The remarks of Liber in the November number of the Horticulturist are quite interesting as well as instructive. The history of American Horticulture will evidently be written at some future time, and every fact that can be recorded now will aid in making that history more complete.

Having devoted considerable time in years past in endeavoring to compile a bibliotheca of American Horticulture, I was exceedingly gratified to learn that a copy of S. W. Johnson's work on grape culture was in existence. Is it not really surprising that other writers cotemporary with Johnson should not have even mentioned him or his book ? - Adlum, Dufour, Prince, Loubat, Fisher; in fact, no writer on grape culture, except Phin, has referred to him.

One would have supposed that Johnson's book would have been mentioned in the Transactions of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society, which was in a flourishing condition in 1806, the year in which Johnson's book purports to have been written. But from a careful examination of the reports from 1785 to 1811, I can find no reference to such a man, neither do I find the book named in the catalogue of the library. This circumstance appears more strange, inasmuch as some of the most active members of this Society lived in New Jersey, and several at Burlington.

As Liber refers to McMahon's work as the oldest American book on gardening, it may not be uninteresting to a few at least to learn that this work is not an original one with McMahon, but is an old English work reprinted in this country with very slight alterations, and without credit to the real author.

It was written by John Abercrombie, of England, and first published in 1766 under the title of "Every Man His Own Gardener," by Thomas Mawe. Abercrombie placed Mawe's name to the work, supposing it would have a larger sale, as Mawe was at that time gardener to the Duke of Leeds. After it became generally known who the real author was, Abercrombie placed his name on the title-page in connection with Mawe's.

Abercrombie died in 1806, the same year in which his book appeared in this country under the title of uMcMahon's American Gardener." McMahon made some slight alterations in the work, such as omitting a few lines here and there, and adding a few of his own, also changing in some instances the arrangement of the paragraphs.

Who knows but some future historian of American Horticulture will point out similar plagiarisms in works of our time!