Jannary 29, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICDLTURH AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



97 



improvement. I do not consider Eraser's any improvement on 

 the old sort. — William Taylok, Longleat. 



GEAPES THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. 



I SEND you a few berries of Mrs. Pince and Lady Downe's 

 Grapes. Tliey were cut from the Vines on the 13th of this 

 mouth, from a house that I began cutting from in the middle 

 of last July. The sort I had ripe first was Royal Muscadine. 

 I had between three and four hundred bunches in all, and they 

 have been generally very good. I think six months is a good 

 long season to cut from one house, but I have an opinion that 

 i could have cut until the seventh month without doing much 

 damage to the Vines ; but I will not hold that it would be any 

 advantage to them to let a few bunches hang until you started 

 the house, then cut them. I started the house last year in the 

 middle of February, but did not cut-off the wood, or it would 

 be a bad thing in the way of bleeding, but rubbed-off the eyes 

 as they broke, and cut the wood off at a later season, when the 

 Grapes began to colour. 



A good judge told me a few days ago he thought these 

 •Grapes would keep nearly two months longer in a good Grape- 

 room in bottles or in a Beetroot — that would be making eight 

 months ; and a nice little house for early forcing would soon 

 complete having Grapes eleven months out of the twelve, as I 

 think to have new Grapes by May, and that would be good 

 work. I have found many faults with this vinery. It was 

 planned and planted before I knew it. I should be pleased to 

 describe its construction to you if you think it worth while. — 

 Thomas Mates, Gardener, Crowcomhe Park. 



[The Grapes arrived in perfectly good condition, and from 

 the greenness of the stalks would, as suggested, have kept two 

 months longer ; they were superior specimens in every respect. 

 We shall be obliged by the description you offer, and by details 

 of management. — Ens.] 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



We have been requested to pubhsh the following letter : — 



"Boyal Horticultural Sooioty, South KeuBington, S.W., 

 "January 21, 1874. 



" Sib, — I shall be much obliged if you will allow me to refer 

 in your columns to a circular which has been sent to Fellows 

 announcing the formation of a Vote-by-proxy Association. 



" The Council do not suppose that a paper so intemperate will 

 in any way commend itself to the Fellows, and they certainly 

 do not propose to put the Society to the expense and annoyance 

 •of issuing a counter circular ; but they think it desirable to point 

 out by this means, with your indulgence, that the principal 

 allegations in the circular, signed by Lord Alfred Churchill, 

 Mr. Bateman, &c. — viz., 1, ' That the Council did not summon 

 the meeting of the 8th inst. within the period directed by the 

 bye-laws ;' 2, ' That they have set the Fellows at defiance ;' 

 3, ' That the Council represents only such Fellows as desire to 

 keep the Kensington Gardens as a pleasure garden, at the ex- 

 pense of the interests of horticulture ' — are absolutely untrue. 



" The Council are amazed that such unscrupulous statements 

 should have been made, and also at the questionable ingenuity 

 by which the names of Fellows who are said to have expressed 

 opinions in favour of proxy-voting are attached to the circular 

 embodying these statements. — I have the honour to be, sir, 

 your obedient servant, " W. A. Lindsay, Secretary." 



THE SEASON. 



The mildness of the weather is bringing out the spring 

 tSowers early. At our two gardens oil Weybridge Heath there 

 are now in bloom — 



Cyclamen Atkineii 



coum 



coum albuul 



vernum 



ibericum 

 Iberi8 gibrpltarica 

 Arable procurrena 

 Aubrietia deitoidea 

 Hepatica augnlosa 



single mauve 



sin;ile pink 



Bingle blue 

 Primroses 



Primula denticulata 

 Lithospermum prostratum 

 Erica caroea 



codonoides 

 Daisies 

 Yellow Crocus 

 Brautbis hyemalis 

 Helleborus ni^'er 

 Colcbicum autiimnale fl.-pl. 

 Jasminum nudiflorum 

 Louicera fragrautissima 

 Violet Czar 



Russian 



-Georoe F. Wilson, Heatlierhank, Weybridge Heath. 



is rather pleasant to the taste. I never saw it growing any- 

 where at the Cape, excepting on the seashore, amidst the 

 most arid sands, where it seemed to thrive and flourish amaz- 

 ingly. I have often eaten the berries, which are, as you say, 

 about the size of a pea. — G. B. 



Chtjiococca emtetroides. — It is a most lovely little bush, 

 in my opinion, and the fruit, which is scarlet orange in hue. 



MY WINTER GARDEN. 



I TKEFER to any glass roof that Sir Joseph Paxton ever 

 planned that dome above my head, some three miles high, of 

 soft dappled-grey and yellow cloud, through the vast latticework 

 whereof the blue sky peeps, and sheds down tender gleams on 

 yellow bogs, and softly-rounded Heather knolls, and pale 

 chalk ranges gleaming far away. But, above all, I glory in 

 my evergreens. What winter garden can compare for them 

 with mine? True, I have but four kinds — Scotch Fir, Holly, 

 Furze, and the Heath ; and, by way of relief to them, only 

 brows of brown Fern, sheets of yellow bog grass, and here and 

 there a leafless Birch, whose purple tresses are even more 

 lovely to my eye than those fragrant green ones which she 

 puts on in the spring. Well, in painting as in music, what 

 effects are more grand than those produced by the scientific 

 combination, in endless new variety, of a few simple elements? 

 Enough for mo is the one purple Birch; the bright Hollies 

 round its stem sparkling with scarlet beads ; the Furze patch, 

 rich with its lacework of interwoven light and shade, tipped 

 here and there with a golden bud ; the deep soft Heather 

 carpet, which invites you to lie down and dream for hours ; 

 and, behind all, the wall of red Fir stems, aud the dark Fir 

 roof, with its jagged edges a mile long, agaiuit the soft grey 

 sky. An ugly, straight-edged, monotonous Fir plantation ! 

 Well, I like it, outside and inside. I need no saw-edge of 

 mountain peaks to stir up my imagination with the sense of 

 the sublime while I can watch the saw-edge of those Fir peaks 

 against the red sunset. They are my Alps — Uttle ones it may 

 be ; but after all, as I asked before, what is size ? A phantom 

 of our brain — an optical delusion. Grandeur, if you will con- 

 sider wisely, consists in form, not in size; and to the eye of 

 the philosopher, the curve drawn on a paper 2 inches long is 

 just as magnificent, just as symboUc of Divine mysteries and 

 melodies, as when embodied in the span of some cathedral 

 roof. Have you eyes to see ? Then lie down on the grass, and 

 look near enough to see something more of what is to be seen, 

 and you will find tropic jungles in every square foot of turf, 

 mountain cUffs and debacles at the mouth of every rabbit- 

 burrow, dark strids, tremendous cataracts, " deep glooms and 

 sudden glories" in every foot-broad rUl which wanders through 

 the turf. All is there for you to see if you wiU but rid your- 

 self of " that idol of space ;" and Nature — as everyone wUl tell 

 you who has seen an insect dissected under the microscope — ■ 

 is grand and graceful in her smallest as in her hugest forms. 



The March breeze is chilly, but I can be always warm if I 

 like in my winter garden. I turn my horse's head to the red 

 wall of Fir stems, and leap over the Furze-grown bank into 

 my cathedral, wherein, if there be no saints, there are likewise 

 no priestcraft and no idols ; but endless vistas of smooth red 

 green-veined shafts, holding up the warm dark roof, lessening 

 away into endless gloom, paved with rich brown Fir needle — 

 a carpet at which Nature has been at work for forty years. 

 Bed shafts, green roof, aud here and there a pane of blue sky 

 — neither Owen Jones nor Willement can improve upon that 

 ecclesiastical ornamentation — while for incense I have the fresh 

 healthy turpentine fragrance. There is not a breath of air 

 within ; but the breeze sighs over the roof above in a soft 

 whisper. I shut my eyes and listen. Surely that is the 

 murmur of the summer sea upon the summer sands in Devon 

 far away. I hear the innumerable wavelets spend themselves 

 gently upon the shore, and die away to rise again. And with the 

 innumerable wavesighs come innumerable memories aud faces 

 which I shall never see again upon this earth. I wUl not 

 tell even you of that, old friend. It has two notes — two keys 

 rather — that iEolian harp of Fir needles above my head ; 

 according as the wind is east or west, the needles dry or wet. 

 This easterly key of to-day is shriller, more cheerful, warmer 

 in sound, though the day itself be colder; but grander still, as 

 well as softer, is the sad soughing key in which the south-west 

 wind roars on rain-laden, over the forest, and calls me forth — 

 being a minute philosopher — to catch trout in the nearest 

 chalk stream. The breeze is gone awhUe, and I am in perfect 

 silence — a silence which may be heard. Not a sound, and not 

 a moving object — absolutely none. The absence of animal life 

 is solemn — startling. The ringdove, who was cooing half a 



