688 Retrospective Criticism. 



air. From observing this, it has struck me that the distinctions of hardy and 

 tender are too broad and too vague, to give an exact idea of the treatment 

 they require ; and I conceive that you would do a great service to planters, 

 and to the cause of arboriculture generally, if you were to publish a scale 

 marked thus : — Pinus sylvestris, h h h, very hardy. Portugal laurel, h h, 

 tolerably hardy. J'rbutus f/^nedo, h, hardy, iaurus nobilis, t, tender. 

 Magnolia grandiflora, t t, very tender. Myrtle, or camellia, t t t, extremely 

 tender. Pomegranate, or the genus Citrus, f, requiring a frame. — J. Phil- 

 lips. Castlemacgarrett, Oct, 14. 1835. 



Hares may, perhaps, be excluded from Flower- Gardens by smoking the sur- 

 rounding fences, or the gaps in them, with tobacco ; and possibly, also, some 

 species of insects might be deterred from laying their eggs on particular plants 

 by the same means. Some poachers have lately found out a new method of 

 facilitating the capture of hares : they merely lay their nets at some particular 

 gate or style, or at some hare runs in the hedge ; and then go round to all 

 the other gaps and runs in the hedges, and whifF tobacco over them. So 

 delicate is the smell of the hare, that she will not pass through where the 

 tobacco has been, and, of course, chooses an egress free from taint, where there 

 is sure to be a net or a wire to obstruct her progress; and thus she is caught, 

 {Morning Chronicle, Sept. 25. 1833.) 



Art. VI. Retrospective Criticism. 



Immense Avenue of Elms, (p. 206.) — The French word was t/preau, which 

 is not the French for elm, but for the white poplar, or abele (2^6pulus alba). 

 Vilmorin. Verrieres, Oct. 5. 1835. 



Live Oak {Quercits virens). (p. 206.) — The word in the text was chene vert, 

 which is Q.. /Hex ; our French name for Q. virens is Chene vert de la Caroline, 

 or Chene vert d' Amerique. — Id, 



Plante en paniere (p. 206.) should be Plante en paniers, planted in baskets. — 

 Id. 



The Red Oak and the Scarlet Oak (^Qiiercus riibi-a and Q,uercus coccinea), 

 (p. 206.) — I observe that you seem to consider these two species as one and the 

 same thing, or, at least, as one species. In this you appear to me to be in 

 error. I refer you to Michaux, and recommend you to compare seedling plants 

 of the one with seedling plants of the other. Come and see rows of both 

 sorts, which I have sown parallel to each other on the same day, and in the 

 same soil. You will be convinced by the habit, by the leaves, by the wood, 

 by the difference in the vigour of their growth (Q. rubra at the same age 

 being two or three times stronger than Q. coccinea), and, I am sure, will say 

 with me, that they are two very distinct species. But if you are absolutely 

 determined that they shall be only varieties (m/- il y a en cela bien du libre ar- 

 bitre), as these varieties are extremely different, distinguish them by different 

 names ; call the one the red oak, and the other the scarlet oak. — Id, 



This we shall do in future. At the time we printed the article referred to, we 

 had not paid so much attention to oaks as we have since done. We have this 

 autumn studied them in Loddiges's collection, where above thirty American 

 sorts have attained the height of from 15 ft, to 30 ft., and also in the garden 

 of the Horticultural Society, and at White Knights. With the exception of 

 the entire-leaved oaks of America, the chestnut oak, the Q. virens, and the 

 Q. Banfsteri, or scrub oak, all the othei's may be divided into two families, or, 

 as we think, two species; viz, the white oaks, distinguished by the pale green 

 and comparatively little cut margins of their leaves, and by their white scaly 

 bark ; and the red oaks, distinguished by the dark reddish green of their leaves, 

 their deep laciniations, and by the smooth black bark of their trunks and 

 branches. We admit Q. rubra and Q. coccinea to be as distinct as the com- 

 mon codling and the Hawthornden apple ; but we are inclined to think that 



