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JOUBNAL OF HOETIODLTDBE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



[ October 29, 1874. 



on waJla with fair success. At one such in Perthshire Peaches 

 are grown 10 and 11 inches in circumference, but they do not 

 always have good flavour. We have it on the authority of 

 Mr. D. Thomson that Peaches against a wall were uncertain, 

 covered with glass they were improved ; and now we have 

 come to this — both in north aud south Britain failures are 

 recorded of the Peach crop in unheated glass structures. 

 Nearly a dozen years ago I pointed out the uselessness of un- 

 heated orchard houses for the Peach in exposed, high, and cold 

 localities ; but this does not prove — the altered opinion of 

 orchard-house promoters (I do not include Mr. Thomson) — our 

 climate to have decreased in temperature, for the Greenwich 

 observations show the contrary ; but that cooling or cooled 

 enthusiasm is enabled to perceive and acknowledge a failure 

 as well as a success. It is absurd to conclude that because 

 someone fails to grow Peaches in an unfavourable climate — in 

 a cold and high exposed locality — he is a bungling fellow ; 

 whilst the one in a favoured climate because he succeeds, not 

 of his greater knowledge or skill, is wondrous clever. It is 

 from not considering the altered circumstances that the conclu- 

 sion is arrived at that a failure in Peach-culture on walls is to 

 be taken as parallel of the whole. A failure in one place unfa- 

 vourably situated points to failure in the most favoured ; for 

 what difference can there be in places only a few miles distant 

 from each other ? Not much on a plane surface, which our 

 island is the reverse of, and not very greatly differing in tem- 

 perature, but so much 60 as to render possible in one locality 

 what is not practicable in another. There is also diversity of 

 moisture — of rainfall as well as of temperature — and of soil, 

 exerting an influence, favourable or the reverse, upon the 

 growth and perfection of fruits. — G. Abbey. 

 (To bo continued.) 



WESTWARD HO !— No. 3. 

 I MENTIONED that although the main object of my visit to 

 Bath had been frustrated by the sudden and severe illness of 

 my valued friend the late rector, yet I had seen something 

 in fruit-culture which I thought would prove of interest to the 

 readers of the Journal ; and as I lately designated Mr. Mount's 

 garden at Canterbury a model Rose garden, so I may speak 

 of the garden of Mr. Cross at Bath as 



A MODEL FEUIT GABDEN. 



And as in the case of the Canterbury garden it was situated in 

 a place where no one would hardly look for it, so I am quite 

 sure the garden I now proceed to describe would never be 

 looked for in the position in which it is. Would anyone, I 

 shonld like to know, look for a model garden of any kind in 

 the small spaces attached to a row of houses V Would he, 

 if he were given a space 100 feet by 30, ever dream of eon- 

 verting it into a fruit garden ? And yet this is what Mr. 

 Cross's garden is ; and when I enumerate the number of kinds 

 grown I rather fancy some will hold up thtir hands in aston- 

 ishment. Well, here is the list: — Forty Apples, forty Pears, 

 six Cherries, nine Plums, three Apricots, three Peaches, three 

 Nectarines ! The garden is of course walled-in : the south 

 wall contains the Nectarines, Ac, the west Plums, and the 

 north Morello Cherries. There is a narrow border, and the 

 centre of the garden is filled with the Apples and Pears, in 

 some cases two or three sorts on one tree. The sorts grown 

 are good. I saw Pear trees literally borne down by the weight 

 of fine, well-formed, and large fruit. Cos's Orange Pippin and 

 other fine Apples produced an abundance, while the Morellos 

 on the north wall were really as fine fruit as ever I saw at an 

 exhibition. And by-the-by, Mr. Cross gave me a wrinkle on 

 the preserving of brandied Cherries. He says that the fruit 

 ought to be put into the brandy alone, and the sugar not added 

 for three months afterwards. In addition to the fruit growing 

 Mr. Cross has a greenhouse, a lean-to, 25 feet by 1.3, and from 

 an old Hamburgh Vine in this he cuts annually three hundred 

 bnnches of Grapes averaging a pound each. 



It need not, I think, after this be said that his garden is 

 Mr. Cross's hobby, that the trees have all been formed and 

 trained by his own hand, that he is a thoroughly practical 

 man, and has many ingenious devices for the more successful 

 culture of his pets. Some timS' ago people were complaining 

 of the wire cutting the trees where the system of wiring walls 

 is carried oat ; and Mr. Cross at that time wrote to the Journal 

 (for he is one of us), aud stated that the simplest way to 

 prevent this was twisting the bast two or three times round 

 the wire, and so preventing the friction. I may truly say that. 



taking it altogether, I have never seen a more remarkable 

 instance of what real love for a pursuit can do in the most 

 unlooked-for places and under circumstances of no ordinary 

 difficulty ; and when people hereafter complain of the impos- 

 sibility of growing fruit trees I shall think of Mr. Cross's 

 garden at Bath. 



As I mentioned, Bath was taken en route to Taunton ; but 

 it will readily be imagined that I was not likely to go to the 

 latter place without calling in at Laugport to see the Gladiolus 

 of Mr. Kelway, and my last visit in this westward trip was 

 paid to the 



LANGPORT NUESERV. 



Everyone who reads our Journal must know that the nursery 

 has been made famous by the successful culture of the Gladi- 

 olus, and many have witnessed the proofs of that success in 

 the marvellous spikes exhibited at the Crystal Palace, South 

 Kensington, and elsewhere. For between twenty and thirty 

 years Mr. Kelway has been pursuing their culture, and there 

 can be no doubt that he has now a strain of flowers of un- 

 surpassed excellence and of great variety of colouring. 



Unfortunately neither Mr. Kelway nor his son was at home, 

 but I had the advantage of going through his grounds with 

 his foreman Mr. Drummond and of examining very many of 

 his flowers. I do not think that on the whole his cultures 

 were quite equal to those of former years. In the early part of 

 the year Mr. Kelway, jnn., was laid by for many weeks with 

 rheumatic fever, and hence, probably, the care required at 

 planting time was not so freely bestowed ; but still, what won- 

 derful blooms. there were there, and what fine, vigorous, healthy 

 foliage ! It would be idle for me to attempt to enumerate the 

 sorts which I marked and noted in my memorandum-book as 

 fine. Let me, however, note a few. Beauty of England is a 

 noble white flower of large size and great purity ; and even 

 greater praise than this may be given to Phyllis, a lovely pure 

 white flower. Batiatus, flesh, flaked carmine ; Ball of Fire, 

 brilliant scarlet crimson ; Rev. H. H. Dombrain, soft red with 

 white throat ; Capt. Stuekey, dark crimson ; Lady Bridport, 

 blush, flaked carmine ; Hecamede, a yellowish flower ; Orange 

 Boven, a fine deep-coloured yellow ; Harrison Weir, pink, with 

 purplish white feather ; Jobes, something like Orphee, but 

 larger; Acme, a fine long spike; Eclair, rich currant red; 

 Pictum, salmon red flaked with carmine ; Medina, white, shaded 

 rose ; Miss Phillis Stuekey, rose, white line on each petal. 

 But there I must stop, for I could fill pages with an enume- 

 ration of fine and desirable sorts. As I have said before, there 

 does not seem to be anything peculiar in the soil or culti- 

 vation to account for Mr. Kelway's success. It simply arises 

 from this, that he has obtained a very fine strain of flowers 

 and that he grows them well. His plants are, I think, unusu- 

 ally wide apart (2 feet) ; but he can afford the room, so there 

 is no reason why he should not carry out his plan. I should 

 doubt, too, the use of so large a quantity of manure for top- 

 dressing as he employs. But then he would probably say to me, 

 " See what it has done." No one looking at this noble collec- 

 tion but would desire to grow the flower ; and were it not for 

 the terrible drawback of the disease I am sure Gladioli would be 

 much more extensively cultivated than they are. No one has 

 done more by his own success and by the beautiful flowers he 

 exhibits to extend their culture than Mr. Kelway, and a visit 

 to his grounds at the blooming time is no ordinary treat. 



Thus has ended my westward run. I have said my say about 

 the Taunton Show ; and I have only to repeat again what I 

 have said so often before — that I have experienced nothing 

 but the utmost kindness and good feeling from all lovers of 

 flowers of whatever grade with whom I have been brought into 

 contact. — D., Deal. 



DATUEA ARBOBEA CULTURE. 



This is a very old plant that little attention is paid to, hut 

 when well grown it is a very showy subject in September and 

 October, aud it is easily grown ; but still, if not grown well it 

 is worthless, and this applies to all sorts of plants. A well- 

 grown Balsam is worth looking at, but a stunted one is worth- 

 less. If an eye of Datura is struck in March and kept in a 

 frame for six weeks it will give twelve to eighteen blooms by 

 September ; and the following yeai-, if cut down within an eye 

 of the old wood, it will produce three dozen or so of flowers. 

 It is a gross-feeding plant, and will take one-third of manure 

 in a lumpy state and mixed with the soil. The points of the 

 shoots are apt to be attacked with green fly, and must be 

 well syringed also to prevent red spider. When done bloom- 



