Uaroh 23, 1876. 1 



JOUBNAL OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE QARDENEB. 



239 



original gloss, and begin to rust. A shallow broad basket 

 generally looks better than a narrow deep one. 



Daring March, and not later than April, is the best time to 

 fill the baskets. The plants have then a good chance to 

 establish themselves before tho hot sammer weather sets in ; 

 and this is an advantage, as they are more liable to suffer 

 from drought than plants in pots. The baskets always require 

 to be lined with some kind of moss before filling in the soil. 

 Sphagnum and other kinds of green moss generally to be 

 found about forests are often used, and serve the purpose 

 well enough so far ; but nothing is so ornamental as some of 

 the close-growing moss-like Lycopodinms, such as L. apodnm, 

 L. soariosum, the pretty L. Martensii, and many others, which 

 can often be had in large patches ; a few roots of Panicum 

 variegatum mixed with these is an improvement. With such 

 an exterior no other plant need be planted to come through 

 the under part of the basket. 



Plants in baskets should generally be of a scandent and 

 pendant habit, but with a luxuriant undergrowth. An erect 

 plant may be placed in tho centre. The old Begonia Eex 

 makes a beautiful basket plant in either a cool or hot house. 

 It does not flower much, but the leaves are pretty; and beau- 

 tiful foliage permanently is more to be desired than a brief 

 display of flowers. Some of the finer kinds of Agaves are not 

 unbecoming in a small state, and they do not suffer in the 

 least through being hung np in a dry atmosphere. Many of 

 the Ivy-leaved Pelargoniums, such as Elegans, Felicity, Leda, 

 and Butterfly, have good basket properties. Lonioera aurea 

 reticulata, Coprosma Biueriana variegata, Enonymus radicans 

 variegata, and the superior sorts of the variegated Iviss, are 

 all hardy evergreen plants well adapted for ba9ket3. The 

 variegated Vine, Vitis heterophylla variegata, is an elegant 

 drooping plant, and so is Lygodium scaudens. Antirrhiuum 

 procumbens is a common but useful plant ; and the Peri- 

 winkles are of the same order. Many Ferns, both hardy and 

 exotic, are suitable for baskets ; Davallia Tyermannii is a type 

 of them. To form a floral ball in the summer Achimenes are 

 excellent. They should be started into growth in pots or pans, 

 and transplanted into the baskets when their growth is from 

 1 to 2 inches in length. They should be planted over the 

 entire basket. For a temporary display, Tulips, Crocuses, and 

 other spring-flowering bulbs may be employed ; but the most 

 advantageous mode of filling baskets is to use some of the 

 above-mentioned plants, or others eqaal to them, which 

 remain in decorative condition throughout the whole year. 



Drought is the chief thing to be guarded against in hot 

 weather.' Watering in the ordinary way is not of much avail. 

 Each basket should be taken down and immersed in a tub of 

 water to effectually moisten the whole concern. — J. Muir. — 

 (The Gardener.) 



THE OLD MARKET GARDENS and NURSERIES 

 OP LONDON.— No. 8. 



The brief remarks made in a recent number by "A Plain 

 Gaheener" on the application of manure have brought to 

 my recollection the circumstance that I intended to notice 

 in a previous paper on Mr. Middleton's account, published 

 during the early part of the present century, relative to the 

 system of manuring pursued in his time by London market 

 gardeners. He does not expressly state so in as many words, 

 but he seems to imply that to his judgment they used manure 

 too freely in order to force as much as possible out of the 

 ground, and also keep up a quick succession of crops. How 

 much they used to lay on the laud in the ordinary way he 

 does not state, and something depends upon that ; but as it 

 was only usual with them to manure yearly, they could hardly 

 be accused of too frequent an application of stimulus. Of all 

 the manures then in demand stable litter, consisting, of course, 

 of a mixture of decomposing straw and horse dung, was most 

 sought after, because for its price it went farthest. Less in 

 esteem were the street-sweepings and the contents of the cess- 

 pools, formerly so numerous in London. Besides these the 

 gardeners speculated in bones, coal ashes, horn shavings, 

 leather shreds, hog's hair, " scrapings of sheep's trotters, 

 calves' feet, and cow heels ! " Soot also was largely purchased 

 lor garden grounds, but the rascally chimney-sweepers, it ap- 

 pears, had a practice of adulterating or weakening the article 

 by mingling with it finely-sifted ashes and earth. A calcareous 

 marl, dug in Enfield Chase, was also largely vended to the 

 market gardeners north of the metropolis. 



To those of us who are weU acquainted with London and its 



suburbs, with a population of four millions, and thousands of 

 factories c instantly polluting the air with the products of the 

 combuation of coal and coke, it may appear ludicrous that two 

 centuries ago, or more, people should have complained that 

 London smoke interfered with the pursuits of the horticulturist ; 

 yet such was the case, ani the worthy Master John Evelyn 

 hurls invectives at the coal consumers of London City in his 

 " Fumifugum." Excellent in theory, but impracticable even 

 in his time, was his project that people generally should cease 

 to burn coal and take to wood fires, whereby vegetation would 

 be much advantaged ; and he instances the fact that during 

 the Civil War when Newcastle was besieged, causing the cDal 

 trade to be stopped pro tern., the orchards about the Barbican 

 produced more fruit than they had for many years before. 

 These orchards, however, had vanished even before the great 

 fire of London, I fancy. In speaking of the old city girdens and 

 the men who in the sixteenth century or earlier were experi- 

 menters in plant-cultivation, I omitted to name Dr. BuUeyn, 

 author of a curious medical and botanical treatise, and whose 

 history would be an interesting one had time allowed the full 

 chronicle of his doings to survive. He had a house with a 

 plot of garden ground attached, in which he doubtless hjd 

 sundry trees and plants of his own rearing somewhere near 

 Chiswell Street, Finsbury. As the worthy doctor died in 157G 

 becomes in advance of the pioneer horticulturists of the Stuart 

 period. 



Eesuming our consideration of tho northern suburbs of 

 London, we may note further on that Islington, the "laeldon" 

 of the olden time, does not seem to have had attractions for 

 the early nurserymen, the distric being principally open fields, 

 largely devoted to cow-farmingt nntil by degrees the city in 

 its growth during this centuiy, invaded and absorbed them. 

 There were some plots of garden ground, no doubt mostly 

 owned by citizens who had country houses here, and in 

 Charles Lamb's time there was a garden near Colebrooke Eow, 

 where he sojourned to benefit his health, and from his de- 

 scription of the outlook at the back of the cottage he tenanted, 

 close to which flowed the New River, this garden, one may 

 surmise, was a relic of some old nursery ground. Ha speaks 

 of it as spacious, and mentions the Vines, Pears, Strawberries, 

 and vegetables it yielded. And perhaps there may have been 

 some significance in the name " Colebrooke" applied to that 

 locality, the brook serving to supply water to the cultivators 

 of Kale and various Cabbageworts. But this is only conjecture, 

 and the ground is now built upon, the modern map of Isling- 

 ton only exhibiting one patch of nursery ground situate not 

 far from St. Mary's, but without any circumstances of special 

 interest connected with its history. Canonbury, it should be 

 remembered, has its tale of a private nursery garden belong- 

 ing to the Prior of St. Bartholomew. This manor belonged 

 for many years to the monks of St. Bartholomew in Smith- 

 field, and there were mysterious stories about passages under- 

 ground connecting the two. The house having gone to ruin 

 was rebuilt by Bolton, the last Prior, who stuck-up everywhere 

 about the premises his punning device, a bird-bolt or arrow 

 passed through a tun. He was great in gardening too, for 

 he planted Figs and Mulberries, and other trees, some of 

 which were living thirty years ago, and one or two perhaps 

 yet survive in the smaller gardens into which the garden of 

 the Canonbury Manor House is cut up, in so far as it has 

 escaped the builder. There were garden houses, too, attributed 

 to him, in which he sat — not to smoke, however, for the in- 

 troducer of tobacco had not yet made his appearance in tha 

 world. The worthy Prior died in 1532, but a few fragments of 

 his house remain worked-up int) modern residences. 



The localities adjacent to Islington rejoicing in the names 

 of Camden, Somere, and Kentish Towns do not call for ob- 

 servation, and we turn our steps towards Marylebone and the 

 Regent's Park. It may still remain for some time a disputed 

 point whether the former took its name from a church sacred 

 to St. Mary " bonne," the " good Mary," or whether the ap- 

 pellation was " St. Mary on the Bourne," or brook, the said 

 brook flowing from Tyburn to Westminster. The first au- 

 thentic record about Marylebone Park refers to it as a large 

 deer park belonging to the Crown. When Charles I. got into 

 difficulties he was only too happy to find two gentlemen willing 

 to lend money on the park, and after his death the Parharnent 

 made it over to Col. Harrison and his dragoons as an equiva- 

 lent for arrears of pay. I mention this because the sale of the 

 estate by them affords us an insight into the value of land and 

 timber upon it in Stuart times. This park, including the 

 whole of the Regent's Park and also land around that, extend- 



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