1870.] NOTES OF THE MONTH. 53 



of life, and his death may be said to be the snapping asunder of one 

 of the links in the chain that binds the present of horticulture to what 

 belonged to it in the days that have passed away. A more notable 

 man was Mr William Barnes, of the Camden Nursery, Camberwell, 

 London, who died at the close of the year, well known, and as widely 

 respected and deplored, leaving behind him a reputation as a plant- 

 grower never perhaps surpassed and rarely equalled. Born in 1809> 

 in the county of Surrey, he might be said to have always belonged to 

 the London district — the scene of his greatest triumphs and his most 

 splendid successes. Like his father before him, he adopted the pro- 

 fession of a gardener when about nine or ten years of age — even then 

 he had made British plants his special study. From the ' Gardeners' 

 Chronicle ' we learn that " about three years later he left home and 

 came to London, where he was employed by Mr Moore, the then great 

 early fruit, plant, and vegetable grower, of the King's Road, Chelsea. 

 At this time Mr Moore's foreman and manager was William Barnes's 

 brother James, late of Bicton. In the year 1824, William Barnes 

 was under-gardener at the Earl of Onslow's, in Surrey, from which 

 place he went to the Messrs Young's nurseries at Epsom ; and from 

 there to Plastow Lodge, Bromley, where horticulture was then at its 

 zenith. Some three years later he was engaged as gardener to George 

 Ward Norman, Esq., where he soon began to carry out his ideas in 

 plant-growing. Although the place was small, with very little glass or 

 other convenience, he grew stove and greenhouse plants, Heaths, Azaleas, 

 and New Holland plants in general, to such perfection as had never been 

 seen, surpassing all the great plant-growers of the day, as may be seen 

 recorded in the ' Proceedings ' of the Horticultural Society of London. 

 The story of his triumphs in this department is thus recorded by his 

 old friend, Mr W. P. Ayres, in the ' Nottinghamshire Guardian : ' — 



"The first time Mr Barnes ever exhibited was at Chiswick, when he came out 

 with a collection of fifty stove and greenhouse plant*, and took the first prize — the 

 first gold Knightian Medal, value £10, ever awarded by the Society. As a con- 

 trast to the enormous plants exhibited at the present time, we may say that Mr 

 Barnes conveyed his fifty plants in one van with one horse ! but, as an example 

 of the progress he made in plant-growing, we may state we have seen his collec- 

 tion when he required eight vans and sixteen horses to convey the same quantity 

 of plants. Cramped for means, having only five small houses (two of them filled 

 with Vines — one, which filled the larger house, the finest Muscat of Alexandria 

 Vine perhaps in Europe, being nearly two hundred years old, and still in vigorous 

 health)— the wonder was how Mr Barnes could produce such gorgeous collections, 

 especially as his excellent employer did not care about exhibiting, but would 

 rather have kept the plants at home. Thus the expenses of conveyance to shows, 

 and also of replenishing the collection of novelties, fell mainly upon Mr Barnes. 

 To go to Bromley Common in the exhibition season, say a few days before 

 one of the great shows, and from what you could see in the glass-houses you 



