This section is from "The Horticulturist, And Journal Of Rural Art And Rural Taste", by P. Barry, A. J. Downing, J. Jay Smith, Peter B. Mead, F. W. Woodward, Henry T. Williams. Also available from Amazon: Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste.
In the April Horticulturist I notice some of your correspondents think you are ruining the work with Pears, Peaches, etc., etc . Now, having the Horticulturist from the commencement, and speaking for myself individually, I would beg leave to differ entirely from such a statement.
However much I may have admired Mr. Dowxino, and there are but few men that more cordially endorsed him in his Horticultural views than myself, yet, since the commencement of the Horticulturist there has been no single feature that I more heartily endorsed than your articles and illustrations on Pears, and I most sincerely hope you will not abandon this feature, without good and sufficient reason*, and a stronger sentiment from correspondents than you have yet noticed.
The portion of illustrations relating to flowers, do not, I am free to confess, interest me much, but I doubt not there are thousands ot your subscribers who do feel an interest; and as deep an interest, too, in that department, as your correspondents do in any thing they may fancy.
In regard to the pruning of the Peach: I had given much attention to that subject, having Dawning's Fruit and Fruit-Trees, Barry's Fruit Garden, and the Horticulturist, and was really green enough to believe that I had about mastered ihe subject, before you commenced publishing the article complained of, which, although not strictly applicable to this country in every particular, yet it is enough so that a man of the most ordinary comprehension cannot fail to profit by reading, if he has a single tree to train and prune.
As a case in point, I would state to you that at the commencement of the year 1853 there were two copies of the January number sent me. The extra number I sent to a friend of mine, who had given some attention to fruit, and he was so well pleased with the feature on Pears that he subscribed for the work, and will probably continue to take it so long as it occupies its present position.
What do your correspondents recommend in place of those magazine-splitting subjects complained off I would much like to know, and perhaps some other reader of the HortuulturUt would also be glad to lesrn, so that you could be warned in time, before you had split on some sunken rock without a possible chance of salvation. Boardman.
 
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