KNAP HILL AND BAGSHOT 45 



most of the huge bushes being at their best in June. There is 

 also a good collection of Rhododendrons in the Edinburgh 

 Botanic Gardens. The soil at Glasnevin does not suit them. 



The nurseries in which Rhododendrons are made much 

 of namely, those of A. Waterer, Knap Hill ; ]. Waterer and 

 Sons, Bagshot ; J. Veitch and Sons, Coombe ; Dickson, 

 Edinburgh ; G. Paul and Sons, Cheshunt ; and R. Gill and 

 Sons, Penryn are the sources of nearly all the good garden 

 Rhododendrons, species as well as hybrids, for it is their 

 business to introduce and breed them, as it is to encourage 

 others to admire and grow them. A visit to Knap Hill in 

 June, where there are about sixty acres of Rhododendrons, 

 many of them enormous bushes, the progenitors of thousands 

 and thousands of young plants, affords, when they are in full 

 flower, a feast for any one who can admire floral display. 

 Here and at Bagshot there are countless seedlings, from year- 

 lings upwards, being nursed along in the hope that amongst 

 them there will be here and there one worth perpetuating. 

 An inspection of these seedlings is instructive to any one 

 interested in the breeding of plants. Messrs. J. Veitch and 

 Sons have done more than any firm to obtain the Chinese 

 species for British gardens, and we owe to them entirely 

 the beautiful Javanese race bred from plants introduced by 

 their collectors from the East Indies. 



Of noteworthy private collections the number is con- 

 siderable. It is not easy to say which should be placed first. 

 South-west Cornwall is the head-quarters of the tenderer 

 Himalayan species. At Tregothnan, Tremough, Tresco, 

 Penjerrick, Bosahan, Heligan, Scorrier, Wellington Park, 

 and Trewidden, Rhododendrons grow with astonishing 

 vigour ; it has even been said that they grow better there 

 than in the Himalayas. Suitable soil, a moist atmosphere, 



