Mr. Editor:- I was educated in England as a gardener, and have pursued that avocation for so many years, that I am so strongly attached to it, that it has almost become a part of my being; and when I came to this beautiful country I bore my tastes and love for Horticulture and its kindred arts in my heart, as almost all the treasure I possessed. So you will not be surprised that I cherish any successful results of varied experiments that I have made, and feel almost as strongly inclined to meet and repel gratuitous and ill-natured attacks upon my honest success in Horticulture, as I would if they were directed against me, and intended to impeach my private character and personal interests.

If I have endeavored, in any way or the smallest degree, to deceive the public, or misrepresent the nature or result of my labors as a gardener, I certainly deserve the severest censure and rebuke. But if I am innocent of any of these charges, and am only the unfortunate target for ill-aimed and worse-intentioned bilious invectives from jaundiced and diseased sources, with your courteous permission, I wish the public to understand it through your pages, and not dub me with the ambiguous knighthood of a " Second Barnum," because a " Close Observer " wishes to elaborate his literary attempts and scientific ignorance by perpetuating himself at my expense, and forcing me to wear his verdant mantle, which he so magnanimously attempts to cast upon my shoulders.

My premises are simply these. I claim to raise successfully different varieties of fruit, including Grapes, Pears, etc., in wire baskets. I have experimented for several years in this, and have recently fully accomplished my object and realized my expectations. During the last spring I obtained a patent from the United States government for my invention, which was only granted after a careful analysis of my theory, and investigation of its practical results. I had with me at Washington no personal or political influence, unless "A Careful Observer " can ingeniously pervert the vines and trees, growing luxuriantly in wire baskets and loaded with fruit, that I carried to the capital, and submitted to the examiners, into improper influences or skillfully disguised humbugs. I obtained my patent, and received the congratulations of the examiners and the Commissioner of Patents on the success of my novel experiment. I had the honor of presenting a grape-vine covered with choice fruit, growing in a wire basket, to the wife of the President of the United States, who expressed her kind thanks to me.

My vines were also on exhibition some days at the office of Messrs. Munn & Co., my solicitors in Washington, and were examined and admired by a large number of persons, including the gardener of the White House and several well-known horticulturists. How far does this comport with the absurd statement of "A Close Observer," who says that he examined an apparently beautiful vine in a wire hasket at the orchard-house of the Hon. William B. Lawrence, in Newport, which, at first, he imagined to be loaded with delicious fruit, but on a close examination he discovered that the bunches of Grapes were tied on with bast matting? It was a very "close observer," in ancient times, who said, "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles 7" and as. a practical man I submit it to the good sense of your readers whether they will believe, upon the unsupported and evidently prejudiced assertion of a comparatively unknown individual, that the scientific minds of the Commissioner of Patents and his examiners, the cultivated taste of Mrs. President Lincoln, and the impartial verdict in favor of my discovery by many intelligent men, could be so grossly and absurdly deceived as to believe that I cultivated healthy vines, loaded with perfect grapes, in wire baskets, when, in reality, they were all a despicable sham, and the vines were half dead for nutriment, and the bunches of fruit were tied on with bast.

I will trouble you, in this connection, to insert the following extract from the correspondence of the New York Journal of Commerce, of March 17th, 1861:

"We have taken a second look at the orchard-house of the Hon. Wm. B. Lawrence, the same that we described in your columns last summer. It reminded us of the sunny South, still sunny, despite the new Confederacy; and in it are gathered, from week to week, new potatoes, strawberries, pineapples, cucumbers, and of such delicacies as these the family have partaken since Christmas. So much for having Mr. Chamberlain, the genial gardener, with his round face, and as open as a sun-flower, (and no Barnum in his nature, as ungenerously suggested by some untraveled or ill-natured writer,) aided by such sense as the good Lord has given, together with vast quantities of glass and hot steam. And here are still those little hanging baskets from which Mr. Chamberlain grows fine peaches, pears, and grapes. That writer suggests that there must be some deception here. He would never have broached that theory if he had but once looked into Mr. C.'s face. If that is not enough, look at the baskets, and see for yourselves; handle them, and you will doubt no more.

In the line of novelty and genuine interest there is nothing in Newport, at this time, to be compared with this orchard-house, and we are under obligations to the proprietor again for his politeness in permitting us to enjoy that rich scene of Southern fruits and vegetation amid this rugged climate".

The well-known character of the paper from which the foregoing extract is taken will be sufficient evidence of the ability and truthfulness of the writer, without my adding that he is a gentleman of fully as keen powers of analysis and examination as the self-constituted "Close Observer." Although I am under great obligations to you, Mr. Editor, for the unvarying courtesy with which I have been treated by you personally, yet, since your "Close Observer" is the aggressor, and is somewhat inclined to exercise his decidedly embryo powers of would-be wit at my expense, (although a gardener myself,) I trust you will permit me to refer, for a moment, to the ambiguous literary taste of your contributor, and to inquire whether the English language, tortured under the harrow of ignorance, can be justly considered cultivated, in the legitimate acceptation of* the word.

The opening paragraph in his article in your January issue deserves to be duplicated as a rhetorical curiosity. It reads as follows: "Surrounded by a cloud of tobacco-smoke, sir, strong enough to suffocate any of the fair sex in the metrop- olis, I set down and give vent to my feelings upon a subject that has filled my f thoughts for some time, and now, like a bird that has escaped from its cage, gives evidence of its satisfaction by lifting its voice." Is not this patentable for its "originality? " Truly," out of his own mouth" will we "convict him." His ideas, by his own admission, are smoke-born, and necessarily, therefore, beclouded and befogged. What kind of a cage has this individual escaped from, that he can now sing-sing all the day long? Does a "Close Observer" know that rusty wit, illy discharged, is "more dangerous at the breech than the muzzle?" Has he ever read Emerson's warning, couched in floral similes, to ignorant aspirants?

" The bright Rhododendron Flames up to the sky; Appropriate pig-weed Creeps under the stye".

For this has enabled wiser and better men than he to discover their true running level. Has your contributor, I would further query, adopted the sobriquet of "Close Observer," because he has escaped from some cage of close confinement in regions to polite ears unknown?

In conclusion, he says, "What we want are facts." These are what Mr. Grad-grind clamored for in the story, and being disposed to dispute every thing of which he had not been "a close observer," in accordance with his theory, doubted his own paternity. Now we have endeavored to supply facts, and if any of your readers doubt my statements, I should be pleased to receive them at the orchard-house in Newport, R. I., and exhibit to them the vines and fruits growing in the wire baskets. In one of your articles you say, that if this is a deception the Hon. William B. Lawrence should not lend it his influence. I am permitted by that gentleman to refer to him for the truth and accuracy of my representations, as he is the proprietor of the beautiful and admirably-arranged gardens and conservatories which are under my supervision.

Since "seeing " was not "believing" to a "Close Observer," I will say, that when he visited the orchard-house, upon one vine growing in a wire basket there was one bunch of grapes tied up with bast This was a plant that I had preserved, exhibited some time, which had been drawn and lithographed, and of which I forward you a sketch, if you please to use it. These grapes were over ripe, and I feared would fall from their weight, and I therefore secured them, although they were attached to the vine by the natural stem. And out of this your contributor has created his " bugbear," founded, perhaps, upon that varied experience in morals that induces some men to believe that nothing and nobody can be appropriately pendulous unless they are "hung by the neck".

[Mr. Chamberlain here states distinctly enough what he has done with his wire baskets; but at the close of his vindication against Mr. Carmiencke he has unfortunately lost his temper. The provocation was no doubt strong, but this style of criticism is in bad taste on both sides, and, in our judgment, out of place in a magazine like this. Both have now said sharp things of each other, quite too personal, and hereafter whatever is said must be confined to the merits of the wire basket. We desire to extend every possible courtesy to all our correspondents, and in return we think they should seek to render our position as pleasant as may be. We insert the engraving sent, in order to give our readers some idea of how the baskets look. - Ed].