EDITOR'S TABLE. 



persons will give him credit for. The reviewer, who sits down with prepossessed knowledge 

 and experience, and a just and upright principle, as well as a high sense of honor, to remove the 

 bad and train the rambling ideas of the writer, performs no mean service. Delicacy, collateral 

 relations, sympathy for laborious toil just performed, the laborer still remaining unremunerated, 

 — all these charitable and reasonable considerations, constrain the Jeffries of horticulture, unless 

 hopelessly blind to bribes, and blandishments, and threats. But they must not. The cultiva- 

 tors must not be deluded by horticultural periodicals or societies. Books must be purged and 

 worthless fruits condemned, at all hazards. We hold you, sir, the Editor of the leading horti- 

 cultural journal, accountable to the community ; let not fear or favor bend you from your 

 course. Let all fruit books be fairly reviewed, if at all ; all fruits fairly tested, if at all ; societies 

 exposed who endorse without satisfactory evidence ; all members who attempt or succeed in 

 fraud on societies, cashiered ; and then we shall have a pure horticultural literature, and an 

 orchard of truly described fruit. You know the permanent benefits that would thus be secured 

 to horticulture. 8., Philadelphia, Pa. 



The Nelumbium speciosum. — Last year you published a small sketch from my pen of the suc- 

 cessful treatment of this plant in the open air at Springbrook, and I think I implied a promise 

 to report on the result of its trial out during the winter. In a recent visit, I was pleased to 

 find that it had stood out perfectly well, and had covered the whole of the basin with its beau- 

 tiful foliage, among which several flower spikes were strongly pushing their way. I look upon 

 this as one of the most interesting plants Mr. Cope's liberal patronage of horticulture has been 

 the means of showing us in perfection; for even the Victoria regia, so gorgeous and unapproach- 

 able in itself, from the great expense required to its perfect production, must forever remain a 

 luxury to be enjoyed but by a few. But in this we have a plant superior to anything generally 

 seen in this climate, beautiful and long famed as one of India's choicest treasures, adapting itself 

 to our wants and wishes as perfectly as our own white Water Lily. As the plant last year was 

 but raised ia the spring, it did not flower till September, and so had no time to perfect its seeds ; 

 being now two months earlier, the probabilities are that there will be an abundance this season. 

 In the same basin Mr. Cope has also growing another kind of Nelumhlum, brought from Minorca 

 and presented to him by a lady of Natchez. I observed, on sowing the seed last winter, tliat 

 they were nearly round ; and as the leaves now have a much greener hue than the speciosum, 

 the probability is that another valuable addition has been made to this admirable collection. The 

 Nelumbium luteum has also been domiciled with these others, so that some interesting hybrids 

 may be looked for. Tuos. Meehan, Philadelphia. 



Too Happy at Home. — To Elsie — The interest you have taken in my case, which you persist 

 in thinking unfortunate, has laid me under great obligations. The inquirer after liapjiiness often 

 meets with unexpected rebuffs; his schemes result in unlooked-for disappointments and vexation. 

 That you, who appear from your own account so eminently calculated to be happy, and to make 

 all around you cheerful and comfortable, with talents that I ought to envy, should be discon- 

 tented with your lot, and desire a change, is a great surprise, and I must, before I finally consent 

 to risk the even tranquility of your and " husband's" course of life, enlivened as it is by the 

 great alleviator of our lives, hope, which to me is alas ! lost, point out wliere you, as well as 

 myself, may expect to be disappointed. You do possess, I have not the least doubt, all those 

 qualifications you claim, and I cannot but congratulate the man who has gained so great a prize. 

 Would it not be rather cruel to take you from the wild flowers and shut you up in heated 

 rooms and to the cultivation of hothouse exotics ? and I may as well state at once that I have no 

 taste for the native productions of your prairies, preferring the sight of pine-apples under 

 and the other products of tropical climes. This you will say is an error of taste ; but it is 



