204" Retrospective Criticism. 



in such assertions or assumptions. It is the imputing to me of a line of con- 

 duct that would be altogether degrading and disgraceful ; or of a pusillanimity 

 that would merit the contempt of all honourable men. Whatever doctrines I 

 have advocated, 1 have advocated bona fide ; and whatever opinions I have 

 adopted, I have adopted because I believed them to be true. 



4. My fourth and last fault is, that I have refuted one doctrine, and ad- 

 vocated another, which is nothing but a revival of the former; and have thus 

 rendered the soundness of my philosophy questionable. " When it is ob- 

 servable that a writer, in one part of his book, condemns and completely 

 refutes the old doctrine of the equivocal generation of animals, and in 

 another part advocates the adventitious creation of cells, vessels, buds, and 

 wood of vegetables, we are compelled to question the philosophy of such an 

 author." The negation of the doctrine of equivocal generation, and the ad- 

 vocacy of the doctrine of adventitious buds, are two things perfectly consistent 

 and reconcileable upon the chemical and physiological principles which I pro- 

 fess to hold, and are contradictory only upon those of Mr. Main, which I 

 have nothing to do with ; so that the whole fabric of the charge is merely a 

 creation of Mr. Main's too fertile fancy, compelling him, as he says, to doubt, 

 and to question the soundness of my philosophy. Had this remark been 

 made, or this doubt expressed, by any physiologist of acknowledged and es- 

 tablished reputation, I confess that I think it would have caused me much 

 annoyance ; but, coming as it does merely from the pen of a phytological 

 writer, the soundness of whose philosophy is itself sufficiently questionable, I 

 can very truly say that it gives me no annoyance whatever. — Patrick Keith. 

 9. Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, Feb. 14. 1838. 



Effect of sheltering Trees from the Lee Wind. (Vol. XIII. p. 256.) — Is not 

 the principle of trees being sheltered from the leeward fully demonstrated in 

 every clump of trees, of whatever sort y This forcibly struck me when cross- 

 ing Barham Downs, a few days ago. In that neighbourhood, there are many 

 single trees, more bent from the wind than any of the figures given to explain 

 Mr. Davis's paper on that subject. Interspersed with these, are a number of 

 clumps, all of them as tamely rounded, stiff, and formal as the brass handle 

 of a door, or as the most ardent admirer of ovals and circles could wish 

 them. Society, in the case of the clumps, performs what the solitary is left 

 to effect for itself; if any of these cluinps were gutted (and they want it badly 

 enough), and only four outside trees left, it is evident they would lean to all 

 the four winds of heaven, and the one to the windward would be directly in 

 the teeth of its brethren.— iV; M. T. Folhstone, Jan. 14. 1838. 



Mr. CnthiU's Mode of growing Strawberries and ripening early Melons, — 

 Mr. James Cuthill has just discovered a method of growing strawberries that 

 many of your readers (from your having published it some ten years ago) 

 have long practised. But, perhaps, this was as much a mystery to him as his 

 "grand melon secret" is to me, even after he has been kind enough to 

 publish it. He says, " As soon as the melon was the size of a walnut, I 

 covered it with a propagating glass, which I filled with sand." Now, this I 

 do not understand ; and, if Mr. .James Cuthill would be a little more explicit, 

 as soon as convenient, I doubt not but it would oblige many, besides your 

 humble servant, — Ignoramus. Jan. 1. 1838. 



Cultivation of Ciurants. (Vol. HI. p. 263.) — Mr. Symcns's method of sum- 

 mer pruning was very successfully practised, twenty years ago, by Mr. 

 M'Donald, then and now gardener to His Grace the Duke of Buccleugh, at 

 Dalkeith Palace; and, by referring to the published Memoirs of the Caledonian 

 Horticultural Society, any of your readers may satisfy themselves of the truth of 

 my statement, bringing into view my own practice and experience. I do not 

 approve of pinching off the young shcots at so early a period, nor exactly at 

 the same place, as Mr. Symons does. My method (and I never have had any 

 " withered" currants or gooseberries either) is, after the fruit is fairly set, to 

 pinch off the superabundant wood, almost close to the main shoot ; and, by so 



