Ai-lil J, 1S72. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



295 



Pampas Grass being planted alternately. It was expected that 

 the Bamboos ■noukl prove a striking feature, but they were 

 scarcely happy. The Pampas Grasses were, of course, very 

 telling. 



Passing on to the kitchen gardens I found the objects of 

 interest increasing fast. Here we have an orchard house — 

 a low span-roofed cheap structure, a la Tlivcrs, havmg the 

 trees planted out, but with the roots confined to a certain 

 space. There was also a vinery of much the same construction 

 %vith an extremely good crop of Grapes. At times I almost 

 fancied myself with Mr. Elvers, at Sawbridgeworth ; every 

 step I took Jlr. Hamilton had some interesting experiment to 

 point out and to invite attention to, sometimes a success and 

 sometimes a failure. Here we have a " Cherry orchard," a 

 small compartment of little bush trees which seemed very 

 fruitful. Tliese were all safely protected from the depre- 

 dations of birds bv a covrrin" of he\agon wire netting. 



Along the sides of several of the walks were lines of Apple 

 trees trained on the French cordon system. These looked 

 very well, having immense crops of fruit. On inquiry I was 

 informed that the common soil of the garden not appearing 

 suitable, all these trees were planted in coil prepared for the 

 purpose, and certainly, judging from the results, nothing could 

 have been more satisfactory. A trench about 2 feet wide was 

 simply excavated to the required depth, and the proper soil 

 substituted. Is there not here a lesson for many who grumble 

 at the bad quality of their soils and their inability .to grow 

 good fruit ? In another part we find a plantation of dwarf 

 bush Apples, planted in the style of Gooseberries, about 4 feet 

 apart, full of fruit. 



I could instance many more uitercsting doings in this most 



interesting garden, and tell of the extreme pleasure it is to 



; meet such a true lover of horticulture as Mr. Hamilton, and 



1 to witness the great interest that both he and Jlrs. Hamilton 



Gardens at Hamwood. 



take, I may say, in every plant, and in all the operations of the | friends to Hamwood, and to meet there Mr, 

 garden. I had the further pleasure of being accompanied by | Coolayna, whither I shall next proceed.— B. 



F. Hamilton, of 



ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND MOST NEGLECTED OF FLOBISTS' FLOWERS. 



Aboct iifty years ago {" Ah ! here's one of the old school ! ") 

 I resided in a country village, and passed there a happy early 

 manhood. The vicar was one of " the old school," but he 

 was a man of taste. I met beneath his roof-tree the Hayters, 

 the Landseers, and other men of cultivated minds and appre- 

 ciators of the beautiful. How thfit Edwin Landseer annoyed 

 me then with his " Stop, stop ! " whUst he laid down his gun 

 and pulled out his sketch-book to trace the attitudes of my 

 pointers ! Well, the vicar was a man of taste ; he had a gar- 

 den, and he cultivated Apples, raised one from seed, which we 

 christened " (iower's Nonpareil ;" had a good collection of 

 Eoses round hi.^ bowling green. How many shades of those 

 gone-before that green calls up ! but one besides myself re- 

 mains of those wiio then " rubbed and came in " there ! A 

 long walk led down from the vicarage to that bowling green, 

 and on each side of that walk was a broad border planted with 

 " one of the most beautiful, and iioir most neglected, of florists' 

 flowers." 



Though a man of taste, that vicar was not a man without pre- 

 judice — he was an Oxonian, and clung to the old heavy Brazen- 



nose port wine ; he abjured Asparagus, but loved Sea-kale ; and 

 said "a Cucumber should be nicely peeled, peppered, vinegared, 

 and then thrown on to the dunghill;" he anathematised whist, 

 but played chess and quadrille. Quadrille ! who plays it now ? 

 How I should like to meet with three sexagenarians who would 

 " pass '" with me. Well, one of the last "pools " I ever played 

 was during a September in that " tranquil " village -some one 

 wai remember the verses in which that epithet occurs._ In the 

 morning I had taken Landseer (he was not Sir Edwin then) 

 across to a farmhouse where hung one of his boyhood-painted 

 pictures— a horse looking round at a provender-bringing groom 

 —and I had enjoyed seeing him stand before it with a joyous 

 exclamation, " It is not so bad, after aU !" But what has all 

 this to do with the neglected florists' flower ? Only thus much 

 —that most exquisite of flower-painters, Mrs. Pope, then said 

 to me, " There is no flower that equals in its tmts and then' 

 blendings The Eancncui.vs." That, in my opinion, is "one 

 of the most beautiful and most neglected of florists' flowers." 

 Why is this ? Why is it so neglected that a gardener— a prac- 

 tical and known gardener— asked, when recently looking at 



