Notes on Gardens and Nurseries. 353 



Within a year or two, the kinds of grapes cultivated have been 

 almost confined to four or five kinds, without any eftbrt being 

 made to add some of the recent additions to this delicious 

 fruit. 



A peach house, the same length of the vineries, has been 

 erected, and the trees planted out ; it is, however, only ten 

 feet wide with a span roof at an angle of more than forty-five 

 degrees. The sashes are to be moveable, and have not yet 

 been put on. It is intended to start the trees as early as possi- 

 ble without fire heat, and, in summer, to entirely remove the 

 sashes, that they may have all the benefit of out-door culti- 

 vation. 



The premises are in very good order, and Ave were partic- 

 ularly pleased with several hundred yards of buckthorn hedges 

 planted by Mr. Russell two years ago ; they are now about two 

 feet high, and one dense thicket from the ground up. They 

 are pruned, as all good hedges should be, in the form of an 

 inverted V, and have a far handsomer appearance than the 

 usually clumpy square form given to most hedges : the buck- 

 thorn is, j>(ir excellence^ the hedge plant for our climate, and 

 perfectly impenetrable by an^^ animal when properly pruned 

 and managed. 



Around the mansion, we noticed some superb specimens of 

 fuchsias, one of which, globosa splendens, was six feet high, 

 and one mass of brilliant flowers. Several others were also 

 fine objects, and showed the care and skill of Mr. Russel in 

 producing handsomely grown specimens of this fine tribe. 



Garden of Mr. Mather., Brighton. — We have been much 

 pleased with an inspection of the grapery under the charge of 

 Mr. Needham at this place. The house is about 60 feet long, 

 divided by a partition, and is heated Avith one furnace and 

 flue, and, by means of a damper, one part can be forced into 

 growth several weeks before the other. 



In the spring of 1844, the grapes were planted, and, during 

 the year, made a free growth : in the winter, however, the 

 mice destroyed nearly all the vines. In the spring of 1845, 

 the vacant spaces were renewed with young vines, which 

 commenced growing vigorously, but, in the early part of the 

 summer, Mr. Needham, having occasion to be absent a week 

 or two, during this period, nearly all the newly planted vines 



VOL. XII. — NO. IX. 45 



