270 . Retrospective Criticism. 



tree remain, and it is tolerably well situated for continued production of its 

 fine fruit.— Fojfr- obt. St., S. Tudor, May I5th, 1846. 



[Our mistake arose from our having been informed, by a near relative of 

 Madame Dix, at the time the estate vi^as sold, that the tree would be de- 

 stroyed. Since the receipt of Mr. Tudor 's note, we have made inquiry 

 respecting it, and find the purchaser of the estate, on being made aware of 

 its excellence, so arranged the new buildings as to leave the tree standing. 

 We are glad to correct our error. — Ed.] 



The Ortley Apple. — Some of your correspondents, I perceive, seem to 

 think that Mr. Downing's Fruits and Fruit Trees of America is not the 

 most correct book of fruit that was ever published. There are scarce any 

 of our good old sorts that we used to know to be found in the book ; plenty 

 of new names, which few know any thing about, or old kinds of fruit 

 dressed out with new names — even these are scarce intelligible. The 

 Ortley apple — a box of the vapples I sent to the Horticultural Society of 

 London in the year 1825, description of the fruit made by the society and 

 appears in the Horticultural Transactions, vol. 6, p. 415, and for which I 

 had the honor to receive their silver medal, undoubtedly an American ap- 

 ple — Mr. Downing, on the authority of Thompson, (as he says,) makes it 

 a mere synonyme of some English apple which he calls Woolman's long. 

 His description is curious enough. My description of this apple. Guide to 

 the Orchard, p. 57, No. 151, " Fruit very much resembling the yellow New- 

 town pippin, but a little 7nore oval.^' Downing says, p. 142, No. 171, 

 " Fruit of medium size, oblong or oval," so that it may square up with his 

 Woolman's long — an apple which I presume he has never seen. — Yours, 

 M. Floy, Haarlem, New York, March, 1846. 



The New York Virgalieu Pear and the White DoyennL — Our New York 

 Virgalieu pear, which we have cultivated over forty vears, and still have 

 correct, Mr. Downing has converted into a synonyme of the white Doy- 

 ennL. 



I have written to Mr. Downing concerning our Virgalieu, claiming it to 

 be perfectly distinct from the white Doyenn6. He has replied to my letter, 

 " that he can prove, beyond the shadow of doubt, that the New York Vir- 

 galieu pear and White Doyenn6 are synonymous." His strongest proof is 

 this: he says, "While on a visit the past summer at Montgomery place, 

 the country seat of the late Edward Livingston, Esq., I saw a row of half 

 a dozen of pear trees, planted fifteen or more years since, brought from 

 France, as the genuine White Doyenni ; it was September, and they were 

 full of fruit, and while some of them bore fruit precisely the shape of the 

 genuine French Doyenne, others were most entirely the Virgalieu, so well 

 known on this river, &c." 



Now the truth of the whole matter is, that we sold Mr. Livingston these 

 very identical pears — they were four New York Virgalieu and two Seckel 

 pears — nineteen years ago last November, as our books will show. We 

 should be glad to know which of these has changed to White Doyenni, 

 which into French Doyenne, and which of them to the New York Virga- 

 lieu; hoping, however, that the two Seckel pears did not change to French 

 Doyenni. There is not a Wh?te Doyenni among them : is this proofs 



