isn.j 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



375 



things in the forty beautiful greenhouses which 

 comprise the establisliment. Mr. Williams tliinlvs 

 a good share of liis success has been the persist- 

 ent exhibiting of good specimens, by wliich people 

 eould see for themselves how fine plants might 

 be made by growth and sk\\\. 



Hai'dy hei'baceous plants are becoming exten- 

 sively patronized in England, and there are now 

 numerous nurseries engaged in growing tliese 

 alone. One of the best of these is, perliaps, Ware's 

 of Tottenham. I do not know of anything which 

 gave me so much pleasure as the day I spent 

 here. A single plant, as we see them in our gar- 

 dens, is pretty enougli, many would say ; but here 

 with liundreds of a kind in beds, tlie eff'ect is 

 beautiful in the extreme. For Alpine plants, 

 rocks are arranged on elevations, and swamp 

 plants are grown in kegs of water, sunk in the 

 ground. The water is very slow in evaporating 

 under these circumstances, and is just the thing 

 for these plants. For Cypripediums and plants 

 that need shelter from wind and sun, hedges of 

 Privet and Arborvitse are made ; and for bog 

 plants peat beds are formed. With this little 

 care I had the satisfaction of seeing many of our 

 own native plants, far more beautiful than I had 

 ever seen them at liome. At Parker's at Toot- 

 ing, and Barr & Sugdens at Fulham, herba- 

 ceous plants are specialties — the last chiefly in 

 bulbs — the former especially rich in aquatics, 

 from having a stream by an artesian well. 



In the matter of new and rare kinds, as a 

 matter of course, the inquirer takes his steps to 

 Chelsea, where Bull and Vietch, neighbors, have 

 wonderful establishments, and whose proprietors 

 ransack the whole world for whatever may in- 

 terest the lovers of trees and plants. A day at 

 Mr. Bull's was entirely too short to take in all 

 the treasures of this immense establishment. 

 The entrance is through a large palm and 

 tree fern house, which is shaded by training 

 grape-vines under the glass. Orchids are grown 

 in immense quantities, and some of the more 

 common kinds are now thought cheap at from 

 one to three dollars each — small plants of course. 

 The rarer ones, however, bring high prices. 

 Odontoglossum vexillarium brings about $15 

 each. Mr. Bull states that it cost him over 

 $15,000 to get his stock of this plant. Some of 

 these Odontoglossums bring $50 each, with the 

 demand often beyond the supply. In Dracaenas 

 and leaf plants, generally, there were a great 

 number of good things. Dracaena Gokliana par- 

 ticularly attracted us. So many new Dracsanaa 



are hardly different from the old ones; but the 

 white feathery painting of this made it very dis- 

 tinct, and as beautiful as it was novel. Mr. B. 

 was paying great attention to economic plants, 

 and the new Cotton, new Liberian Coffee, and a 

 species of Eucalyptus, with leaves as sweet as the 

 Lemon Verbena, had a good share of his atten- 

 tion. New Arums, new Palms, new Ferns, new 



Lilies, new Zamias, new Orchids, new well, 



one would hardly think there were so many new 

 things in the world to find, and there would not 

 be, but for the wonderful enterprise of men like 

 these. A pretty improvement is in the old Pelar- 

 goniums. They are crumpled and increased in 

 petals, and yet have a beautiful regularity amidst 

 all their seeming confusion. Some of the earlier 

 kinds having been named after Royal person- 

 ages, the whole race has been called " Regal 

 Pelargoniums." 



At Veitch's the entrance, as at Bull's, is par- 

 ticularly imposing ; when you get through to the 

 houses, you are not apt to feel the establishment 

 particularly impressive; but as you go from 

 house to house — there are one hundred and four 

 of them — and you proceed to the rarer and more 

 valuable plants, the riches and vastness of the 

 collection are almost overwhelming. Great at- 

 tention was being paid to getting new races of 

 plants by hybridization. Mr. Domine, who first 

 made hybrid Orchids an actual and a profitable 

 fact, is with them, living in a house on the 

 grounds most beautifully covered with Ampelop- 

 sis Veitchii. They have improved the tuberous 

 rooted Begonias to a wonderful extent, a fact of 

 much interest to Americans, in whose land they 

 will make admirable bedding plants. There ia 

 in hand a new race of hybrid Rhododendrons. 

 Fuchsias and Geraniums were also under the 

 improver's hand, and the Gloxinia had been put 

 under training for still more beautiful varieties 

 than it has yet given us. Mr. Veitch told me the 

 Gloxinia had even been made to cross with the 

 Foxglove, but whether he said he had this in 

 hand, or it was only talked of in England, I do 

 not now quite remember. There is a beautiful 

 Camellia house here, one hundred feet long, the 

 plants growing in the open ground; and an in- 

 teresting point to me was the shading efiectedby 

 coarse netting. 



Wonderful attention is bestowed on the Orchid 

 family, no less than twenty-four houses or one- 

 fourth the whole establishments, being devoted 

 to them. The Hydrangea was being improved, 

 the aim being to get a fixed rosy red color, and 



