CRITIQUE ON THE MAY HORTICULTURIST. 



season ! "Well, Detroit " may walk up to the head." Why cannot Mr. Adair get some 

 of the soil analyzed, in which the luxuriant old pear trees grow, and see what it is com- 

 posed of? It would be gratifying to our pomologists to know. Still the fact of the anti- 

 quity of the trees, and their height and ciicumference, is not to be .doubted any more than 

 that they have always stood there, for all that any living man knows to the contrary. And 

 that the trees have been entirely neglected in their cultivation from infancy, is quite as 

 probable — for who ever knew a French habitan, or Corcur da 'bois, as that distant coun- 

 try was for two centuries inhabited with, to take care of any thing beyond his beaver 

 traps or fishing tackle? 



When your new grafts on the old trees begin to bear, will you, Mr. Adair, be so kind 

 as to send to this paper, an account of the fruits produced. It will be an interesting sub- 

 ject. May we not, now the ice is out of Detroit river, again hear from that favored re- 

 gion ? 



2^he Orange Pear once more. — When those two bellicose gentlemen get the Orange 

 Pear controversy down to a tangible point, I may have a word to say about it. Meantime 

 the world may learn something of the qualities which constitute a good table, and a good 

 cooking fruit, as distinguished from each other; for now, I venture to say, not one in ten 

 of our house-keepers, know the difference, although they have cooked fruit for fift3'^ years 

 of their lives, and will put one thing into the stew-pan, or the oven, as soon as they will 

 the other, and wonder, in both the cooking and the taste, what should make the difference 

 between them. These subjects should be better understood than they are. 



As to the excellence of the Porter Apple, Mr. Allen has not a whit over-rated it. The 

 longer he tries it, the more confirmed will he be in its good qualities. 



Warming and Ventilating Houses. — Read this over and again, every one who is build- 

 ing a house, and all who contemplate introducing stoves and warming apparatus of any 

 kind, into those already occupied. No more important subject can occupy your atten- 

 tion. 



Messina, a Country Seat on the Hudson. — I never passed up or down the Hudson on 

 a pleasant day, and gazed on the magnificence of its scenery, and the grand old home- 

 steads of its ancient land-holders, but I found myself mentally breaking into the soul- 

 stirring lyric of Lord Byron, in Don Juan: 



•' The mouulaiiis look on Marathon— 

 And Marathon looks on tlie sea;" 



with the transposition of a word or two, so graphically does the description apply to these 

 noble houses. Nor can Childe Harold's glowing Rhapsody to the Rhine, exceed in truth 

 what may as well be said of the scenery along the Hudson: 



" The caslled crag of Drachenfols 



Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, 

 Wliose breast of waters broadly swells 



Bolween llie banks that bear the vine, 

 And liills all rich with Mossomed trees, 



And fields which promise corn and wine, 

 And scattered cities crowning these, 



Whose lar white walls along ihem shine. 



* # * 



The river nobly foams and flows. 



The charm of this enchanted ground, 

 And all ils llionsand turns disclose 



Some fresher beauty varying round." 



fifty years from this, what river in the universe will equal the Hudson, in ils features 

 ountain, wood, and park, and lawn, and house and water, every where scattered 



