CRITIQUE ON THE FEB. HORTICULTURIST. 



sedly, no such masters. Such works, in the expense they entail in their erection and ex 

 ecution, and in the care and keeping of them afterwards, are incompatible with the free- 

 dom and happiness of the people where they exist. We need only name Greece, Rome, 

 Venice, Geneva, France in the time of Louis XIV, to say nothing of ancient Egypt, and 

 the nations contemporary with her power and grandeur. 



" While stands ihe Coliseum, Rome shall stand j" 



and so shall stand the tale of her luxury, her wretchedness, her fall, her degradation and 

 misery. The spetacle of her " Dying Gladiator," 



" Butchered to make a Roman holiday," 



and a thousand other atrocities practiced by that highly refined, yet barbarous people, 

 must ever sadden the picture of the arts in Rome. No : better that the arts should creep 

 along in America, under the stinted patronage of the government, or of the few communi- 

 ties of private citizens who can appreciate and afford them; even that Jonathan, in his 

 hunting-shirt and happiness, should crack his shag-barks on the toes of Washington, 

 than that we should give up our comforts, our usefulness, our liberty, to that which, with 

 all our efforts, we cannot equal in nations now in their decline, and who send us by way 

 of addition to our strength, save now and then a man of worth, little else than singers, 

 dancers, trinket-venders, shoemakers and beggars. 



More about the Sage Grape. — Till I know more about it, I shan't burn my fingers with 

 its meddling. When any body finds a wild Fox grape north of the Potomac, worth in- 

 troducing into the garden and cultivating, by the side of the Isabella, and the Catawba, 

 and the worth of which is well substantiated by the pomological test of a company of good 

 judges, we'll talk about it. 



Selections of best Fruits. — P. P. writes like a man who knows what he is about. There 

 is no greater folly in the world — I know it by experience — than for one to take up a nur- 

 sery catalogue, and run over the lists of the fruits, marking such as are highly recommen- 

 ded, and thus making his selections for his orchards. Every single variety of fruit that he 

 marks may be all that is said of it, in certain places — but not equally good in any two 

 places in the United States. If he be a new-comer to the place he occupies, he has it all to 

 learn, and the cheapest way to learn it is to examine the best fruits which have been suc- 

 cessfully cultivated in his neighborhood, and adopt them; and if there be not varieties 

 enough, then cautiously to select others which are known to flourish in like soils and cli- 

 mates to his own. I have myself — and have known others — to take the say-so of people 

 a good ways off, and they, probably, poor judges of the real qualities of fruits, and intro- 

 duce varieties into their orchards, which, when they came into bearing, proved worthless, 

 and the trees had to be headed down and grafted again. 



A dozen kinds of apple, pear, and half as many kinds of peaches, cherries, and plums, 

 are all that any one needs for market purposes, or for family use. For the locality of Sta- 

 ten-Island, Long-Island, or New-Jersey, thirty miles up the north or east rivers, from 

 New-York, the selections here given are good, and quite sufficient. 



Notes on Landscape Gardening. — I should like to see a proper definition of the term 

 " Landscape Gardening." There certainly can be no fixed rule about it. Many ingenious 

 and many absurd books, have been written on this subject. The best American Landscape 

 work is that of Downing, and the best short essays which I have seen, have appeared in 

 this paper. A professor of landscape gardening should have rare natural qualities. He 

 should first be a devoted, an enthusiastic lover of nature in all her works of earth, rocks, 

 water, and trees. He should possess an enlarged capacity for discrimination, combination, 

 and arrangement. He should well understand the features of a piece of ground, and its 



