314 Retrospective Criticism. 



with me plants of the one known there as the hazle-niit, and very close- 

 ly resembling the very common shrub known here by the same name. 

 I can see no difference in the two except in the fruit, where it is obvious 

 enough. I succeeded in collecting about thirty nuts from my plants the 

 second year after transplanting, and exhibited' them at the Horticultural 

 Society's room. They were referred to a committee, who reported that 

 they "appeared to resemble the European filbert." Mr. Nuttall enter- 

 tained no doubt but they were the same. In fact, some filberts from the 

 shops were shown with them, and no one could point out any differ- 

 ence. I have now increased my plants, and in the autumn hope to send 

 you a pound or two of the nuts, in the hope that you will shew them to 

 your numerous visiters, and perhaps aid in the cultivation of what 

 seems to me a valuable auxiliary to our dessert fruits. 



Another fruit which I occasionally see in our market should find a 

 place in the gardens. It is the white huckleberry, or whortleberry. It 

 bears the same relation to the black, as the tohite currant does to the 

 red, and, like that, is, no doubt, an accidental variety. It is transparent, 

 and being free from the color which stains so badly in the black, is a 

 most desirable fruit for puddings or the table. Plants enough may be 

 found in the western part of Middlesex county. — Yours, J. B., Boston, 

 July 10, 1837. 



Art. IV. Retrospective Criticism. 



Roses — new varieties, — in answer to "Jin Amateur,^' (p. 246.) — It cer- 

 tainly will afford great pleasure to the floricultural world to observe the 

 many remarks in your useful pages on the subject of new and distinct 

 plants, and especially the very distinct roses of your Baltimore ama- 

 teur. But on one point he has fairly missed his mark; he did not send 

 to Rosa for his plant at the time he mentions; it must have been to some 

 honest nurseryman who did not wish to cheat, (as he terms it,) and gave 

 him both names, a virtue rarely practised. He must be a very obscure 

 amateur indeed, or then he would have found that the rose was known 

 in Baltimore under both names in the fall of 1836, — also he has evinced 

 great ignorance in the priority of the name, for " Monthly Cabbage" is 

 the prior name, a name that it was known by as early as 1834, and 

 " Gloria de France" not known till the fall of 1835. He also mistakes 

 the price; there is no difference except in regard to size. In truth the 

 whole of his attack is dictated in anything except the spirit of justice: 

 the next he makes let him take the field and not the bush. I would also 

 advise him to " re-christen" some of the roses he describes: a rose an- 

 swering the description of his perpetual Bourbon was exhibited at the 

 Grand Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, in 1835, 

 which rose did not originate at Baltimore. 



It is a lamentable fact that the names of roses are in great confusion: 

 I have seen the same roses imported under from tw o to six different 

 names, which would afford an excellent cheating subject for "An Ama- 

 teur;" but when he digresses again, let him tread upon a more firm 

 foundation than guessing, and he will not require to be corrected by — 

 Rosa, Philadelphia, July 17, 1837. 



Gardoquia. Hookeri. — In the last number of your Magazine, page 

 256, Mr. A. Gordon says that no plants of Gardoquia Hookeri have 

 been imported from England. It has been sent to mc twice — once from 

 Liverpool and once from London. He also insinuates that I obtained 

 my plant in a manner that requires a cloud to cover the transaction. 



