212 Gardens of Herefordshire. 



be dressed, watered, &c., without removing the lights, the pit 

 being high enough to allow a person to walk beneath the wires ; 

 and, for admittance, a doorway is made in the back wall. The 

 gardener, Mr. Lander (a most intelligent and obliging man), 

 informed me that the white-fleshed Hoosainee is the best of all 

 the Persian varieties yet tried at Downton. Mr. Knight has 

 discontinued the culture of pine-apples, finding that they were 

 not generally liked by those who dined at his table. I tasted 

 his last fruit (a St. Vincent's), which was excellently flavoured. 



Besides the ( urvilinear-roofed pine-houses, the melon-house, 

 and the fig-house, the kitchen-garden contains a peach-house, 

 which is constructed nmch in the usual way. A simple but ef- 

 fective instrument is used by Mr. Knight for dusting the leaves 

 of bis peach trees, melon plants, vines, &c., with sulphur, which 

 he finds is the best check to the ravages of the red spider. A 

 small cylindrical tin box, with holes in its one end, like the rose 

 of a watering-pot, is attached to a common bellows, by means of 

 a short tube, which slips on to the bellows-pipe. Into this box 

 the sulphur is put, together with some pieces of feathers, and, 

 by blowing with the bellows, the sulphur is ejected through the 

 rose, and distributed over the plants in the form of fine powder. 

 The box is made to open at one end, and, therefore, is easily 

 replenished. 



Oakley Park. — About four miles from Downton Castle, and 

 two from Ludlow, on the south bank of the Teame (but in Shrop- 

 shire), is Oakley Park, the property of the Honourable R. H. 

 Clive. The mansion stands on the north side of an extensive park, 

 a few yards only from the river, which is there considerably in- 

 creased in body by the accession of another stream. The country 

 hereabouts is more level than in the vicinity of Downton Castle ; 

 and, consequently, the scenery surrounding the house is strik- 

 ingly inferior in picturesque beauty, although it is not deficient 

 in beauty of a tamer character. 



Approaching the house along the common road from the 

 Bromfield Lodge, its appearance is exceedingly imposing, for then 

 its two principal fronts (the west and south) come successively 

 into view ; but, upon a nearer inspection, there is an air of bald- 

 ness and a want of finish about it, that greatly lower the previous 

 favourable impression. The carriage-entrance, at the west front, 

 is very mean ; preparations are made, however, for the erection 

 of a stone portico (the house being of brick) on a large scale. 

 On the south front there is a small flower-garden, composed of 

 variously-shaped beds, filled with showy flowers, as petunias, 

 pelargoniums, China asters, &c. A handsome curvilinear-roofed 

 conservatory is attached to the mansion ; and, as the plants in 

 it are not planted in borders of earth, as is usual in conserva- 

 tories, but are kept in pots standing upon a bed of sand, a suc- 

 cession of bloom might be, and probably is, kept up from a 



