i86 



NATURE 



[July 4, 1872 



MY GARDEN* 



■\ .Y/TTHIN about twelve miles of London Bridge as the 

 ' ' crow flies, at Beddington,in Surrey, Mr. Smee has 

 a garden, and the description and history of this garden 

 are the subject of as pretty and entertaining a book as we 

 have met with for a long time. In thus describing the 

 book, we advisedly use terms which do not imply that it 

 has any great scientific value in the sense of being tlie 

 medium of publication of new facts ; nor, indeed, does it 

 put forward any such pretensions. Mr. Smee, whose 

 reputation as an original investigator in electrical science, 

 and as the inventor of the galvanic battery which bears 



his name, is thirty years old, is in the domain of natural 

 history essentially an amateur, and the work which he 

 now publishes is an amateur's book. To rank it in the 

 same class as Gilbert White's " Natural History of Sel- 

 borne" is very high praise, but in some respects it cer- 

 tainly deserves it. Faults the book undoubtedly has ; 

 some would call it egotistic, but it is a kindly sort of 

 egotism, which interests the reader in the author and 

 everything connected with him ; and here and there the 

 critical reader will detect a slip betraying want of accurate 

 scientific knowledge ; but these are very few compared 

 with the amount of information contained in its pages. 

 Mr. Smee's garden consists of about eight acres, 



Fig. I.— N'alley of Ferns 



bounded on one side by an artificial lake, and watered by 

 the river Wandle. When first brought into cultivation 

 the land was a peat-morass ; but is now made to produce 

 every variety of scenery that ornamental gardening can 

 display. Here we have umbrageous forest-trees, and here 

 a rustic bridge ; here a fern-glen, and here a nightingale 

 bower ; here a rockery of Alpine plants, and here a 

 glimpse of beautiful water scenery. Indeed, in looking at 

 the exquisite drawings with which the book is embellished, 



_ ' "My Garden: its Plan and Culture, together with a GeneraFDescrip- 

 i'°2 S^ "^ Geology, Botany, and Natural History." By Alfred Smee, 

 *.R.S. riuslrated with 1,250 engravings. (London : Bell and Daldy. 

 1873.) 



it is difficult to realise that the scenes they depict can be 

 reached from London in half-an-hour. The following 

 passage, in Mr. Smee's own words, gives his ideas on the 

 proper mode of laying out a garden : — 



" It is a common notion that gardens should be laid out 

 for one general effect ; but the result of such a plan is to 

 produce a single viev/, and the whole can be seen at a 

 glance. This is, however, monotonous, and my liking is 

 to have many pictures ; so that my visitors have to walk 

 a long way before they can see the many beautiful views 

 which my garden affords ; and little spots of cultivated 

 wildness, or of special cultivation, ars found when they arc 

 least expected. 



