CHAP, II. BRITISH ISLANDS. 63 
and shrubs, which will endure to be planted in the open air in 
England, which are to be found in the several nurseries near - 
London,” arranged in alphabetical order, and with short de- 
scriptions. The preface is signed by the twenty ‘ gardeners and 
nurserymen” composing the Society, among which are Fairchild 
of Hoxton, Furber of Kensington, Miller of the Physic Garden, 
Chelsea, Gray of Fulham, and F. and S. Hunt of Putney. 
Some of the patrons of gardening in the above enumeration 
have been already mentioned, and of the others we know but 
little. Spencer Compton, speaker of the House of Commons in 
1714, and afterwards Earl of Wilmington, was a near relative 
of Bishop Compton. He died in 1743. Lewis Kennedy, one 
of the founders of the Hammersmith Nursery, was gardener to 
him in 1739. Sir Charles Wager had, a residence at Parson’s 
Green, where he introduced the scarlet maple (which was then 
called Wager’s maple) in 1725. A Magnoléa grandiflora 
flowered in his garden in 1737. He died in 1743. Collinson 
says that a tulip tree, which had been raised from a seed which 
he gave Sir Charles Wager, flowered for the first time when it 
was thirty years old, in 1756; and Lysons mentions a cedar of 
_ remarkable growth, which grew near the house, in Sir Charles’s 
garden. (Environs, Sc., ii. 829.) The grounds at Mitcham, which 
belonged to Mr. Dubois, are now (Jan. 1835) the property of 
Mr. Blake, an auctioneer at Croydon. Dubois’s house has been 
long since pulled down; but another has been built, which is 
occupied by Mrs. Beckford. In the grounds a number of the trees 
planted by Mr. Dubois still remain. Among these are a very 
large weeping willow; a nettle tree, with branches covering a 
space 50 ft. in diameter, and with a trunk 6 ft. 8 in. in circum- 
ference. ‘The extremities of the branches hang down nearly to 
the ground; and on Jan. 10. 1835, when we had the tree ex- 
amined, the spray was still covered with dark purple berries, 
rather larger than those of the common hawthorn. ‘There is 
a pinaster, with a clear trunk about 40 ft. high ; the girt, about 
3ft. from the ground, 9 ft.; and the total height 60 ft. The 
cracks in the bark of this tree are from 6in. to 8in. deep. There 
is a very old, large, and handsome mulberry tree, the branches 
of which cover a space of 60 ft. in diameter; it bears abundantly 
every year. Besides these, there are very large and old Scotch 
pines; a large old stone pine; large Prinus Mahdleb; a fine 
Prélea trifoliata ; a stag’s horn sumach, with a trunk 6 ft. in girt; 
an old Bignonia radicans ; a large arbutus, and some other fine 
specimens. Dubois died in 1740, aged 83 years. 
The following is an abridged list of the above-mentioned 
catalogue of the Society of Gardeners, with the modern names, 
as given in our Hortus Britannicus, as far as we have been able 
to ascertain them : — 
F 
