1 ]• Retrospective Criticism, 



such ^regions nonsense palmed upon them, as scientific investigation, with- 

 out remonstrating ? I know what the responses of my fellow-labourers 

 will be. Let not, then, this gentleman suppose that because he has been 

 so fortunate in the chapter of accidents, and through no merit of his own, 

 as to obtain a superior education, which enables him to string together a 

 few truisms, to produce now and then a striking antithesis, or to round a 

 period cleverly, it is not because he is enabled to excel in these things that 

 he is to be permitted to carp at, and trample upon, with impunity, the 

 humble pretensions of less fortunate men, who are nevertheless his equals 

 in all the essentials of real worth and manhood. What are the grounds 

 upon which this writer claims the favour of your readers ? Upon two 

 methods of propping trees. The one he himself, with all its variations, 

 avows to be " bad;" the variations being, in fact, but clumsy modifications 

 of the old three-stake triangular method. The other he modestly sets down 

 as his own discovery, of which all other men were ignorant; and as such 

 it might have passed with some of your juvenile readers, had not you mis- 

 chievously stated at the bottom of the page, that that naughty man, Mr. 

 Paxton, had already practised this newly discovered method at Chatsworth ; 

 so thatj in point of fact, it was no discovery at all. Here, then, of the ten 

 pages so elaborately written, one half are " bad," and the other mere moon- 

 shine. Please to present my compliments to Mister Wamba, son of Witless 

 (p. 508.), and tell him I fear his case is hopeless. I am. Sir, yours, &c. — 

 J. Elles. Palace Gardejis, Armagh, August 6. 1831. 



Desultory Reviarlcs on some Articles in the June Number of the Magazine, 

 — Sir, I beg to oiFer a few desultory remarks on your June Number. Al- 

 though they do not tend immediately to the improvement of gardening, 

 they may, pei'haps, by their indirect tendency, obtain the notice of gardeners. 



Heath-mould, and Peat or Bog Earth. First, then, to the proper dis- 

 crimination which J. D. has made (p. 285.) between heath mould and 

 bog earth. I perfectly agree with him in all his lavish praise of heath 

 mould for the purposes stated, but must enter ray caveat against his 

 sweeping conclusion, that, " while heath mould is most important to the 

 gardener, peat is not only totally unfit for, but even inimical to, most of 

 the purposes of horticulture." It is, however, right for us, when we cannot 

 obtain the best thing, to endeavour to obtain the next best ; and, after the 

 best thing, natural heath mould, I hold, because experience has convinced 

 many as well as myself, that our next best is artificial heath mould. Before 

 I enter on the composition of the artificial, it may be right to examine the 

 natural matter. Natural heath mould generally covers tracts of country 

 where the subsurface is formed by the debris of rocks swept down by some 

 great pov/er of water, or on decomposing rocks which apparently have 

 their present composition by the agency of fire: these surfaces are covered 

 by a thin layer of mould, composed of the sand of the rocks, and the 

 decomposed and decomposing fibre of plants which lived and died on them. 

 The proportions of this surface are commonly two parts of siliceous and 

 earthy mattei", and one of mould and decomposing vegetable fibre. Bog 

 earth occurs in the same situations as heath mould, but as frequently in 

 more fertile tracks ; but wherever it does occur, it arises from the hinderance 

 to the drainage or free flow of water : here vegetation is more vigorous, 

 and the decay of vegetable matter goes on in a greater proportion, until a 

 thick surface of deeonjposed and decomposing vegetable fibre is raised. 

 The habit of the plants which flourish in this mass tends to its increase. 

 Now, in both cases we have the same essential substance, decayed vege- 

 table fibre, but in the latter the sandy matter is \Ynnting, and occasionally 

 the pure mould. How, then, are we to imitate the heath mould ? Simply 

 by taking the proportions of bog mould, sand, and loam, which we find in 

 the heath mould, and, if well mixed, it will be found that plants whicli 

 require heath mould will do equally well in this compound. For all the 



