356 Retrospective Criticism. 



specimens of all the most interesting garden products raised by its members 

 in the vicinity. These members have cultivated from five to ten and 

 twenty acres, to an amount of more than one hundred acres of ground, 

 whose produce has been regularly sent to our public markets. That the 

 maintenance of such a system of emulation as this, for eleven years, could 

 not but materially improve the state of our garden products must appear 

 evident to every one the least acquainted with the nature of horticulture. 

 Yet this, although it is ,the most evident feature in ; the beneficial effects of 

 our Society, is perhaps not the most valuable. Those pretended hidden 

 secrets in the art are stripped of their mysterious covering : a more general 

 knowledge of what the soil is capable of producing is diffused amongst the 

 cultivators ; a taste for reading various valuable productions upon horticul- 

 tural subjects has increased ; the aggregate of our accumulating horticul- 

 tural knowledge is no .longer confined to circumscribed limits ; the account 

 of every new or valuable improvement is published in the reports of the 

 inspecting or visiting committees ; and, in short, the New York Horticul- 

 tural Society has formed a new and most important era in American gar- 

 dening. 



The above are a few of the beneficial consequences of our New York 

 Horticultural Society's labours (without their having established an experi- 

 mental garden), founded and prosecuted solely upon such principles as I 

 have above described. How far you may think me correct in the great 

 value which I attach to this mode of procedure for Horticultural Societies 

 generally, particularly for those in comparatively a new country, or whether 

 the publishing an account of them in your Magazine, or the views above 

 expressed, might be considered calculated to entertain any of your readers, 

 I know not ; such as they are, they are at your service. Yours, &c. — 

 William Wilson. New York, March 1. 1830. 



Remarks on Mr. Johnson's Doctrines concerning the Diseases sf Plants. — Mr. 

 Johnson having extended his instructive and interesting course of Horticul- 

 tural Chemistry in your Magazine to the diseases of plants, I beg leave to 

 trouble you in addition with the result of some observations I have made 

 on the subject, conceiving it to be one of such importance that no system 

 of treatment should be. recommended that is not grounded on actual expe- 

 rience and matter of fact. In his consideration of the diseases of plants, 

 Mi - . Johnson seems to me to express doctrines apparently at variance with 

 each other, which, as I cannot reconcile, and may perhaps misapprehend, I 

 shall quote literally. Speaking of them in a general point of view, he says, 

 " Such morbid affections are not, however, always the consequences of old 

 age, they are often caused by matters being absorbed from the. soil, iv/iich are 

 inimical to the constitution of the plant, from a want of those that are benefi- 

 cial, as well as from their excess ; from violent and sudden transition of 

 temperature; from wounds, and from the attacks of vermin:" but in a 

 subsequent passage, specifying ulcer, canker, and gum, in the genera U'\~ 

 nlus, Quercus, Pyrus, and Prunus, he says, " Jn every instance I am pre- 

 pared to maintain that the disease is local, that is, it at first arises from a 

 disarrangement in the functions of the affected part, and is never brought on 

 from a general diseased state of the tree, but is occasioned by contingencies 

 perfectly independent of soil or situation; when the disease has commenced, 

 if these are unfavourable they may aggravate the symptoms, and promote 

 then* diffusion, but they are not the originaters of the disease." With Mr. 

 Johnson, in his general assertion, I perfectly agree.; but from his subsequent 

 opinion, perhaps meant as an exception, I beg leave to dissent, and submit 

 to him some instances, out of many, to the contrary; indeed they are so 

 numerous, that they must be familiar to most observant horticulturists, 

 under various circumstances. 



In a piece of ground which I had newly taken (and formerly possessed), 

 I planted an orchard with apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees, and peach 



