576 
GLENN Y S GARDEN ALMANAC. 
few, if any of his works, have been hitherto 
free from the leaven of bitterness. We may- 
be told that his bitterness made him to be 
feared, and that, but for that very bitterness, 
horticulture would not have been freed from 
the enormous frauds with which, in 1832, it 
was beset ; that the vagaries of theorists 
would have consigned tens of thousands, in- 
stead of thousands of good plants to destruc- 
tion ; that Kew Gardens would still have 
been worse than a hogsty ; that various so- 
cieties, now tolerably free, would have still been 
full of abuses ; and that the mischief of 
empyrics and cheats, which disgusted gentle- 
men with horticulture and all belonging to it, 
would have still rendered the science degraded 
and disgraced. We, however, think differently ; 
we maintain that if he had urged all these 
things, without the bitterness and abuse, he 
would have been infinitely more powerful ; 
and his conversions of other people to his own 
opinion would have been more rapid. We 
affirm that had Mr. Glenny, with all his per- 
severance and all his talent, urged his doc- 
trines or dogmas without abuse ; had he been 
content to show his own knowledge, without 
exposing other people's ignorance, he would 
at this moment have been considered as the 
best champion of horticulture and floriculture, 
and the most practical and useful writer that 
ever touched the subject. We make all due 
allowance for the aggravating truth that a 
number of persons were from the first imi- 
tating, or immediately copying his original 
■ ideas and even Avords ; this, we are aware, was 
sufficiently aggravating to draw forth what- 
ever ill-temper a man possessed ; but denounc- 
ing them as thieves and vagabonds was not 
the way to meet such annoyances ,• he should 
have stated the facts, and left the world to draw 
their own conclusions as to the characters of 
the men who were guilty of such unprincipled 
conduct. Instead of which, Mr. Glenny, by 
his violent tirades, offended so many, that 
however great the injury, but very few com- 
miserated him ; but, on the contrary, they 
almost rejoiced at any and everything that 
damaged our waspish friend. In short, his 
bitterness has hitherto been his enemy ; it lost 
him many friends, and, we think, materially 
damaged his writings. We are truly glad, 
therefore, to see the present year's almanac full 
of important facts and valuable lessons, and 
without the usual snarling preface. His lists 
of the best fruits, flowers, vegetables, &c. are 
excellent ; and the short articles on the culture 
of all the florist's flowers are written in his 
usual pithy style. In fact, Glenny's Almanac 
for this year is a most valuable compendium 
of practical floriculture. 
The Frontispiece. — The plants repre- 
sented in thefrontispiecetothe present volume 
are the following : — Plumbago Larpentse, a 
rich-coloured blue half-hardy Chinese plant, 
which combines bad and good qualities ; 
Zauschneria californica, scarlet, having some 
resemblance to a fuchsia, a free growing and 
free flowering perennial, suitable for the 
border ; Acacia leptoneura, a vellow-flowered 
greenhouse shrub from Australia ; and Bur- 
tonia pulchella, also an Australian plant, 
and a neat greenhouse shrub, with handsome 
purple blossoms. More detailed descriptions 
of these plants have already been published 
in the Annals of Ilortindture. 
