EDITOR'S TiVBLE. 



is curious to seo ft bed of them laid open, nnd to obsorve the wny in wliieli they inlorlftce cncli 

 other like an extensive net-work. Tlicy nre wliite, about tlic tliickncss of a finger, sprcftding 

 horizontally beneath the eurfaco of the soil. From every articuhitiou a bud sprouta up, forming 

 the loaf stem. The single leaves produce m> fruit — most probably they are the firet year's growth ; 

 possibly it is from the second year's shoot that tlio fniit-bcaring stem rises. I have often wondered 

 if llie Hay Apple has attracted the attention of the horliculturisls. Could the fruit be improved 

 bv artificial culture ? 



Notuts of ISoofiS, ^Uampl&Icts, ^t. 



El'ral Essats. By A. J. Downts'g. Edited, with a Memoir of the Author, by Geoeqe "Wixuam Cuktis ; and a 

 Letter to his Friends by FBEDEnncA Bremeic. New Torlc : Geoeoe G. Putnttm & Co., 10 Park Place. 



While Ml'. Do^vNiXG was j'ct alive and well, with a prospect of long years of usefulness 

 and happiness before him, wc thought that those charming rural es.says of his that appeared 

 from month to month in the Ilorticulturist, should be collected and put in a form more 

 accessible to us all, and one especially that would place them more within the reach of 

 thousands of general readers who eschew horticultural journals. This has at length been 

 done ; but alas ! not as we hoped to see it done by himself^ but by his bereaved friends, as 

 a last sad duty. It is a beautiful volume of nearly six hundred pages, embellished with a 

 portrait of the author, and many of the finest engravings that have appeared in tlie Uorti- 

 cultwist. A memoir by Geoege "William CrETis, and a letter to Mr. Downing's friends 

 by Fredeeika Beemee ai-e prefixed. 



Mr. CuETis is well known as a tasteful and elegant writer, and the memoir which we 

 have read carefully and with a painful iutesest, shows that he was a warm and intunate friend 

 and ardent admher of Mr. Dowxixg, and that in many respects he appreciated correctly 

 his talents, character, and influence. "We must confess, however, that we are not pleased 

 with him. We think we can see in several passages of the memoir an endeavor to exaggerate 

 or color certain ftxcts and circumstances in order to give additional interest to the production 

 — a thing entirely superfluous — or perhaps to give more scope to his imagination and his pen- 

 Tliis is a very natural failure witli suph men as Mr. Ouetis, the particular charm of whose 

 writings consist in highly colored, over-drawn pictures, but it is a great pity that in this 

 mstance he was not satisfied with a plam, unvarnished statement. The j>cople who feel 

 most interest in Mr, Dowotng's history are not mere novel readers, whose romantic appetites 

 can only be satiated with the Avondcrful and supernatural ; on the contrarj", they are people 

 whose minds dwell upon reahties, lovers of the beautiful in nature and art, cultivators and 

 improvers of the field and the garden, worshippers of Flora and Pomona, and Mr. Downing 

 was their chosen leader, the man whose writings not only conveyed instruction and 

 encouragement, but struck a chord of sympathy in their hearts that bound them to him as 

 to a brother. How Mr. Downing's manliness of sentiment would have scorned such a 

 puerile passage as the following : 



"Andrew was born many years after the other children. He was the child of his parents' age 

 and, for that reason, very dear. He began to talk before he could walk, when he was only nine 

 months old, and the wise village gossips shook their heads in his mother's little cottag'^, and 

 prophesied a bright career for the precocious child. At eleven months that career manifestly 

 began, in tlie gossips' eyes, by his walking bravely about the room : a handsome, cheerful, intelli- 

 gent child, but quiet and thoughtful, pet':ed by the elder brothers and sister, standing sometimes ^ 

 in the door, as he grew older, and watching the shadows of the clouds chase each other over the 



