366 Retrospective Criticism. 



Horticultural Society of London had better reasons [See note g.] than you 

 have assigned in your Magazine, for the rejection of that, when it was offered 

 as a present : but I must add, that they acted entirely without my know- 

 ledge; and that I obtained the first information respecting the transaction 

 from your statement in your Magazine. And respecting myself, I beg to 

 add, that I never have been, and that I never shall be, offended by your 

 differing from me in opinion : and if you think the mere practical gardener 

 is the person best qualified to discover horticultural improvements, and 

 that physiological science is useless, you have a perfect right to say so : all 

 I ask is a fair and honest statement. I remain, yours, &c. — Thos. And. 

 Knight. jDoww^ow, April 13. 1829. 



(fl) Our words are, " What tempted us to write the paragraph at all, was 

 the recurrence to our mind that Mr. Knight, now employing a writing gar- 

 dener, had formerly boasted (it may be called) of growing pine-apples in a 

 far superior way to those generally grown by professional gardeners, by a 

 man who ' neither knew a letter nor a figure.' Aware of the influence of 

 Mr. Knight's opinion on every subject connected with gardening, and con- 

 vinced that nothing can have a greater tendency to retard the progress of 

 that art, or of any other, than ignorance in operators, we directed some 

 observations against the passage, in the Preface to the first edition of our 

 EncyclopcBclia of Gardening, and have since maintained and supported an 

 opposite theory. Our offence has proceeded from having felt rather too 

 much delighted to have the evidence of Mr. Knight's present practice to 

 prove that he was formerly wrong, and that we were and are right. So 

 much with reference to Mr. Knight." (p. 88.) 



If our readers have read the above passage with attention, they will 

 see that Mr- Knight has mistaken our meaning; and that, in speaking 

 of his " present practice," we allude to his employing a writing gardener, 

 instead of his former practice of employing a man who neither knew " a 

 letter nor a figure." The reference to the preface of the Encyclopcedia of 

 Gardening will set this matter at rest. We submit to the consideration of 

 any candid reader, whether Mr, Knight's meaning can fairly be attributed 

 to the passage. Certainly we had no such meaning, well knowing at 

 the time, as we do at this moment, that Mr. Knight grows his pines, as far 

 as respects what is called bottom-heat, much in the same way as he did 

 when he first commenced tlieir culture. — Cond. 



(b) We have seen a London nurseryman who saw Mr. Knight's pines last 

 autumn, and a country nurseryman -who saw them some months before. 

 Unfortunately, neither of these gentlemen will allow us to use their 

 names, and we should not like to repeat what they said without giving an 

 authority, though quite confirmatory of what we stated on this subject in 

 T'ke different Modes of cidtivating the Pine-apple, &c., 8vo, 1822. We 

 shall voluntarily acknowledge our error when we are convinced that we 

 are in any degree wrong ; at present it is our duty to state, that we are of 

 exactly the same opinion as we were in 1822. — Cond. 



(c) We think it implied as much, and we know thatsuch was the effect'on 

 the minds of a number of gentlemen who employ gardeners. We feel that 

 we should have been perfectly justified, as the editor of a Gardener's Ma- 

 gazine, in saying a great deal more on this subject than we have done. 

 The following is the passage alluded to : — 



" I shall now offer a few remarks upon the facility of managing pines in 

 the manner recommended, and upon the necessary amount of the expense. 

 My gardener is an e>tremely simple labourer; he does not know a letter 

 or a figure, and he never saw a pine plant growing till he saw those of 

 which he has the care. If I were absent, he would not know at what period 

 of maturity to cut the fruit ; but, in every other respect, he knows how 

 to manage the plants as well as I do ; and I could teach any other mode- 

 rately intelligent and attentive labourer, in one month, to manage them 



