546 THE GARDENER. [Dec. 



There are many more subjects whicli miglit be summarised as having 

 been of interest during the year. Cowan's system of heating is one of 

 great interest to many, especially to those situated on the chalk or 

 limestone. Many are looking forward to the results of the experiment 

 now in operation on the rim of the London basin, at Hatfield. It 

 involves a principle which may yet be more extensively worked out — 

 namely, the economising of waste heat from commercial manufactures. 

 The waste heat from one blast-furnace would heat all the Vineries of 

 a county. 



One of the most useful inventions of the year in the way of appli- 

 ances will be, we think, the new imperishable labels of Bell & Thorpe. 



Space compels us to stop for the present, in the hope of being able 

 to give the sum total another time. 



The Squire's Gardener. 



NOTES Om HERBACEOUS PLANTS. 



When ribbon borders and massing became the rage, we all remember 

 how quickly the old herbaceous and mixed borders were effaced from 

 the garden. In establishments where such borders had once existed, 

 containing hundreds of varieties of plants — many of them worthless — 

 scarcely half-a-dozen plants are to be found ; and it is absolutely true 

 that a generation of young gardeners has risen up during the time 

 who are entirely ignorant of herbaceous nomenclature. The days of 

 bedding-out in its extravagance are, however, doomed ; for the tide is 

 setting in with a force in the other direction that threatens to carry 

 all before it. This is to be accounted for in several ways : first, the 

 ever- recurring ribbon or panelled border is becoming stale — the patterns 

 are almost worked out ; then the agitation against the bedding system 

 is beginning to tell ; and last, but not least, Mr Disraeli has given the 

 system a death-blow in ' Lothair ' by his description of Corisande's 

 garden, which has taken the fancy of the lady section of gardeners at 

 least. Xot long ago we were told by a noble lady that we (gardeners) 

 could not stave it off much longer. She had, she said, just a little bit 

 of "her own " in her large garden, and her gardener had all the rest;* 

 but she was sanguine of better times v/hen he became a convert to the 

 new taste. We could not help thinking of the tyranny of gardeners, 

 and of the aristocrat in ' Lothair ' who, his lady said, was afraid of no- 



* The gardener who attempts to exercise any such tyranny as is referred to 

 here, is surely rare, and can have very little respect for his employer, and not 

 very much for himself. — Ed. 



