444 Retrospective Criticism. 



are shaped much like a fiddle. Viva seca from Arjona, and Viva seca from 

 the Cana Loro, sent as the seed of the Diphysa carthagenensis, which they 

 are not ; one appears to belong to a species of ^schynomene, the pods 

 being composed of joints. — I should be obliged by any of your correspon- 

 dents, to whom you have distributed the seeds I have occasionally sent 

 you, inserting a similar list of those which have succeeded with him, ac- 

 companied by observations on their culture, &c. I regret to find the cow 

 cabbage seed failed last year; I have been favoured with some fresh this 

 summer, most of which I have distributed to persons who applied for it, not 

 forgetting Mr. Thompson, of Welbeck Gardens. — Id. 



Common Salt has been tried here on Asparagus, but the effects found quite 

 otherwise than very beneficial. May not a plant, that naturally prefers salt, 

 be artificially improved by the absence of salt, as celery, which, in a wild 

 state, grows in watery places, is rendered crisp and solid when grown in rich, 

 and, compared with a marsh, dry, garden soil ? The art of improving vege- 

 tables by culture, does not consist in a servile imitation of nature, but in 

 studying the causes which produce particular effects. — J. M. P. Philadel- 

 phia, May, 1828 



Destroying Insects by Quicksilver, — The first notice on record of the 

 practicability of banishing insects from fruit trees, by inserting half an ounce 

 of quicksilver in a gimlet-hole bored into the stem, occurs, in the fourth 

 edition o^ Bradley's New Improvements of Gardening,8fc., published in 1724,, 

 p. 249. Bradley, it seems, was not the inventor of this exploded nostrum ; 

 but believed in its efficacy. In the same work (p. 66.) is a drawing of a 

 machine, with angular glasses for reflecting colours into regular forms ; the 

 origin, probably of those kaleidoscopic toys sold at country fairs for these 

 sixty years past, and also of the famous modern machine ©f Dr. Brewster. 

 (See Encyc. of Gard., fig. 551. § 6108.) — Superficial. Brixton Villa, April, 

 1828. 



Etymology of the Names of Plants. — Sir, as you express yourself desirous 

 to elucidate the etymology of the names of plants, I beg permission to no- 

 tice that (Strychnus (Srpuxvoe), which your correspondent derives from stron- 

 nymi (ffrpwi/i/u/u), or rather from its primitive verb stroo ((rrpww), is given by 

 Hederic, Scapula, and the learned Stephens, in his Thesaurus, as a primi- 

 tive ; all analogy is adverse to your correspondent's derivation, no instances, 

 I believe, can be found, of the w (long o, or omega) being converted, in its 

 derivatives, into the v (y). The names of many plants, as well as of animals, 

 are primitives, or, at least, their derivation is hidden in such remote anti- 

 quity, that it cannot now be ascertained ; and we therefore may be contented 

 to consider such words to be so, for which the most industrious am! judicious 

 Greek philologers have found themselves unable to assign any root. Plants 

 are amongst the earliest objects which would strike the senses of the first 

 authors of language ; they would have occasion to affix marks of distinction 

 to them, at a time when the store of ideas whence they might borrow 

 names would be extremely limited. Why, therefore, should not the names 

 of plants as frequently be primitives, as any words whatever ? — Causidicus. 

 July 24. 1828. 



Esculent Cdnna. — If the esculent Canna, which Mr. V^illiam Hamilton, 

 of Plymouth, mentions, be equally hardy with the Canna Indica, he may be 

 assured that he may propagate it with facility in his garden at Plymouth, 

 where the C. Indica will freely increase, even so as to be troublesome in a 

 few years. I am, Sir, &c. — Id. 



