526 General Results of a Gardening Tour : — 



and take care of them. Mr. Starkey has purchased some 

 ground and widened the village street where it was narrow, 

 devoting a marginal space to evergreens and flowers, unpro- 

 tected by any fence. Mrs. Starkey has also planted and 

 carefully trained laurels, box, and holly, against the church- 

 yard wall. In other situations, where laurels would not 

 grow, she has planted ivy ; some chimney tops she has orna- 

 mented with creepers, and others she has rendered more 

 picturesque by architectural additions. Mrs. Starkey's own 

 house, which is entered directly from the village street, is orna- 

 mented by a veranda which extends its whole length. In- 

 dependently of woody climbers of the finest sorts, which 

 remain on this veranda all the year, pelargoniums, georginas, 

 maurandias, lophosj)ermums, and other similar plants, are 

 planted at the base of the trellised supports, and flower there - 

 during the summer, open not only to the gaze, but to the 

 touch, of every passenger. At the opposite side of the 

 street is another piece of trellis-work, as the fence to a flower 

 garden : this trellis, when we saw it, was partially covered 

 with purple and white clematis, sweet peas, nasturtium, 

 calampelis, pelargoniums, and georginas. These hung over 

 into the street in profusion ; and the gardener assured us that 

 no person, not even a child, ever touched a flower or a leaf. 

 Mr. Starkey (a Manchester manufacturer) had not yet ar- 

 rived there for the season, and the house was in consequence 

 shut up ; but of this circumstance the villagers took no ad- 

 vantage. In the gardens of this village, and in part also 

 in those of Ambleside and Grasmere, may be seen many of 

 the new potentillas, geums, lupines, clarkia, &c. ; and against 

 the walls, kerria, Cydonia japonica, China roses of different 

 sorts, clematis, and other climbers are not uncommon. The 

 village of Bowness affords a proof that, when the public are 

 treated with confidence, they will act well in return ; and 

 that, notwithstanding what has been said of the rudeness 

 of John Bull, he will, when • treated like the French and 

 Germans, become as considerate and polite as they are. It 

 is true, the working inhabitants of London and of manufac- 

 turing towns cannot be expected all at once to pay the same 

 respect to flowers as the inhabitants of Bowness ; but time 

 will remedy this evil. 



The village of Slyne, near Lancaster, is now under a 

 course of amelioration and decoration by Mr. and Mrs. 

 Greene Bradley ; and will, we trust, soon admit of compari- 

 son with Bowness. The first step in improving a village is 

 to render the houses commodious, and perfectly warm and 

 comfortable ; and the next, to increase the gardens attached 



