Now, with such testimony in favor of my successful culture of these varieties of pear on quince stock - testimony corroborating that of our most distinguished Pomologists - with what justice should I be arraigned as imperatively "pronouncing against the experience of French cultivators for one hundred years, and the English and American for twenty years?" What advantage will it be to the cause of horticultural science, in searching for the causes of the failure of other varieties, to drag the inquirer after truth through the mazes of suppositions and [insinuations as to whether the stocks used were not the native instead of the Angiers Quince, when it had been distinctly stated (on page 218) that they had J been obtained from two of our most reliable nurserymen, the late Mr. Wilson, of Albany, and Mr. Wm. Reid, of Elizabeth City? And since, moreover, the demonstration that they were true to their character, was found in the fact that the varieties known to be adapted to the quince had given vigorous growth; - or that other unwarranted assertion that they had been planted with the quince stock from two to four inches above the surface of the ground, when not five in a thousand will show the line of junction without searching for it below the surface.

Equally unwarrantable was the inference on which was based the assertion that "I complained that my trees blew down".

.If the conversation touching the "exceptions," reported to Mr. F., and duly credited to me by quotation marks, was faithfully and truly reported to him, charity demands (since I repudiate it altogether) that I regard the communication as made through one of the mediums that abound in this spiritual age. I appeal to that gentleman himself to say if such language as is there ascribed to me, is not irreconcilable with my previously recorded testimony.

Equally gratuitous was the remark that where I had success, it was on the much abused quince stock; for, by far the largest quantity of pears I have grown, have been on the pear stock. This is true of the product this past, as well as of all preceding years. The admission, however, of my success on the quince stock - of my having grown on that stock the largest pear ever known - the acknowledgment of an unaccepted challenge for a comparison of fine fruit, the product of the quince stock - is, in the hands of Mr. P., a two-edged sword, cutting more severely him who wields than the one against whom it is directed; for, in the paragraph above, he says: "The doctor's treatment of his trees has violated all the laws governing the growth of the pear on the quince." The admission of success, if not an unfortunate admission, to say the least, is in unfortunate proximity with the charge of "violating, in the treatment of the trees, all the laws governing the growth of the pear on the quince; for, if there be any one fact clearly established in nature - as well in art as in science - it is that success depends upon our obedience to the laws governing that department of science or art.

But the most unkind as well as unwarranted charge is that in which Mr. F. attempts to arraign me against the nurserymen, by representing me as cherishing a " suspicion of their exact truthfulness." Search the pages of the Horticulturist, and there will not be found an expression that will make plausible such an imputation. In a challenge for a comparison of fruit, published in the Country Gentleman, I named a nurseryman as chairman, with power to add two to the committee, restricting him only to those not engaged in the nursery business. Is the challenge of a juryman as to his right to occupy a seat in the juryman's box, because he has expressed an opinion on the merits of the case, tantamount to a doubt of his truthfulness?

Most truly unfortunate is it for the cause sought to be advanced, when the views of an opponent are perverted - his facts stated, misrepresented - -his admissions concealed - and his arguments obscured by engendering in the minds of those who are to weigh them, a prejudice against him by arraigning him as "an accuser of his brethren".

And now, in conclusion, let me say, the facts embodied in the articles claimed to be reviewed, viz: of the successful culture of certain varieties of the pear on the quince, and the failure of others that had enjoyed equal culture on the same plat of ground; the successful culture of certain varieties that ordinarily do well on the quince, that have done well in certain localities on my farm, and that have failed in all other positions - present phenomena that are still unexplained, unless the causes of their success in one position, and their failure in another, is owing to the physical adaptation of the soil in one instance, and its want of adaptation in the other, to the growth of the quince stock; while the drift of the argument was intended to caution the inexperienced against the indiscriminate engrafting of all the varieties of pear upon the quince, as well as the transfer of even the approved varieties from the garden to the orchard, unless there was transferred with them the high culture of the garden.

Will not my recorded testimony of the excellency of the quince stock for certain varieties of pear - my denial of the use of the native quince stock - of the exposure of the quince stock above the surface of the ground - my denial of ever having suffered loss from the blowing down of my trees - of the conversation '. touching the "exceptions" - my denial of any wholesale denunciation of the quince stock - make it clear to the reader that Mr. F. was fighting " a man of straw," instead of contributing his mite toward the settlement of a controverted question J

Kind readers, with a solitary apology for Mr, P., we will dismiss the subject. He is still in the first years of horticultural experience. The golden harvests that glitter in the distance, seemingly near enough to bewilder, are yet to be realized. The buoyancy of hope that trees yet under four years of age has inspired, rests upon promises that may never be redeemed. Those promises that now appear to him as "necessitous of success" when airy castle building has given place to stern reality, may be written promises unredeemed. When a few more years of observation shall have given age to his experience, may we not hope that, as an honest inquirer, he will enlighten us with the facts - the result of his observations in the orchard - instead of giving us theories? When such record is truthfully and faithfully, made, it may not be unlike that which is beginning to be made by other cultivators - as unlike the anticipated results as is the present condition of the celebrated orchard of Mr. Rivers, to what we had reason to expect it to be from the glowing description given of it when visited by the lamented Downing.