Retrospective Criticism* 605 



plications to the Society, but to nurserymen or other commercial gardeners. 

 All spare plants, cuttings, or seeds, ought to be given away at the meetings 

 of the Society to those who happen to attend ; and the officers of the 

 Society ought on no account to be liable to be written to by country or 

 other members (always excepting commercial gardeners), for grafts, seeds, 

 plants, &c. There can be no end to these applications, which add much 

 to the expense of conducting the business of the Society, and cannot be 

 otherwise than sources of dissatisfaction to all parties." Now, (not to 

 dwell on the circumstance that all this, which is dignified with the name of 

 evidence, is pure and mere opinion, not on a matter of science, but of the 

 probable effects of a particular mode of conducting a joint stock company 

 or partnership,) I wish to observe, that although a society possibly may be 

 properly conducted in the manner you recommend, yet it must be a very 

 different society from the present London Horticultural. Cast your eye over 

 the list of its members, and see how very many there are who wholly reside 

 in the country, and never visit London at all. What inducement have they 

 to become fellows of the Society ? They can neither avail themselves of the 

 library, nor of the models of fruits, nor acquire information at the meetings 

 of the Society, nor hope to acquire importance as members of the com- 

 mittees. The only compensation they can expect for their money, is the 

 return of plants, seeds, and cuttings, which may be issued to them from the 

 garden. I say the only return ; for the sparing supply of a few numbers of 

 wire-wove hot-pressed Transactions, which are scattered over a long period 

 of time, and in which the information that is of real importance comes still 

 more rarely than the publications, cannot be thought, by any reasonable 

 person, a return worth computing for the annual payment of four guineas. 

 I ought, however, to have enumerated, among the valuable equivalents, the 

 permission given to the fellows to send up their best vegetable productions, 

 whether pines, grapes, peaches, apples, or any other, to be exhibited at the 

 meetings of the Society, and there devoured with far more refined taste and 

 genuine science than could be evinced by a country grower in the munch- 

 ing of a pippin or pine-apple. But, beyond these, I am not aware of any 

 inducement for a resident in the country to become a fellow, except as he 

 wishes to become a member of a joint stock nursery ground, from which 

 he hopes to derive plants, fruits, seeds, and vegetables, either newly intro- 

 duced or improved by culture, or which may be depended on as genuine, 

 and which he, whether wisely or not, expects that he shall be able to obtain 

 cheaper or better, or more varied, or more new, than he can get from his 

 own nursery gardener. He believes that a number of persons subscribing 

 may be able, by sending out a Don or a Douglas, to obtain new ornaments 

 to his park or his garden, which he individually could not hope to acquire ; 

 because the cost of fitting out such an adventurer at his own risk is greater 

 than, with very few exceptions, can be defrayed by a private person. Judge, 

 then, what is his surprise to learn from your pen that he is to be inter- 

 dicted from receiving a plant, seed, or cutting, direct from the garden, be- 

 cause he is not a commercial gardener. Will a country gentleman in Dor- 

 setshire or Gloucestershire be content to pay his money, year after year, for 

 the introduction of valuable novelties, that they may all be engrossed by 

 the commercial gardeners, who know extremely well how to appreciate the 

 public appetite for any thing that is new, or really good, and make their 

 customers pay very handsomely for such articles ? I have not heard of any 

 nurseryman yet who inserts in his circulars, " Fifty per cent discount is 

 allowed to all members of the London Horticultural Society." I am so far 

 from acceding to your doctrine, that I am of opinion that too great a pre- 

 ference and priority is already given by the London Horticultural Society 

 to commercial gardeners, in supplying them exclusively with all new and 

 superior articles, with the intent that they shall make an abundant profit 



