1878.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



5? 



estate. These walls are cheaply made of gravel 

 mixed with the slacking lime, and then is put on 

 as so much mortar between a frame of boards. 

 This was a great failure, probably from the fact 

 of the lime not having been properlj' slacked in 

 the operation, or of too much clay being in the 

 gravel, and the weather had eaten large quantities 

 away, requiring, evidently, constant patching to 

 keep it up. Tliose with me thought it an evidence 

 that concrete walls were a failure ; but in other 

 parts of Biigland I saw them '' solid as a rock" 

 after thirty years of use. It strikes an American 

 strangely, after being accustomed to so much 

 forest variety in his own country, to see so much 

 sameness here. In almost all the woodland you 

 come to it is the same old tree — beautiful enough 

 in itself, but when continually repeated, as it is, 

 causes us to exclaim, that "everlasting oak!" 

 With so vast a field to choose from, the absence 

 of variety in English planting is very remark- 

 able. That I am not alone in this opinion, I 

 may be pardoned, I hope, for quoting from a 

 private letter from Sir Joseph Hooker, written 

 since his return from America, and who says, " It 

 seems strange to me that your beautiful Ameri- 

 can trees are not more appreciated by our people. 

 I believe they in time will be, though I may not 

 live to see them grow^n up in grandeur as they 

 are with you." 



But our '"Tiger" announces that we are at 

 Hatfield, and we are set down at the ponderous 

 old oak gate. After a ring from a bell which 

 might serve for one of our churches, a sort of 

 port-hole flies open, and Ave hand our cards to 

 the stately porter, with an inquiry for om* old 

 friend, the gardener, whom we knew among our 

 associates ; it did not seem so very, very long ago. 

 But it was the same old story, "dead or miss- 

 ing;" and after the good old man had gone back 

 over about a dozen names, we gave it up for a 

 bad Job, and not witliout some w^onder at the 

 many changes, for we had looked on a gardener's 

 situation in England as one to be lield according 

 to the strict interpretation of the " tenure of 

 office act." However, we were directed to "Mr. 

 Norman," whom we found a comparatively 

 young man, and, as it is a pleasure to say, with 

 a full share of that intelligence which gives such 

 a charm to the best Old World gardeners, and 

 makes their company appreciated by what is 

 called in the Old World " the highest in the 

 land." The vegetable garden comprised about 

 seven acres, liad l>een but newly laid out, and 

 had no box as yet; and in its unfinished con- 



dition it would perhaps be unfair to say that we- 

 in America can grow vegetables far better than 

 can be grown in England and at half the cost :; 

 for no doubt much better results will follow when 

 things are put to rights ; but when we get to the 

 forcing houses we see sights that make an 

 American look out of all the corners of his eyes- 

 at once. Of course, with our thousands of miles- 

 of territory, where, as I have seen, almost zero- 

 in Chicago, with oranges and scarlet sages two- 

 days after along the Gulf, there is not the same 

 necessity' for forced fruit ; but this does not take- 

 from the merit due to the wonderful skill of the 

 English gai'dener in forcing house fruit. Here- 

 there were strawberries — not by the single one 

 sliced to go all round, as one might suppose, but 

 hundreds on hundreds, of a size which would not 

 disgrace the fine fellows our Dr. Knox used to- 

 raise, hanging from the sides of the pots on the 

 shelves or lovingly reclining orv the eaith in the 

 pots in every direction. Strange, ver}^ strange^ 

 it seemed to me from a country where we are 

 not satisfied unless we have a new kind of straw- 

 berry every ;year or two, to hear Mr. Norman 

 avow that the best kind he had yet was the 

 "Keen's Seedling," a variety which may soon 

 advertise its " centennial show." But there were 

 " Sir Charles Napiers', very large and handsome 

 too, but not to be depended on like the Keen." 

 The grape houses occupied perhaps 300 feet of 

 length of glass; and though the fruit was good 

 for so early a time of the year, they were not 

 superior to what we have seen among our own 

 June fruit crops under glass. The Foster's Seed- 

 ling Mr. Norman considers the best white for 

 early forcmg. He also praises highly the Mad- 

 resfield Court, a long purple-berried variety, 

 which he regards as quite as good as Black 

 Hamburg, and which ought to be high praise.. 

 The plants were also very interesting. There 

 may have been about two dozen houses in all:, 

 everything good, but nothing so superb as the 

 perfect pot strawberry culture. The park and 

 grounds embrace about 1,500 acres, and under 

 the gardener about thirty hands are regularly 

 employed. 



Almost all these old places are laid out on the 

 same general i)lan — straight avenues of trees, 

 often a mile or more in length, down which you 

 look through the vista from the w'indows of the 

 house. These trees were of Linden, and with 

 the peculiarity which struck me strangely in 

 many trees of England of having huge bulbous 

 bases. Our trees swell a little at the ground,. 



