278 Retrospective Criticism. 



the shepherd told us that that was the sixteenth season he grew pota- 

 toes on this piece of ground without any intervening crop ; and, from 

 enquiries I have made lately, I find this system of cropping was carried on 

 for five and twenty years, when the old man left the glen. His successor 

 made a great innovation on the old man's system of cropping, by sowing 

 barley alternately with the potatoes. The piece of ground was from half 

 to three quarters of an acre. I could not find out the average quantity of 

 produce, but the sample could not be excelled anywhere. — D. B. Kingsbury,. 

 April, 1840. 



Inaccuracies in the Names of Fruit Trees, Sfc. — In a paper by "W . on the 

 Derby Arboretum, &c., at p. 61., are some rather severe reflections upon coun- 

 try nurserymen, for their inaccuracies in the names of fruit trees sent out by 

 them. Had these remarks been confined to new sorts, or to old sorts diffi- 

 cult to be distinguished by their wood or leaves, it might have passed un- 

 noticed, but three sorts of those mentioned are so readily to be distinguished 

 at all stages of their growth by their wood and leaves, that surely there is 

 scarcely a nurseryman of any respectability in the country who could not tell 

 whether he had got the true Riljston Pippin apple, or the Imperatrice plum, 

 or who could not detect a Brussels apricot growing amongst his Moorparks. 

 There are but few gardeners who could not have ascertained, also, whether 

 they had got the above three kinds of fruits correct, without having occasion 

 to wait for the trees producing fruit. 



Any gardener who has worked for any length of time in the large fruit- 

 tree nurseries, such as Cormack & Go's., Donald& Son's, Kirk's, Ronald's, &c., 

 cannot help observing how readily the foremen of the fruit-tree departments 

 can recognise many varieties at first sight, without having occasion to refer 

 to the numbers, and often detect and root out spurious sorts when by acci- 

 dent they have got amongst other kinds, and in fact pride themselves upon 

 keeping their stock genuine of the different varieties. The same observations 

 are applicable to the respectable country nurseries. — E. B. Birmingham, 

 April 16. 1840. 



Yelloia Clover and Black Nonsuch. — On looking over the fifteenth volume 

 of that excellent work, tfie Fenny CyclopcBcEa, under the article Medick, 

 we find the writer expressing astonishment that the black medick (Medicago 

 lupulina) " should be supposed to be the same as hop trefoil. This sup- 

 position," he says, " would have scarcely been credible, did we not possess 

 evidence of the fact in one of the best of our English works on agriculture. 

 Thinking that our Encyclopcedia might possibly be alluded to, we turned to 

 the article on Clovei's, p. 872., where T. procumbens, the yellow clover or 

 hop trefoil, and Medicago lupulina, the black medick or nonsuch, are both 

 figured and described ; but unfortunately we have transposed some of the 

 common English synonymes, thus making the hop trefoil and the black nonsuch 

 synonymes of Trifolium procumbens ; whereas hop trefoil is rrifoliura pro- 

 cumbens, and black nonsuch, or black medick, is Medicago lupulina, al- 

 together a smaller plant, and known at sight by its black pods. See Smith's 

 English Flora, vol.iii. p. 309. and 318-, and Sowerby's Eiiglish Botany, t. 945. 

 and t. 971. — Cond. 



Mr. Lymbiirn on the Culture and Preservation of the Potato, (p. 210.) — 

 Mr. Lyniburn is neither a superficial thinker nor a careless observer. He 

 appears to have no wish to rest on theory, while practical facts are within his 

 reach ; and so far acts the part of a sound philosopher, especially when the 

 phenomena of vegetation are under discussion. His principal subject is in- 

 troduced by allusions to the opinions of Mr. Towers and myself relative to the 

 pre-existence of every membrane, and of every member exhibited in the growth 

 of a plant. Mr. Lymburn, however, unlike many other critics, candidly ad- 

 mits that it is more difficult to deny than it is to prove the truth of my ideas 

 on this branch of knowledge. He hesitates to believe what I have had reason 

 to affirm, namely, that there can be no such a thing as an adventitious bud ; 

 and his reasons for this hesitation are what he has observed as the effect of 



