'Retrospective Criticism. 371 



Wards, 1§ inch square at the shouldering, and slightly grooved. A plant 

 with any weight of head, attached to a rod such as E. S. prefers, would be 

 laid flat on the ground by a few hours' wind and rain : not that the rod 

 itself would either bend or break ; but unless the soil in which it is inserted 

 were iron, as well as the rod, it could not, in such circumstances, maintain 

 its position. I am, yours, &c. — J. Hislop. Ashtead Gardens, Feb. 6. 1832. 



Certain Gardens near Dublin. — Sir, I notice in the February Number of 

 your Magazine (p. 83.), under the head " Corrections for the Encyclopaedia 

 of Gardening, " what I cannot avoid considering a very invidious compa- 

 rison, instituted by my respected fellow-citizen, Mr. Mallet, between the 

 gardens of Frederick Bourne, Esq., and those of Counsellor West, both in 

 the vicinity of this city ; and as I, in common with all who have witnessed 

 the expense Mr. Bourne has incurred, and the interest he takes in diffus- 

 ing a taste for the more elegant branches of gardening, should be sorry to 

 find the observations to which I allude perpetuated in a future edition of 

 the Encyclopaedia, I will, with your permission, endeavour to set you right 

 upon the subject. 



In the first place, then, I conceive that Mr. Mallet is not correct when 

 he states, that, in the short notice of the garden at Terenure, which appears 

 in the Encyclopaedia of Gardening, you either emblazoned or exaggerated 

 its deserts ; on the contrary, 1 think it is evident that the information you 

 were enabled to obtain regarding this, and other gardens on this side the 

 Channel, did not afford you sufficient data for doing justice to them. When 

 I inform you that 60,000 of the finest ranunculuses, almost an equal number 

 of the choicest hyacinths, 1700 varieties of roses, many of them no where 

 else to be seen in this country, together with a splendid collection of georgi- 

 nas, flower annually in the gardens of Terenure ; and that these dazzling exhi- 

 bitions are, with unexampled liberality, thrown open to every person of 

 respectable appearance* ; whilst Counsellor West's garden is not accessible 

 even to gardeners and amateurs ; you will easily decide which of these gardens 

 merits the more flattering notice. Nor is it in floriculture only that the 

 garden at Terenure excels every other in the vicinity of Dublin : the exotic 

 department is highly respectable, and the collection of trees and shrubs 

 can only be equalled in Ireland by that in the Botanic Garden, Trinity 

 College. 



Neither are you, Mr. Conductor, liable to censure for having omitted 

 to notice Counsellor West's garden in the Encyclopaedia of Gardening ; as 

 I doubt whether that garden was, at the time your work was published, 

 (as Mr. Mallet would say,) in rerum natural but be that as it may, that it 

 is well deserving of notice at the present time I am most ready to admit, 

 and we feel obliged to Mr. Mallet for his description of it. He must, how- 

 ever, pardon me for thinking his account would have been more valuable, 

 if, instead of noticing vine borders 40 ft. wide, and " asparagus beds drained 

 5 ft. deep with boulder granite " (i. e. round granite stones found on the 

 surface of the ground, the advantage of which, in preference to brick-bats, 

 gardeners have yet to learn), he had favoured us with an account of the 

 tropical fruits it contains, viz. guavas, mangoes, mangosteens, &c. ; in the 

 cultivation of which, I believe, Counsellor West has been very successful. 

 —E. Murphy. Dublin, Feb. 7. 1832. 



Choice of Situation. — Sir, I have been much gratified by perusing the 

 " General Results " of your " Tour ; " abounding, as they do, in every page 

 with excellent philosophical and practical remarks. I was more particu- 

 larly struck with what you say (Vol. VII. p. 644.) of building and plant- 

 ing in hilly countries, in preference to level ones, which reminded me of an 



* 1400 persons, principally shopkeepers and artisans, have been known 

 to visit these gardens in a single day last summer. 



B B 2 



