Mr. Main versus the Reviewer in the Athenccum. 517 



these circumstances, the present members will not fail to give their support 

 to a measure which must insure the immediate success and prosperity of the 

 Society. J. D. C. Sowerby, Secretary. 



Offices, 49. Fall Mall, August 1. 1840. 



The Plan, we understand, is being lithographed, and we shall probably be 

 able to give some account of it in our next Number. — Cond. 



Art. IV. Mr. Mains Remarks on a Revietu of some of his Works 

 which appeared in the " Athenceum" 



It is not my wish to make your pages an arena for literary squabbling ; but 

 knowing your candour in admitting any civilly written remonstrance, especially 

 from an individual who cannot demand or be allowed a reply in that quarter 

 where he, as an author, has been traduced, I beg leave to trouble you with a 

 short representation, the insertion of which among your miscellaneous matter 

 will much oblige me. 



In the AthencEiim of April 25. page 330. I have been honoured by a name- 

 less reviewer with notices of two of my little books, namely. The Forest 

 Primer, and The Hand-book of Fruit Trees. The first is spoken of in no 

 measured terms of disparagement. The reviewer asserts that " its smallness 

 and cheapness are its principal merits ; it is meagre, inaccurate, and its theory 

 ridiculous." 



These are severe accusations ; and, as coming from an awfully obscure and 

 irresponsible source, are the more unjustifiable, as well to the author, as to his 

 respectable publisher ; seeing that the reviewer does not condescend to adduce 

 any proofs of the faults charged. 



The brevity of the book was intentional ; because it should be cheap : and 

 consequently meagre, because it would have been unfair to have puffed it out 

 by transci'iption or quotation, which might have been easily done by repairing 

 to Geneva or Paris, or to libraries nearer home. It may, indeed, be inac- 

 curate in the language employed j but, I venture to say, not in the practice it 

 recommends. But the most tantalising charge, because so tauntingly made, is, 

 that the theory is ridiculous ! Now, I really cannot perceive the gravamen 

 of this charge ; and have been obliged to turn to the book to discover whether 

 there be any such theorising observable. The only thing resembling theory, 

 is my statement relative to the growth of the alburnum, and other new parts ; 

 which, by the by, is only a statement of facts, of which any one may be con- 

 vinced by the slightest observation. This statement, as well as that concern- 

 ing the autumnal descent of the sap, it is true, does not accord with the opinions 

 of the late T. A. Knight, Esq., President of the Horticultural Society of 

 London, and others his followers, or rather his mere echoes. But it must be 

 remembered that that most respectable authority abandoned some of his first 

 impressions on these subjects ; and, moreover, was too acute an observer not to 

 perceive that the cambium, so visible between the bark and the wood in sum- 

 mer, became alburnum in the autumn; and too candid a writer not to have 

 announced this discovery in some one of his published papers ; and which, 

 indeed, has been quoted after him by at least one of his commentators. Un- 

 luckily, Mr. Knight did not follow out this sound and spontaneous conviction 

 of his fertile mind, to account for the annual enlargement of the stem ; rather 

 than attributing it to the " organisable" sap sent, or propelled, or invited, down 

 from the leaves. Mr. Knight also proved that the sap of trees, withdrawn 

 from the top or branches, is richer in essential qualities than that drawn from 

 the base of the stem ; and that the fibrous attachments of a graft or inserted 

 bud never descend below the junction with the stock ; both of which facts 

 are antagonist to his ideas respecting the descent of the sap, or other descend- 

 ing processes of the plant, as assumed by him and others. 



My questioning the validity of Mr, Knight's opinions on the first-mentioned 

 particulars, appears to be the ridiculous theory which has called forth the re- 



