Retrospective Criticism. 109 



desirable, liiit we should not generally recommend it, as it has been 

 clearly proved that, however attractive the style or other beauties, 

 unless the centre he really good, a flower is good for nothing on the 

 day of show, and it is this property alone that has caused many of 

 those we have enumerated to stand so high on the list. Beauty of 

 the Plain has a small and not sufficiently round or cupped petal; 

 Pickwick has a small and pointed petal; Duchess of Richmond is long 

 and quilled: the petal of Hope is flat, and any thing but fjood; and 

 Maid of Bath has little to recommend hut its constancy and delicacy 

 of color, the petal being large, flat and loose." 



Our readers have thus the opinion of the writer in regard to new 

 dahlias: how well it accords with their own views, wo leave them 

 to decide. There are very few really good dahlias, notwithstanding 

 the inmiense nund)er of seedlings which have been raised; for there 

 are so many properties required to make up a perfect flower, that it 

 is almost impossible to find them combined in any one variety. 



It must not be understood that in separating the above kinds from 

 all the varieties cultivated, that they are alone recommended for gen- 

 eral growth: in niany gardens the object is rather a profuse shoiv of 

 flotvers, even if of a secondary character, than a spare bloom here and 

 there, having merely the requisites of a shoio bloom. The latter will 

 do for the dahlia amateur; while the former must be recommended to 

 the possessors of gardens, who wish their borders to be radiant with 

 the autumnal glories of this splendid flower. 



For the benefit of our friends who are cultivators of the dahlia for 

 exhibition, the above article has been principally quoted; and we 

 trust that they will find in it, taken in connection with our notices of 

 the exhibitions previously alluded to, all the information which is 

 needed to guide them in the selection of suitable kinds for planting out 

 the coming season. — Ed. 



Art. II. Hetrospective Crilicism- 



Errata. — In our last number, in the communication of Mr. Legare, 

 Lycios edulis, which occurs two or three times, should be <Sicyos 

 edulis. The error was overlooked until too late for correction. 



The Linnaan Botanic Garden and Niirseries, Flushino;, L. 1. — We 

 notice, by the remarks in the January number of your JMaaazine, 

 page 10, that you have been misled, as some others were, by the 

 deceptive catalogue issued by a Mr. Garretson, who pretends therein 

 to be the ''Agent" for this establishment, and successor of ourselves 

 in the Linnsean Botanic Garden and Nurseries, (he says "iVMrse??/" 

 by way of quibble, instead of nurseries.) 



If you will refer to the New York newspapers of October and 

 November last, you will there find inserted, during six weeks, our 

 exposition of this base attempt "to filch our name by a fraud upon 



