734? Retrospective Criticism. 



covering of fern or spruce was removed : and for what reason ? just that 

 he might know the fruitful from the unfruitful branch. Certainly this is 

 a good advice to a " cabbage gardener," who knows no better : but it so 

 happens that I know the difference in the end of autumn ; hence I am 

 enabled to prune, and nail, and cover up at the same time, by which the 

 young shoots, and the autumn-shown fruit are better protected than they 

 would otherwise be in an unnailed state. Moreover, it is a most unnatural 

 thing to begin to prune a fig tree at the very time when the sap is in active 

 operation, and the newly projected fruit running the hazard of being rubbed 

 off during the process of nailing, &c. 



John Smith farther says that I have taken no notice of the management 

 of figs in hot-houses. This, it would appear, I had left for him to do, and 

 a poor job he has made of it. He says that fig trees in hot-houses do not 

 retain their fruit on last year's wood, but that they all drop off, and only 

 ripen their fruit on wood made the same year. This I deny ; for on fig 

 trees in hot-houses, under good management, there are always a first and 

 a second crop. The second one is, in general, better than the first. That 

 some of the first crop do drop off I do not deny, but not all, as J. Smith 

 would have it. Where they are kept in houses, they should be planted in 

 boxes, in a black lightish loam, pretty rich, and well supplied with water, 

 under the temperature of 55° or 60°; and, in regard to pruning, they 

 should be kept thin and regular. But to return : John Smith says that I 

 contradict myself, by saying, first, that the fig is an aquatic, and then, that 

 I lost a crop in a wet season. True, I said so much ; but did I not give 

 the reason for it ? J. Smith must be more careful in future in regard to his 

 reading and writing; which is the best advice I can give him. But he goes 

 farther, on mere supposition, and says that the trees at " Ormiston Hall 

 are 100 years old." I admit that some of them are old ; and the wall 

 against which they are placed is not very young ; yet they are not alto- 

 gether destitute of a modern appearance; neither is the soil in which they 

 grow so completely exhausted as he so gratuitously imagines. He is also 

 presumptuous enough to think that I have no young fig trees under my 

 management : but in this also he is mistaken ; for I have young trees, not 

 of " ten," but of four years' standing ; and these are making wood like 

 their aged neighbours; not that short, stunted, spurlike stuff that he 

 speaks about, but shoots from 18 in. to 2 ft. long; ay, and fruit on them 

 too, three of which weighed 13 oz. imperial this very day. Will John 

 Smith believe that ? Now, Sir, I have done with J. Smith, and leave it to 

 the candour of your readers to estimate the validity of his attack on my 

 Treatise. I present my thanks to J. D., for his interesting and pertinent 

 account of the fig tree at Hardwicke House, near Bury St. Edmunds. 



Now, Sir, to have done with figs, I have just one word more to offer. 

 In a private letter which I, long since, had the honour to receive from you, 

 you remarked that you had seen, in the south of France and in Italy, 

 fio- trees growing in the clefts of rocks, which gave the idea of a dry situ- 

 ation. Now, you will readily admit that rocks and mountains are more 

 the receptacles of rain than the valleys below, and that they give out 

 water to supply the springs even in the time of severe drought. In the 

 open joints of rock, where tree roots are able to penetrate, is generally 

 to be found a great deal of moisture ; which leads me to think that trees 

 so situated are better watered than those growing in a cultivated soil. I 

 remain, Sir, yours, &c. — William Pearson. Ormiston Hall Gardens, 

 Sept. 19. 1832. 



In the Scotsman's report ( Sept. 8.) of the exhibition of fruits of the 

 Caledonian Horticultural Society, on Sept. 5., this remark occurs : — 

 " From the garden at Balmuto were sent some large and ripe specimens of 

 Black Ischia fig, with useful practical remarks on the management of the 



