Retrospective Criticism. 265 



has exceeded, my hopes. I am quite confident that I have never seen as 

 many fine plants, or as much fine fruit, afforded, within the same time and 

 space, as I have obtained, and which I have good reason to believe I shall 

 obtain, in the present year. [See note b.'\ I have found that, by placing 

 unglazed earthen pans upon the flues of my stoves, I save my gardener the 

 trouble of so frequently sprinkling the house with water, to give the air 

 within the most beneficial state of dampness ; and I have tried some differ- 

 ent degrees of temperature ; but my method of cultivating the pine-apple 

 remains unchanged. 



I stated in t\\e Horticultural Transactions oi {IB,28, p. 234.), that the tem- 

 perature of the air of the stoves in which my pine-apple and other stove- 

 plants grow {without bark or other /io/^er/), usually varied from 70° to 85° of 

 Fahrenheit's scale; and that the mould in my pots, being surrounded 

 by such air, acquired and retained, as it necessarily must, very nearly the 

 same aggregate temperature, but subject to less extensive variation, the 

 mould being usually a few degrees warmer in the morning than the air 

 within the house, and a few degrees cooler than that in the hotter parts 

 of the day. No bottom-heat is, or ever has been given ; and I do not con- 

 ceive that I could have placed the utter inutility of it, in the culture of 

 the pine-apple, in a stronger light than I have there done. Yet, in your 

 remarks upon that paper, you request your practical readers " to contrast 

 this paper of Mr. Knight's in favour of bottom-heat, with those which he 

 formerly published against it." If you mean to state that I ever objected 

 to the roots of plants being placed in the same temperature with their stems 

 and branches, I must take the liberty to contradict you. 



I have stated, that such is the simplicity and facility of cultivating the 

 pine-apple, when its roots and stems and leaves are subjected to the same 

 proper temperature, that I could qualify an illiterate peasant, within a 

 month, to manage my pine-stoves. Did this statement justify you in as- 

 serting that I recommended " ignorant gardeners ? " [See note c] I only 

 pointed out, to the intelligent gardener of the present day, the difliculties 

 in which he is involved by blindly following the irrational practice of an 

 ignorant period, in which practice you are urging him (you must allow me 

 to think ignorantly) to persist. 



I described, in the Transactions of the Horticultural Society of London 

 last year (p. 281.), a very simple method by which I had caused air to flow 

 rapidly into a hotbed, at a temperature which, during fifteen days, varied 

 only from 101° to 104° of Fahrenheit's scale ; and I gave an opinion, and an 

 opinion only, that such air being divided, as it was, into eighteen different 

 currents, and emitted into every part of a bed of 20 ft. long and 6 ft. wide, 

 would cause tender plants to be preserved in cold weather, without any 

 covering being put upon the glass. You have reduced my machinery to 

 one third, have omitted wholly to mention the high temperature at which 

 the air entered, have left the length of the hotbed wholly undefined; and 

 having given a description of machinery, which every gardener must know 

 cannot possibly succeed, you inform the public that I assert that it will 

 succeed. [See note rf.] 



A most absurd hypothesis was published some years ago respecting the 

 cause of a disease of the potato called the curl, which was imagined by 

 the author to arise from the over maturity of the plant, that is, to the over 

 maturity in the open air, in England, of a plant which is a native of the 

 torrid zone. [See note e^ I have written, in the Horticultural Transactions, 

 upon the disease above mentioned; but the discovery of the over matu- 

 rity of the plant certainly does not belong to me : though I am given the 

 credit of it in the Gardener's Magazine, (Vol. IV. p. 254.) I do not, how- 

 ever, accuse or suspect the writer of any intentional mis-statement 

 whatever [/]. 



I shall no longer trespass upon your time, or upon that of your readers, 

 trusting that I have shown you that the members of the council of the 



