pomologist. — A fresh racy sketch of a useful man ; worth, to 

 the American world, more than half its politicians put together. You can do no 

 better service, Mr. Editor, than to thus chronicle the good deeds of such bene- 

 factors to their race. Coxe was one of the first fruit authors I ever read ; a 

 delightful book it was to me, and, for the times, one of rare merit. Imperishable 

 honor to William Coxe, of Burlington, New Jersey ! 



Dwarf Pears. — Yery well for the garden, but not otit of it ; provided you 

 confine yourself to half a dozen varieties. 



Pruning of Pear-trees. — Another most valuable article from your correspond- 

 ent "B." Read it, everybody who grows a pear-tree, and wants to cultivate it 

 right. 



The Old Topiary Work. — One of the old time absurdities which I hope may 

 never be revived in America. Any extent of waggery and burlesque may be 

 applied to such nonsense with justice. I have seen now and then an abortive 

 effort at the thing in this country, but with a thorough contempt of the puerile 

 taste that dictated it. 



Have Ferns Sexes ? — Wliy not ? It is pretty much a settled principle that all 

 vegetables have sexes. If so, ferns must. I fancy it to be the organic law with 

 vegetables, as with animals, that sexes are indispensable to the renewal of their 

 species, although the continuation of life may be i)rolonged indefinitely in the one 

 by layering, cuttings, and ingrafting, while the other has its individual vitality 

 bounded by the inexorable laws of its creation. 



An Octagon House. — Why inquire, ]Mr. M. F. of Sing Sing, N. Y., about such 

 an absurdity ? I would as soon undertake to live in a tee-to-tum, 

 anchored balloon as in a house that has every side and corner alike, and no 



