It is often tiresome to wait for the ending of controversies, in horticultural papers. There is often so much written that it becomes confusing to decide which writer's views to take. The Monthly has the least disposition of any paper, to allow this sort of thing to go too far. Steam heating has had the most freedom of its pages of anything I have ever noticed. No doubt it is a subject embracing a very wide range of thought, requiring much explanation. Like all newly introduced things, it has always old practices to contend with, which to many, appear as if they could never be superseded.

Take the grape-vine as an instance, page after page will be taken up with the various methods of pruning it. There is too much writing, and the ideas expressed are too few to be satisfactory to the amateur. To practical men the difficulty will be less, because they get at the practical parts of the article quickly, and are better able to grasp them; but to the less experienced in such matters it is most confusing. I would never think of curbing any reasonable discussion, for this often brings to the surface many sound, practical points. But when parties are allowed to spend weekly, one, two, or three pages for the course of a year over the name of a plant and its origin, as has been done in England, over the Helleborus niger, it is neither pleasing nor instructive. Is it worth so much to find out if it should be called St. Bridget's Christmas Rose, or any other name, or from whom it originated? Take again the rose; what letters have been written on it! Yet how rarely are any new ideas expressed.

What I would urge on writers is to consider whether there is a newness about what they propose to write. Fresh facts may often be had by looking aside from trodden paths, and they will often find something there to interest many readers.