We have occasionally heard malicious remarks when some amateur horticulturist failed in business, that "gardening would ruin any man." It is often forgotten that hundreds will spend on one evening party, or some other luxury, what few amateur gardeners spend in a year. When Mr. Mechi, the celebrated agricultural experimenter failed, the ill-natured wrote of the " natural result of so much experimenting," that it " took a farm in the city to keep his farm in the country," and so forth. His daughter has at length been provoked to a reply in the London Times. A Mr. Pell had been rehashing the old dish of scandal, and the lady replies :

"Alluding to the circumstances of my father's death and connecting them with his farming operations, Mr. Pell says, 'the result was not a success.' I beg to state distinctly that my father's ruin was attributable solely and simply to the failure of the Unity Bank, in which, as a shareholder, he lost more than every shilling he possessed. To his successful farming, among other causes, he owed the delay of a catastrophe which had for some time been inevitable. It must remain a question of taste whether Mr. Pell has done wisely in affixing a stigma of ' agricultural loafers ' to the many high-minded and honorable men who from all ranks of society have attended the Tiptree gatherings and witnessed the experiments conducted at them. In conclusion, I may add that during the last suffering days of my father's life his thoughts were not so much with himself or his troubles, not so much with family or friends, as with the cause he had long served faithfully and loved so well."