720 Retrospective Criticism. 



4th. Economical relations; including the application of the timber or 

 other parts of the tree in the arts, useful or ornamental ; in medicine, and 

 in domestic economy ; territorial improvements in profitable planting, and 

 in landscape-gardening, &c. 



5th. Propagation and culture ; the latter from infancy to maturity. 



For all the information that can be procured within twenty miles of Lon- 

 don we have provided ourselves ; and therefore what we particularly wish 

 from our correspondents, is chiefly as follows : — 



1. The names, accompanied by dried specimens, no matter if the flower 

 is wanting, of such trees and shrubs as are in the country, though not in- 

 cluded in our Hortus Britannicus. There may be a few of these in the 

 hands of country nurserymen and amateurs ; and if such will not take the 

 trouble to send us specimens, we request them to send us plants, which we 

 shall hand over to Messrs. Loddiges, on condition of getting a specimen for 

 the use of Mr. Sowerby next summer. 



2. We should be glad to receive portraits of all trees whatever, not 

 natives of Britain, but above thirty and under fifty years of age ; also of 

 all trees and shrubs, not natives of Britain, from ten to fifteen years 

 of age, in their winter state and in their summer state. Even if we 

 receive a dozen portraits of one species, the circumstance will only enable 

 us, by comparison, to determine more accurately the true character of the 

 tree. With every drawing, the name, age, soil, subsoil, situation, whether 

 open or surrounded by other trees, length of young shoot made in a season, 

 elevation, and other relative circumstances, must be given. 



3. We shall be glad of miscellaneous hints of any description. 



4. Communications that shall have been made use of, either in part or 

 wholly, will be acknowledged in the preface, and by a copy of the work from 

 30 to 40 per cent under the selling price ; or where much information is given 

 and made use of, a copy of the work at half price, a fourth of the price, 

 or gratis. All suggestions for the improvement of the plan, as above de- 

 veloped, will be particularly acceptable, and ought to be sent immediately ; 

 all other information will be in time if received by midsummer-day next, 

 as the work will to a certainty be put to press in August 1831. In the 

 mean time, the botanical drawings are in preparation by Mr. Sowerby, and 

 the engravings by Messrs. Branston. — J. C. L. Nov. 4. 



Art. III. Retrospective Criticism. 



PRINCIPLES and Conduct of the Conductor. — When first you commenced 

 your publication, a few gentlemen in this district agreed to promote it for 

 the use of their gardeners ; and although they perceived the political bias it 

 was to have from the letters of (nominal [real]) discontented gardeners, yet 

 they sought to rebut their tendency through the old axiom, " Necessitati, 

 qui se accommodat sapit * ; " for every man knows that labour is a market- 

 able commodity, just worth, as Butler writes, what it will bring. Since then 

 we have had constant tirades against gentlemen for not yielding more and 

 better accommodation to their gardeners ; but, as not one in a hundred 

 ever reaches the situation of overseer, the very men themselves see the 

 childishness of the complaint. Care and assiduity scarcely secure perma- 

 nent situations : where a vacancy occurs, the numerous applications per- 

 mit the master to pick and choose at his own price. Is this the employer's 

 fault, or is the craft of horticulture, like other produce, subject to the cus- 

 tomary depression of an overstocked market ? In some late numbers, mas- 



* " A wise man accommodates himself to necessity." 



