712 Retrospeclive Criticism. 



transplanted ; but he has not told us that the scientific gardener likewise 

 shades his transplanted young celery plants. We cannot act thus with 

 transplanted trees. We have got no glasses or cloths to spare for them. 

 In a healthy tree, there is a beautiful harmony between the roots and the 

 branches ; in a transplanted tree, that harmony has, in some measure, 

 been destroyed. Leave the top as it was before transplanting, and you 

 leave the same exhaling surface : but how, I would ask, can the now 

 mutilated and deranged state of the roots absorb sufficient moisture to 

 support this ? Obsei'vation may tell us. When a cloudy wet season suc- 

 ceeds, the success may be ample enough ; but when the transplanting is 

 followed by a season quite the reverse, do not the stunted appearance of 

 the tree, and the small sickly leaf it carries for years, notwithstanding the 

 assistance of the water-cart, afford a proof that Mr. Gcrrie is right in 

 advocating, not a decapitation, but a partial thinning out of the young 

 spray of the top, to proportion the exhaling and elaborating organs of the 

 plant to its power of absorption by the roots; knowing that, although 

 branches produce roots, roots likewise produce branches, and that all parts 

 of a plant, while they act, are also acted upon, being relative and correla- 

 tive to each other ? 



As, in writing these remarks, no offence to any one is intended, I hope 

 none will be taken. Any errors which they contain, I hope will be attri- 

 buted to my ignorance, but not to any desire to continue in that igno- 

 rance ; as I shall gladly receive instruction from any quarter, and I shall 

 feel much gratified if these remarks should prove the means of inciting 

 some more competent individual than myself to throw additional light 

 upon the subject. Some may deem it very presumptuous for one in my 

 circumstances to give an opinion at all upon such subjects ; but as I look 

 forward to a period when a decision in such matters may be required of 

 me, I consider it better to investigate the subject beforehand, than to have 

 to learn the best methods of practice at my employer's expense, and at 

 the same time to run the hazard of incurring from him the epithet of being 

 a self-sufficient ignorant gardener. I am. Sir, yours, &c. — ScienticB et 

 JustiticE Aviator. Staffordahire, Oct. 2. 1833. 



Mr. Sviith and Mr. Laundy (p. 623.), Sfc. — We have received a long 

 rejoinder by Mr. Smith; but, the subject being of little or no interest to 

 the general reader, we only notice that part of Mr. Smith's letter in which 

 he states that Mr. H. Laundy "claims the honour" of being the author of 

 the criticisms on the Epsom nursery, signed Aristides, Vol. VL p. 357. 

 This we have great pleasure in making known to our readers, in order to 

 clear every other person from the imputation of having written them. — 

 Cond, 



Kneller Hall. (p. 523.) — 1 believe there is some little mistake about 

 Mr. C. Calvert's house at Witton : its name is Kneller Hall ; having been 

 built by Sir Godfrey Kneller, the painter Witton Dean is a small house 

 on the right hand, farther on, belonging to Mr. Gosling of Witton Place, 

 and is said to be the house in which the Duke of Ai'gyle kept his mistress. 

 The large Hickory-nut Tree at Witton. — I have been to examine this tree 

 more particularly than I had before, and find it to be the J'uglans nigra of 

 the Hortus Keivensis. I have a small tree that had been headed down for 

 years, but, by my subsequently letting it grow, it has a few nuts on it this 

 year • that at Witton, no doubt, was planted by the Duke of Argyle, 

 about the year 1760, and some years bears a quantity of nuts : I did not 

 see one on it this year. 1 am, Sir, yours, &c. — Robert Castle. Twiclten- 

 ham Botanic Garden, Oct. 10. 1833. 



On the Effect of Poplars in Landscape. — I reside in the country, and am 

 an admirer of the beauty of our own native forest trees. Of later years, 

 our landscape scenery has been disfigured by the introduction of poplars. 



