289 



ERICA SPENCERIANA. 



(Plate 118.) 

 For the opportunity of figuring the beautiful variety of Cape 

 Heath which this month forms the subject of our plate we are 

 indebted to Mr. Glendinning, of the Chiswick Nursery, in whose 

 hands is the entire stock of it. It is a cross between depressa 

 and hybrida, and is, we need scarcely say, one of the most striking 

 of the many successful results which have of late, in so many 

 classes of plants, followed the employment of the art of the 

 hybridist. It is, as will be seen, a most profuse bloomer, and to 

 a colour new among Heaths it adds an excellent habit of growth. 

 It has been distinguished by prizes which have been awarded it 

 by the Horticultural Society, the Royal Botanic Society, and by 

 the Crystal Palace Company, at their grand display of plants and 

 fruit at Sydenham in June last. Such commendations surely 

 render it well worthy of attention, and therefore we have felt it to 

 be our duty to bring it thus prominently under the notice of our 

 readers. We may add that in our April number we figured a 

 variety of Heath called Spenceri; this, as will be seen by 

 referring to our plate for that month, is quite difl^erent from 

 the one now described, which, for the sake of distinction, has 

 been named Spenceriana. As regards sale, &c., full particulars 

 wtll be found in our Advertiser. 



NOTICES OF PLACES. 

 Mr. Rivers' Nursery, Sawbridgeworth. 



This nursery, which has long enjoyed wide notoriety for fruit trees, 

 Roses, and latterly for Mr. Rivers' experiments with orchard houses 

 and fruit trees in pots, has been in the possession of Mr. Rivers' family 

 for upwards of a century, and comprises quite 100 acres. Fruit trees and 

 Roses occupy a great extent of ground ; besides an extensive home trade 

 in these articles, as well as in general nursery stock, Mr. Rivers has a 

 large export trade with America and the continent. As our chief 

 object, however, in visiting Sawbridgeworth was to examine the orchard 

 houses, our attention was principally directed to that department. 



The cultivation of fruit trees in pots dates back but a short period, 

 and has grown up, as it were, from our unfavourable springs of late 

 having rendered out-door crops of wall fruit very precarious. But 

 unquestionably the great impulse given to the erection of glass buildings 

 of this description must be attributed to the removal of the duty on 

 glass, which enables this useful article now to be purchased at a cheap 

 rate. To this wise policy, therefore, we owe the employment of glass 

 on so great a scale in gardens, as well as to its entering largely into 

 the construction of public and private buildings. We have at all times 



NEW SERIES, VOL. VI., NO. LXX. U 



