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JOURNAL OF nORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. I SopUmbor 16, 1869. 



plot, and stir it with a trowel, even after being lampooned 

 thiu : — 



" Professor Ji»witt a littlo garden made, 

 And round it put a little palllsade. 

 A little Rardcn tiikolh littlo wit to show it, 

 And little wit had littlo Dr. Jowltt." 



This, and much more to tho same purpose, came to my re- 

 membrance when looliinp from my window at Ilfracombe I saw 

 a miniature garden, which a table-cloth would cover, havinR a 

 narrow walk all round, a narrower border crammed with pigmy 

 plants next the enclosing walls, and a grass plot in tho centre, 

 BO small that its owner was mowing it— clipping it I should 

 say, with a pair of scissors. 



Of extensive gardens I saw but few in North Devon, and in 

 them Die horticulture was not of superlative excellence. Tho 

 culture of culinary vegetables is there more successfully pur- 

 sued than that of ornamental plants, and I was esrcciallv in- 

 terested by the prevalent mode of taking up the Potato crop. 

 The soil is light, and usually are the ridges of Potatoes on a 

 Bteep slope. The only implement used is a long-bladed hoe, 

 and beginning at the lowest end of each ridge, this long blade 

 is struck into it beneath each Potato plant, and a pull towards 

 the operator brings all the tubers rolling to his feet. The soil 

 and climate are favourable to the growth of the Potato, and 

 upon my so observing to a gentleman whom I casually met 

 daring i,ne of my rambles, he repUed, " So my ancestor thought, 

 when he, the first field-cultivator of it, planted them near 

 Exeter, exactly one hundred years since." Who mv informant 

 was I know not; but i\[r. Huberts, in his " Social History," i 

 eays " One Moore, an Irishman, planted the first field of Pota- • 

 toes in Devon, at Poltimore, where he resided." Poltimore is I 

 about five miles from Exeter. 



Although there is no very superior flower gardening in North 

 Devon, yet a love of flowering plants prevails there among all 

 classes, as it does elsewhere in England ; and if a Eose tree, 

 Fuchsia, or Myrtle is planted and left to itself, and unprotected, 

 the climate is so genial, that it attains a size and vigour never 

 witnessed in our colder localities. This was further impressed 

 upon me by seeing near Lee Bay a hedge of Veronica Ander- 

 sonu. It is a common error to connect the name of North 

 Devon with the conclusion that its climate must be more severe 

 than that of South Devon. So far is this from being tho truth, 

 that the mean temperature of Ilfracombe, Lynmouth, and 

 their coast vicinities is slightly higher than that of Torquay, 

 %vith this additional advantage, that the average summer tem- 

 perature is lower, and the average winter temperature is higher 

 —a fact explicable by our knowledge of the Gulf stream flow- 

 ing along its shore. 



In no other year have I noted such a frequent occurrence of 

 white variegation in the foliage of our native hedge-row plants. 

 Such abnormal colouring is rarely permanent ; but this is not 

 the case, we know, with our garden plants, cultivated for this 

 peculiarity. I was introduced, at Chippenham, to a geutlemnu 

 who admires especially white-variegated-leaved plants, and he 

 showed me a Wych Elm in his garden that has the natural 

 green foliage on its topmost and lowest boughs, whilst those on 

 the central branches are white. This gentleman, Charles 

 Bailey. Esq., is onoof those who indulge largely in " the luxury 

 of doing good." Not only has he built residences and endowed 

 them for decayed practitioners of medicine and their widows, 

 but 15 generally the friend of the distressed. His scientific 

 collections show that his head as well as heart " turns to what 's 

 most wholesome," and liis garden evinces that admiration of 

 things graceful is not incompatible with a love of things of 

 thought, and things of kindhness. 



I must now lay down my pen, for I had only a Parthian glance 

 at that most Swiss-like district of North Devon about Lynton. 

 If Moore had seen the "Waters' Meet" near Lvnmouth, he 

 ■would not have written, unless as specially applicable to it— 

 "Tliero is not in tlie wide world a valloy so sweet 

 As tho vale in whoso bosom tho bright waters meet." 



If the poet had looked upon the North Devon " Waters' 

 Meet," he would have seen that the Combe, in which join the 

 streams of the Lyn and the Brend, is quite as " sweet " as that 

 •valley in Ireland where those of the Avon and Avoca unite.— G. 



DEATH OF MR. A^EITCH. 



It is again our painful duty to record tho death of another 

 eminent horticulturist — one whose name has been often on the 

 lips, and prominently in the minds, of all lovers of plants 

 wherever civilisation has spread. On Friday last, tho 10th 



inst., died at Stanley Hodm, King's Bnad, Chelsea, Mr. Jimsb 

 Veitch, the head of the firm of James Veitch & Sons, aged 51. 



Mr. Veitoh was the third in succession of three generations 

 of nurserymen of his name, who for nearly n century have 

 occupied a prominent poaition in that branch of indastry. His 

 grandfather, n native of Jedburgh, in Scotland, oalahlished a 

 nursery at Kdlerton, near Exeter, towards the end of the last 

 century, and there the subject of this notice and his father 

 were born ; the former on the 24lh of May, 1815, and the 

 latter in 1792. 



Early in hfe Mr. Veitch exhibited those tastes and qualities 

 of mind which developed with his yeors, and combined to 

 make him in afterlife Ibe man he was. When yet young Lis 

 father cent him to London to gain the experience which at 

 that time could only bo obtained in a London nursery. The 

 provincial cstsblii^bmenls were in those days much more de- 

 pendant on the London nurseries for novelties and sapplies 

 than they are now; and it was to Lnndon — severed though 

 it was at that lime from the rest of the country by long 

 roads, and reached only by stage coaches and stage waggons 

 — that all who wanted improvement and extended experience 

 and knowledge, were usually attracted. Mr. Veitch, always 

 ardent in the love of his pursuit, was first sent to the nursery 

 of Chandler .t Son, of Vauxhall. at that time the special at- 

 traction for the culture of the Camellia, and then lor a short 

 time to that of Mr. lloUisson, of Tooting, in whose family he 

 resided. We mention this fact because it has a bearing on 

 Mr. Veitch's future, and on that of the Exeter and Chelsea 

 nurseries. As his son was at Mr. llollisson's for improvement, 

 and at the same time living in his family, Mr. Veiich, senior, 

 prudently thought that some compensation was due for the 

 favours his son was receiving, but the Messrs. EoUi.'^son firmly 

 declined to entertain any such proposition ; and Mr. Veitch 

 commissioned the subject of this memoir, before leaving 

 Messrs. Fiullisson, to purchase from them plants to a certain 

 amount, as a graceful acknowledgement of the favours and ad- 

 vantages he had received in their establishment. Orchids 

 were at that time just coming into vogue, and our young nnr- 

 seryman exercised his taste and his judgment in making a 

 selection of Orchids, among which were Oocidium papilio and 

 other rarities of that period, with which he started on his way 

 homewards ; and these were the beginnings of those Orchid 

 collections %vhich have now for many years made the nurseries 

 of the Veitches famous. 



About this time the long-contemplated removal of the nur- 

 sery from KiUerton was being carried out ; and whether it was 

 in consequence of the new ideas and fresh impulse he had 

 acquired by his experiences in London, or the natural develop- 

 ment of an establishment which had still within it the united 

 judgment of sire and grandsire. true it is that from the time of 

 Mr. James Veitch's return to Devonshire the Exeter establish- 

 ment took a development which progressed with wonderful 

 rapidity, and never ceased till it became without exception the 

 most important and noted of the provincial nurseries. The 

 Orchid purchase, and we suspect also the fresh knowledge 

 which only stimulated a taste already strong, had their effects 

 in giving a direction to the nature of the business which was 

 in future to be the distinguishing characteristic of Mr. Veitch's 

 life. It was not long before a search for Orchids and new 

 plants was to be made in their native habitats rather than in 

 the London nurseries, and accordingly in the year 1840 Mr. 

 William Lobb was despatched to Brazil to enrich tho Exeter 

 Nurseries, and through them the plant collections of England. 

 A house was erected specially in which to raise (he seeds sent 

 home by Mr. Lobb ; and among the first of his introductions 

 were Dipladeuia spleudens, Hindsia violscea. Gloxinia epeciosa 

 var. maorophylla variegate. Begonia coccinca, Mauettia bicolor, 

 Echitcs atropurpurea and hirsuta, Hypccyrta strigillosa, Stig- 

 mapbyllon ciliatum and heterophyllum, Tropiculum azureum, 

 Kondektia longiflora, Gesiiera polyantha, and many others. 



Encournged by tho success that attended Mr. William Lobb's 

 mission, about three years after his departure for Brazil his 

 brother, Mr. Thomas Lobb, was sent to Java, and there began 

 the foundation of tho Orchid collections, which culminated iu 

 what may be now seen in the exhibitions of Messrs. Veitch and 

 Sons at the great shows and in their immense collection at 

 Chelsea. Those who knew Mr. Veitch well could imagine tha 

 delight with which he would hail among the first receipts from 

 Java such plants as Phalirnopsis grandiflora and Vanda suavis, 

 for they were of the earliest that arrived. To follow out in 

 detail all that was done by the Messrs. Veitch of Exeter would 

 occupy more space than we have at command. The time came 



