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^l^^^^I^Xi ;0K^OBXI0UJUTUi;S. AND COXXAX>B GAUDKNBB. 



lia 



•Oflsion, is les^ Bflvew, pn f;i»f| {^fm^^pn, ^hj^fl, 4 q^^pjiity io.bulk 



Tine Apple?, choice ,T;^»Tf|,, Baio^)paST,,*n» *»,9?i'f^^ F*^*t*"' 

 ipiraljly eiivolopcii in l\\e solt shavings, in boxes made to suit 

 ^gir size. Divi^ious, even, are not necessary. 



Poplar or heefh wood is the sweetest to make boxes with, 

 ifvX failing these use cloal with as little resiq as posaible. I 

 ^nfine basliots, moss, and leaves to veKetables and oiit-Joor 

 JrnitB as a rul^ ; but boxes, paper-shavings, and wadding to 

 in-door fruit; and without these packing material?, in my 

 eatimatiou, fruit is not cleanly went to its destination. The 

 paper-shavings, ut the price I have stated, are as soft as the 

 paper I am writing on, and all pure while. Possibly the 

 oblpurcil kinds in » mixed state would be mnoh cheaper and 



hn.r .f(i;>d«t hoindmj/Tf) t I rk n-inw itm(. ii^i fine latiorf oriixlo^ji 



.-ii'.svin riidi JiCM3;TiI>00''R"OAM:El!;MAlB|. "i*' <•'"'", oi'""' 

 ' '^tttE'tiVflliliciit ramari's'of'yoiii' j'ei'^'ey'corre'spoiiienl'on 'the 

 enltivatiou of the Camellia out of doors (see page lOl), induce 

 ^ne once more to call attention to this subject, and to offer such 

 notes on it as llie present season has supplied me with, espe- 

 cially as there aeoms to he some misapprehension with regard 

 to theh&rdinees of the plant and other matters, which cannot 

 be too soon explained. At the same time, as seasons like the 

 present do not occur every year, due allowance must be made 

 Ipr the advantages which the plant has enjoyed this winter as 

 compared witli an ordinary one. 



The Cimellia was prove.l cipable of enduring the winters of 

 this country very many years ago. The late Mr. Eobert Os- 

 bom used to assort that it was hardier than the common Laurel, 

 and had some phmted against the nojih wall of one of his 

 bnildings at Falham, and there were few who, through a long 

 Jife devoted to horticulture, looked more closely into the habits 

 and characters of shrubs and tfeea than he did. I remember 

 also some Camellia trees growing against the wall behind one 

 of the glass structures in the occupation of the late Mr. Joseph 

 Knight, at Chelsea, sotae years before that establishment 

 passed into the hands of the Messrs. "Veitoh, and Mr. Knight's 

 I ppinion as to the hardiness of the Camellia was the same 

 as Ji^r. Osbom's. Amongst private growers I believe the late 

 Mr. 'Wells, of Redleaf, was amongst the first who planted 

 Camellias out of duois to any extent, and I believe there are 

 some good examples at that place at the present day, as well as 

 many other shrubs of questionable hardiness, which that en- 

 thasiastic patron of gardening was in the habit of trying in 

 the open air; 



, , pptemporaneoijs witl> Mr. 'Wtjlla was Mr. Hooker, of Brenoh- 

 tey, who at thi^t iimewas a nurseryman, and he also fried the 

 capability of the plant to withstand the many changes our 

 climate is liable to. I believe his success was second to that of 

 very few, if any, up to the time of his death in 1858, when his, 

 grounds, which had ceased to be a nursery some years pre- 

 viously, were denuded Of many of tbeir treasures, and a large 

 , Camellia of the ol4 Double White variety -fell into the hands of 

 , jay noble employers. It was removed to Linton with as much 

 ..care as conld be, and certainly at the time it would have been 

 (Jiflicnlt to find a plant of any kind in a more healthy conditio^, 

 every point having, a cluster of buds upon it; but as the re- 

 . moval took place early in March, it was thought advisable to 

 take off a great many of them — between eight and nine thou- 

 ,8and at once — still leaving sufBcient for a crop of bloom. The 

 outline of the plant was not unlike that of a well-grown Portu- 

 gal Laurel — bee-hive shaped, and the dark glossy green foliage 

 was so dense that it was impossible to see into the interior. 

 This plant, I was told, had been about thirty years out of 

 doors, and as this was prior to 1858, it will be seen that the 

 experiment is not one ot recent date. I may, however, add 

 that the removal injured the plant much, the more so as we 

 could not furnish it with the same kind of soil it had been grow- 

 ing in ; and although it has flowered more or less every year, it 

 , has not yet regained the robust condition it had when we re- 

 ; jaoved it. The winters have had no effect upon it as a shrub, 

 although they do exercise an influence in another way detri- 

 mental to its beauty, as will be shown below. 



Being anxious to give the Camellia another trial as an ont- 



. door plant, and having some extensive alterations in hand, in 



. the spring of 1H05 1 made up a circular bed of 10 or 12 feet 



in diameter, and, planted it with a number of Camellias of 



different sizes that had previously been in pots. The natural 



.character of.tl^ftspjl.woul^ rejoice most kitchen gardeners and 



farmers, but from the unsatisfactory condition of the large plant 

 before referred to, I roughly surmised it was not what they 

 wanted. 1 therefore removed it, and replaced it with somo 

 turfy soil from a dry hilly district. This soil was anything but 

 prepossessing in appearance, and came, in fact, from a place 

 wlu're the very worst crops of hay might bo looked for that 

 could be seen for miles round. A plentiful addition of stpno? 

 from the same place was made, and the plants turned out. 

 Some of them died the first season, but most of them eBtablish^d 

 themselves, including several that were not in good health 

 at the time of planting : indeed, the failures mostly occurred 

 amongst plants that had been recently imported from Belgium, 

 and which I have found in other places do not always prosper 

 under the changed treatment they receive at our hands. Tho 

 deaths in the bed rendered some little change necessary in the 

 following season, and ot course any attempts at flowering were 

 removed in the bud. The growth of 18C6 and 18(>7 being satis- 

 faotory, a f6w flowers were furnished last spring, but not many. 

 I was much afraid that the dry, hot weather of the following 

 summer would have bad a serious effect upon them, as water 

 was too scarce to afford them any; but they endured it, and 

 although one or two made a sort of second growth, the others 

 ripened well and set their buds accordingly. One of these, an 

 old Double White, than which I am not aware of any better 

 variety, began to expand its blossoms early in December, and 

 some as good white Camellias as could be desired were gathered 

 before Christmas; what, too, is worthy of remark, not one 

 seemed in the least to suffer from the almost continuous rain 

 we had at the time. Clear white blooms were furnished by 

 this plant up to the 20th of January, when we had a suocession 

 of frosty days and nights, the thermometer falling to 22' on 

 one occasion. This, of course, destroyed all that was orna- 

 mental in the floral way ; and although the buds that ware 

 advancing at the time opened, and expanded their petals, 

 they were all severely injured by the frost, and stained, dirty-^ 

 looking flowers were the result. These frosts ending on the 

 27th, and the weather having been since mild, the injured 

 blooms have by degrees disappeared, and now (February lltb), 

 I find there are some of as pure a white as can be wished, thus 

 proving that it is the frost and not the rain that disfigures tbo 

 llowers of the Camellia. Until the present season I was very 

 sceptical of this being the case, never having so good an oppor- 

 tunity of witnessing the plant's tiowering under such conditions 

 as those in which it has done so this winter, and I hope that 

 others having out-door Camellias will report their experience 

 during the past unusually mild season. 



The above remarks on out-door Cimellias -would not b« Com- 

 plete without mentioning some anomalies connected with the 

 present winter not easily explained. In the bed of plants I 

 have mentioned, only one plant has expanded its flowers ; the 

 others, though not of the same kind, are very backward, while 

 that which flowered did so before some of the kinds in a con- 

 servatory. Perhaps the fine weather we had in November had 

 some influence in catising this result, as the Camellias under 

 glass might be less benefited than those outside ; but there 

 was a rather sharp frost in November, the thermometer falling 

 to 25° on the Cth. This frost, though fatal to bedding Pelar- 

 goniums and similar plants in many situations, was not suffi- 

 cient to injure the swelling buds of the Camellia, otherwiie 

 the bloom of December would have shown the effects ; but the 

 long period without frost of any severity that followed the 8th 

 of November, enabled the plant to go on blooming with really 

 less cheek than it nsually receives in spring ; I might say e««n 

 late in spring, for from the 8th of November to the 2l3t of 

 January the thermometer sunk only on two or three occasions 

 to 20", so that the flowers that were partly screened by lemea 

 sustained no injury — indeed, I may say that none of them 

 received any. However, as stated before, all that were in bloom 

 in the third week in January, and those in an advanced state, 

 were spoiled by the frost, but during the last few days some 

 uninjured bnds have opened, and look as well as in-door ones, 

 they not having been so far advanotd at the time of the OB 

 as to be at all injured, or the frost not sufficiently severe at the 

 time to penetrate them. 



With reference to the inquiry how far it is advisable to pliat 

 this highly ornamental shrub out of doors, a qualified answer 

 must be given. Every winter is not like the present, probably 

 not more than one or two in a lifetime are like it, so that the 

 success experienced this season is not likely to be repeated. 

 Still the beauty of the plant as an evergreen justifies everyone 

 who has a favourable situation trying it out of doors, and if it 

 only partially sucoeeda now and then, a bloom bo. obtained i» 



.'(pjl'J !!:>ii'',ai Aim Uairlijg 9lU ilULCT JJIll>l<."Xl 



