ART. XV. Retrospective Criticism.

MR. KNIGHT's Pines. Sir, You call upon me (p. 567.), and justly, to send you my opinion of T. A. Knight, Esq.'s method of cultivating the pineapple. There is no gentleman in the kingdom that I respect more than the worthy president of the Horticultural Society; and I am extremely concerned that you should use such severe language in the pages of your Magazine towards one whom we have greater reason to honour and applaud than to censure; and I am well assured that the practical gardener has not a more sincere friend than Mr. Knight.

With regard to those words used by him when he first publicly noticed his method of cultivating the pine-apple, and which have so frequently been brought up in a censurable way by many gardeners, I am convinced that Mr. Knight never meant them as a slight upon practical gardeners; and that if he had suspected that only a small portion of them, and those of the lowest grade, would have felt themselves hurt at the expression, he would have omitted it. He never meant it in any other light than that of illustrating the simplicity of his method of culture over the usual way; still intelligence and rigid attention are obviously of the utmost importance. Mr. Knight may be said literally to live in his garden, and therefore he does not require a professed gardener; as he sees and orders every thing himself, and will continue to do so as long as he is able to walk.

I have had opportunities of seeing Mr. Knight's method of cultivating the pine-apple several times in the year, from the time that he first adopted it to the present time; and, from first to last, the extraordinary luxuriance in the appearance of his pine plants has surpassed any that I have ever seen cultivated in the usual way. The plants have more the sturdy appearance of the American Aloe than that of the Yucca gloriosa; and not the thin lank look that the pine plant assumes as it is generally cultivated; and I have grown them myself upon a stage, in a common wooden frame, with wooden lights, so as to astonish every gardener who saw them; and from small suckers, planted at Candlemas, I produced plants by November, superior to those of two years' growth in the usual way of culture. Had I had a house with a curvilinear roof, I should certainly prefer the method for growing my plants, to any other; but as that is not the case, and as fuel is expensive, and tanners' bark and oak leaves close at hand, as I am at present circumstanced, the old method is the best.

Although I grow my plants so very fine, and have seen Mr. Knight's as I have described, yet I have been disappointed on seeing the fruit of such plants. What I have seen of Mr. Knight's this season have been much finer than any previous; and I am confident, that if the plan were more generally adopted by some of those gardeners eminent in their profession, so that they may have a constant judicious management under their eye, pines may be grown with fruit equally luxuriant as I have ever seen on any plants. Mr. Knight has never, in my hearing, spoken of his method as being superior to the old; he has only recommended it where tan and leaves are not conveniently to be had, and where fuel is not a material object; and that a hot-house, of a given dimension, will contain many more plants than when confined to a pit in the usual method.

What I here remark is my candid opinion, nor do I dissemble in any one expression with a view of favour, or lest I should hurt his feelings. If I did not think that he merited our warmest esteem and applause, I should not give it to him; and I trust, ere long, to be gratified by reading of him in your pages as he justly merits.

Mr. Knight's son-in-law, Mr. Stackhouse of Acton Scott, near Church Stratton, Salop, has built a larger curvilinear pine-house than his, and they are under the superintendence of two very steady and persevering young

men, who were both pupils of mine. They only commenced this last spring, after I sent the last young man as foreman to the other, who is the acting steward, and cannot pay such close attention himself as pines require, by whatever method they are cultivated. I went over to see them about Midsummer, and I was astonished at the wonderful progress and sturdiness of the plants. They keep the house at an extraordinary high temperature through the day, and the plants comparatively dry, but the air in the house is kept like a vapour bath.

I shall feel happy in sending you the state of the plants both at Downton Castle and at Acton Scott, as soon as I can make it convenient to pay a visit to these places.

I am surprised to find, by the last Number of your Magazine (p. 465.), that you had never heard that Mr. Knight's pine plants looked well. I am persuaded that no one who had ever seen his plants could say any thing against the appearance of them, unless prejudice blinded his eyes. I am, Sir, &c.- John Mearns. Shobden Court, near Leominster, September, 1829. Mr. Knight's Pines. - As I promised to acquaint you of the present state of Mr. Knight's pines as soon as I could ride over to Downton Castle; I now inform you that I have been there. I went over a few days ago and took a friend, a practical gardener and excellent pine-grower, formerly a pupil of my friend Mr. M'Murtrie's, at Shugborough, along with me. We had a good deal of argument upon the subject of pine-growing, upon our way thither; and as we had both but recently visited Mr. McMurtrie, and seen his pines and those of the Marquess of Stafford, Lord Bagot, &c., and he had never seen Mr. Knight's, although but eight or nine miles from him, for the last three or four years, you may suppose that he would not think much of the method till he had seen it: however he was much pleased, and not a little astonished when he saw the plants, and also the fruit, and I have to say from him, that, under certain circumstances, he is become as much a convert to the system as any of us; and I am likewise permitted to say that Mr. Corbett, Mr. Knight's acting steward, who was previously gardener, and an excellent pine-grower, has long been as great a convert as myself, and intends to make an attempt at it ere long, near some of our great coal-works. My friend, Mr. Andrew Begbie, had changed his tone before he left Downton Castle, and was anticipating all the way home the great prospect of success that was likely to accrue from Mr. Knight's method in the neighbourhood of such a place as Musselborough, where coals, glass, bricks, and timber could be had at hand and cheap; and at so convenient a distance from Edinburgh. Yours, &c. - John Mearns, Shobden Court, near Leominster, Oct. 10. 1829.

Mr. Knight's Pines. — Sir, I observe in one of your previous Numbers of the Gardener's Magazine, that you would be much obliged to any of your readers that visited Downton Castle, if they would send you some account of what they saw there. But you appear to show as a cause why they do not, "that gardeners having so great a personal respect for T. A. Knight, Esq., from his obvious goodness, and that peculiar sort of winning simplicity and ingenuousness which pervades his character, they will not incur the risk of hurting his feelings;" which I consider to be as much as to say, that his pines are so very bad that they dare not report them, lest they should get Mr. Knight's displeasure. However, I dare run the risk of informing you and your readers, that I visited Downton Castle on the 26th of August last, and that I was very much deceived in T. A. Knight, Esq.'s pines; so much so, that I think I shall become a zealous convert. I expected to find them poor, stunted, and bad-looking; but, on the contrary, I found them stout, healthy, and the finest-looking plants that ever I saw in my life, of the kinds which he grows. Fruit from 3 lbs. to 5 lbs. weight, of the Montserrat kind. Therefore, let his mode of growing the pine be what it will, I think that he might (at the present time) challenge any pine-grower

in the kingdom with the black kinds. Sir, &c.- John Pearson. Kinlet Gardens, near Bewdley, Sept. 22. 1829.

Mr. Knight on the Culture of the Potato, &c. - Sir, In the last Number of your Gardener's Magazine (p. 294.), you have expressed a wish to know the length and breadth of the ground which my crops of potatoes occupied; upon which I calculated, in the account sent by me to the Horticultural Society of London, the produce per acre: and as I consider the subject to be one of very great national importance, I send you the following statement. The public will, however, I believe, give me credit for knowing how to make such an experiment correctly, and for integrity in stating truly the result of it: but I have the evidence of two competent judges, who saw the potatoes taken up and weighed, and the ground minutely measured; and who are ready to attest on oath their conviction that the crops, extraordinary as they are stated to have been, exceeded the published account considerably. The account published by you must have appeared, as you very obviously wished it to appear, incredible to your readers; for you have suppressed every fact and inference which led me to send the account to the Horticultural Society, and upon the evidence of which I accounted for the immensity of the produce; and you have represented that communication, which I consider much the most useful that I ever addressed to that Society, and one of the most useful ever published by it, to be perfectly nugatory, and discreditable to me as the writer, and to the Committee of that Society as the publishers of it. I received the first intelligence that you had done so, from a gentleman residing some hundred miles distant from me; and whom I had never seen. If this charge is unfounded (I do not accuse you of intentional misrepresentation), you can refute it by publishing my paper: and it is a very short one; and this I call upon you to do.

The large, or Lankman's, potato grew in a plantation which was about seventy yards long, and about twenty yards wide. I fixed upon the central row, because it was the central row only; and without any previous examination of it, and having caused twenty yards at one end to be measured off, and a stake driven in the ground at the end of that distance, I took the produce of the next succeeding twenty yards, and allowed something more than the full extent of the ground occupied by the selected portion of the crop. Not less than half a peck of potatoes appeared to have been drawn out and injured, as I have stated, within the twenty yards above mentioned; and as that quantity was more than equivalent to twenty bushels per acre, I thought it proper, as I wished on this, as on all other occasions, to convey minutely correct information to the public, to mention the circumstance.

The rows of the small ash-leaved kidney potato were about 12 ft. long; and those grew in good soil, but without manure. One of these rows, the central one, as in the preceding case, and what appeared to me not to be a favourable one, was selected. The terminal plants, having had more than their due share of light, were taken away, and the remaining produce, upon a perfectly fair calculation and correct admeasurement of the ground, indicated, as I have stated, a produce per acre of 665 bushels of 82 lbs. each. My gardener requested to have the produce of another, and apparently a more favourable, row ascertained; and that indicated a produce per acre of 695 bushels and 5 pecks.

As you have asserted that there was nothing new in my mode of management, except that of collecting a shallow soil into high ridges, I beg to ask you, whether any person except myself ever pointed out the great advantages of planting potatoes, of every variety, large enough and near enough to each other to cause the whole surface of the ground to be covered, under the conflicting influence of gravitation and of light, without the plants in any one row being overhung or shaded by those of contiguous

rows; and whether any gardener of any country is prepared to prove, that he ever saw as large, or even half as large, a produce afforded by the dwarfish ash-leaved kidney potato, as that above stated; or who will engage to cause as large a produce to be afforded by any other mode of culture than that pointed out by me. I could put many more questions to you, which, I think, you would find it difficult to answer: but, as I conclude you will lay my paper before the public (as I have called upon you to do), I think the foregoing sufficient. You may perhaps say, as you did respecting my pine-apple plants, that you have seen a gardener and a nurseryman who had seen my crops of potatoes, and insinuate that they could contradict my statement, only that they do not choose to give their names: but such evidence is not calculated to convince any person, nor to injure any character (I believe I could here use a past tense) except your own. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,―T. A. Knight. Downton, Sept. 10. 1829.. The following is a copy of our answer to the above communication:T. A. Knight, Esq. Bayswater, Sept. 13. 1829. Sir, I have received your communication of September 10. which I am sorry is too late for the October Number of the Gardener's Magazine, but it will appear in the December Number, together with the whole of your paper on the potato, as you required.

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As I put the question, to which your communication is an answer, myself, I think it would render your answer more clear, if you would state what breadth you allowed to your row of 20 yards. You say, that you lowed something more than the full extent of the ground occupied by the selected portion of the crop;" but if you would state in figures what that "extent of ground" was, it would perhaps prevent me from falling into any mistake in replying to your communication. I am, Sir, your most

obedient servant,

- J. C. Loudon.

The following reply to this letter was received, marked private; but having written to Mr. Knight and obtained his permission to publish it, we now do so:

Downton, October 16. 1829.

J. C. Loudon, Esq. Sir, I should have answered your question sooner, but that I waited with the hope of being first enabled to see, and to state, the produce of a small plantation of potatoes, which still remain unfit to be got up, on account of the excessive wetness and coldness of the season.

The crop of potatoes, which I stated to have been proportionate to five hundred and thirty-nine bushels per acre, was planted with a plough. My orders were for the rows to be placed accurately at four feet distance from each other, conceiving that to be a proper distance for that variety of potato. I measured accurately, when the potatoes were taken up, the width of the intervals upon each side of the selected row, and having taken half the width of those united, I am quite certain that my calculation was correct. But if I obtained, as I did, and as I can obtain next season, a produce proportionate to six hundred and sixty-five bushels per acre, from a small and generally supposed unproductive small variety of potato, it is not, surely, very important that I should prove that I obtained a much smaller produce from a large and very productive variety. I did not suggest any possible cause why the produce of the smaller variety was not greater than I stated it to be; and, therefore, I think (and I have good reason to know that others think) that your sneers and personality might have been spared, as I certainly have never done any thing to call forth either.

The public are not (and I am sure that they have no reason to be) inclined to believe that I am actuated by any interested or impure motives; and whether your character, or rather that of the work of which you call

yourself Conductor, or my character, will suffer, is a question deserving your most serious consideration. The supposed motives of some persons, who are supposed to have an interest in your publication, are suspected, by some persons, not to be the purest possible. I shall have occasion to address myself again to the Horticultural Society, upon the subject both of potatoes and pine-apples; and if you choose to persist in your present course, I shall show you that I have the power to bear you down by unanswerable facts.

You have called upon me to name some of the gardeners who have become convents to my opinions and practice respecting the culture of pineapples; and therefore, though I would not, as I conclude you well knew, descend to name them in your Magazine, I now do so in a private letter, confining myself wholly to strangers, whom I had never before seen, and over whom I cannot have any influence, and I give the names of all such persons who have visited my garden, during the last summer and autumn. Mr. Boughton, an eminent nurseryman of Worcester. Mr. Stroud, who has long been in the service, and now travels for, Mr. Miller of Bristol. Both Mr. Boughton and Mr. Miller cultivate pine-apples for sale. The gardeners of - Childe, Esq., of Kinlett, Salop, and of Hopton, Esq., of Cannonfrome, Herefordshire; both these gentlemen are entire strangers to Mr. Bennett, gardener to Sir Harford Jones Bridges of Boltibrook, near Presteigne, Radnorshire; and as you have called upon Mr. Mearns, Í would mention him: but I have been informed that he has written to you, certainly not owing to any desire or instigation upon my part. Any one or all of these would, I believe, say, if required to speak, that they never saw pine-apple plants finer, or so fine, of the same age, and confined to the same narrow limits; nor fruit, under the above-mentioned circumstances, more perfect. I have already told you that Mr. Knight of the Botanic Garden, King's Road, had seen my houses. I remain, Sir, your obedient servant, -T. A. Knight.

me.

With respect to the pine-apple we are now, what we never were before, perfectly convinced that Mr. Knight's pine-apples look exceedingly well; we have no doubt in our own minds, from the various evidence contained in our present Number, that they look as well as those grown by any of the ordinary modes. We do not conceive that we owe any apology to Mr. Knight, or to our readers, for not having been convinced sooner; no man is to be convinced without evidence; the truth is, we never before met with a single individual who had seen them, who did not report very differently. The nurserymen we alluded to are perfectly well known: if, from the insinuation of Mr. Knight (p. 719.), any reader should doubt our word in this matter, on proper application we shall give him the names of the individuals. We repeat that we are perfectly satisfied that Mr. Knight's pines look as well as can possibly be desired, which is one point gained; the next will be to determine the eligibility of his mode of culture, which we shall leave to be done entirely by others, only taking care to mark the results, and lay them before our readers as they occur.

In regard to the potato experiment, we refer to our correspondent, an East Lothian Farmer, one of the most enlightened and intelligent in Scotland (p. 608.), and merely state that we think Mr. Knight ought to have stated, in his communication to the Society, what he has now stated, as to the quantity of ground estimated from. Unless this be done, we appeal to every practical man whether a satisfactory conclusion can be drawn from the experiment. But, as unfortunately an appearance of bad feeling has some way or other got into this correspondence, though we can say with truth that nothing of the kind exists in our heart, we now put a stop to this appearance by printing Mr. Knight's communication at length, in parallel columns, with our own abridgement of it. - Cond.