194 POTHER/GILL'S BOTANIC GARDEN CHAP. 



suitable box, of which drawings were given. The box 

 was to be closed with netting supported by hoops to 

 protect it from cats and dogs, and small bits of glass in 

 the soil were to keep out rats. There was to be a canvas 

 cover to shelter the contents from salt spray, but this 

 was to be removed when the waves were foamless. 1 By 

 all these means Fothergill's garden came to be especially 

 rich in North American plants. He took much pains to 

 give them a soil and climate in which they could thrive. 



" Under a north wall," he writes to Marshall in 1772, " I 

 have a good border, made up of that kind of rich black turf-like 

 soil, mixed with some sand, in which I find most of the Ameri- 

 can plants thrive best. It has a few hours of the morning 

 and evening sun, and is quite sheltered from mid-day heats. It 

 is well supplied with water during the summer ; and the little 

 shrubs and herbaceous plants have a good warm covering of 

 dry fern thrown over them when the frosts set in. This is 

 gradually removed when the spring advances, so that as the 

 plants are never frozen in the ground while they are young 

 and tender, I do not lose any that come to me with any degree 

 of life in them ; and it is acknowledged by our ablest botanists 

 that there is not a richer bit of ground, in curious American 

 plants, in Great Britain ; and for many of the most curious 

 I am obliged to thy diligence and care. My garden is well 

 sheltered ; the soil is good, and I endeavour to mend it as 

 occasion requires. I have a little wilderness, which when I 

 bought the premises was full of old yew trees, laurels and 

 weeds. I had it cleared, well dug, and took up many trees, 

 but left others standing for shelter. Among these I have 

 planted Kalmias, Azaleas, all the Magnolias, and most other 

 hardy American shrubs. It is not quite eight years since I 

 made a beginning, so that my plants must be considered but 

 as young ones. They are, however, extremely flourishing. 

 I have an Umbrella tree [Magnolia tnpetala L.] above twenty 

 feet high, that flowers with me abundantly every spring ; but 

 the . great Magnolia [grandi flora] has not yet flowered ; it 

 grows exceedingly fast ; I shelter his top in the winter ; he 

 gains from half a yard to two feet in height every summer, 

 and will ere long I doubt not repay my care with his beauty 

 and fragrance." 



A plant which much attracted both Collinson and 



1 A copy of the printed Directions is in the MS. Lin-nee an Correspondence 

 at the Linnean Society. 



