612 Retrospective Criticism. 



of course M*Rin2 cannot intend that cattle should be admitted into the 

 park, which would be a great evil, as the plants in the pleasure-ground 

 would be in danger of being destroyed by them ; whereas their exclusion 

 from the park would cut off a grand feature in park scenery. To have a 

 meadow, park, flowers, and shrubs, all mingled together, would exhibit a poor 

 figure, and afford but little pleasure to an admirer of order and beauty. I 

 think he cannot mean that the park and pleasure-grounds should be united 

 in appearance by invisible fences ; for this is done more or less where the 

 style is modern throughout the kingdom. However, be this as it may, I 

 differ in toto with M. Rinz, and say, " Let a park be furnished with groups 

 and masses of different extent of fine, ornamental, and picturesque trees, 

 connected with self-protecting bushes and low-growing trees, such as black 

 and white thorns, hollies, whins, &c. ; and let the dressed ground be varied 

 with ornamental trees and shrubs, so as to unite in appearance as much as 

 possible with the park, but to be entirely separate. I do not mean to say 

 there shall be no walks through the park ; but, on the contrary, I should 

 recommend them, when they would lead to any thing of importance. In 

 all cases there should be a principal flower-garden, at a moderate distance 

 from the house, that it may be resorted to without traversing the whole 

 grounds for the sake of inspecting any favourite flower or flowers. Indeed, 

 it oftener happens than otherwise that a short walk is more agreeable than 

 a long one ; and what can be more gratifying than a garden well varied with 

 valuable flowers and shrubs ? At the same time I should have masses of 

 flowers at greater and less distances, to some extent from the principal 

 flower-garden ; diminishing the number of groups and masses of the most 

 valuable kinds of flowers, as we approach the woods or forest grounds, 

 and introducing, where it is necessary, the wild and uncultivated kinds in 

 masses with the commoner shrubs. To give M. Rinz his due, the attempt 

 he has made to group his plants in the lawn is not without some merit j 

 and that is all which may be said favourable of the design in question. 

 . As brief as I have endeavoured to be, I feel that I have already tres- 

 passed too much upon your pages : and therefore I would only add, that, 

 after all which has been said about the defects of landscape-gardening in 

 this country, I feel sufficient courage to assert, that the most picturesque, 

 the most tasteful, and the most beautiful places in the world are to be found 

 in England; and before the English landscape-gardeners are to be dictated 

 to by the Germans, we must be convinced of their superiority by some better 

 specimen than the plan of Johanisberg, which M. Rinz, in his prescriptive 

 wisdom, has thought proper to lay before us. I am, Sir, &c. — Joshua 

 Major, Landscape-Gardener. Knoivstrop, near Leeds, May 13. 



\,dthyrus venosus. — Sir, In p. 281. you take particular notice of the 

 Xathyrus venosus, figured in Mr. Sweet's British Flovjer-Garden for March. 

 I have to acquaint you that the plant is already in Scotland ,• I brought seeds 

 of it from Canada in 1823, from which plants were raised in my brother's 

 garden, at Dairy, Edinburgh, some of which I gave to P. Neill, Esq., and 

 Mr. M'Nab of the botanic garden. I stated to them, that I felt confident 

 it would make an excellent forage plant, provided it grew as luxuriantly in 

 Scotland as it does on the banks of Lake Ontario, where I gathered the 

 seed. It grows in abundance on the narrow neck of land which forms the 

 Bay of York, Upper Canada, called there the Island. It grows equally lux- 

 uriantly on the clay banks in the same neighbourhood, as it does on the drift- 

 sand of the beach. Cattle are very fond of it ; and I observed that the plant 

 retains its verdure a considerable time after the seeds are ripe. — T. Blair y 

 Gardener to John Martineau, Esq. Stamford Hill, Middlesex. July 19. 



Kennedia monophylla. — In the Botanical Register for July, a variety of 

 this plant is figured from Mr. Rollinson's, supposed to be new. About six 

 teen years ago I raised the same variety in Scotland, from seeds of the 

 common K. monophylla. I propagated it, and sent plants to Bothwell 



