Provincial Gardens. 4-33 



writers, is, as the great Lord Bacon observes of it, " one of the purest of 

 human pleasures." We indeed rejoice to find this Society so appreciated 

 and encouraged as it now is, for we are informed that ten new members, 

 who were proposed at the former meeting, were elected on Monday; 

 twenty-six were nominated as candidates for admission, who were princi- 

 pally from among the gentry and clergy of the county. The practical gar- 

 dener, who is also admitted, must find it his interest to join a society like 

 this, where his exertions are rewarded, and his merit is made known ; for we 

 may say, in the lines of Cowper : — 



" What we admire, we praise; and when we praise, 

 Advance it into notice, that, its worth 

 Acknowledged, others may admire it too." 



{Ipswich Journal, August '2.) 



Art. VI. Provincial Gardens. 



Bagshot Parks H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester. (May 13.)— The situ- 

 ation of this residence is fitit, the soil poor, and there is little or no distant 

 prospect. Fortunately the ground is dry, a circumstance favourable to 

 making walks ; and there is a considerable breadth of wood, partly natural, 

 as a scene for conducting the walks from one glade to another, and these 

 glades are ornamented and planted with rare and showy shrubs and flowers. 

 The merit of the place consists entirely in these ornamented and enriched 

 glades and walks. The house is a plain old building, of no interest in an 

 architectural point of view, and only noticeable on account of some mag- 

 nolias, passion-flowers, myrtles, pomegranates, and climbing, many-flowered, 

 ever-flowering, and Greville roses, which are trained against it. Looking 

 from the entrance front to the right, a very fine old oak meets the eye; to 

 the left, some fine specimens of Cornish elm, with very straight trunks and 

 few branches, the tallest 80 ft. high, and one of the largest silver firs in 

 England, 110 ft. high. The Cornish elm is readily known at this season, 

 by being the latest of coming in leaf. 



The flower-garden of Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester, 

 which Mr. Toward has measured and mapped purposely for this notice 

 {'fig. 116.), is entered through a very well designed and admirably executed 

 close rustic gate {a) and arbour trellis walk {h). Passing under some im- 

 mense beech trees, the first striking feature is the rosary (c), which consists 

 of a vei'y complete collection of dwarf |)lants, in digged groups or masses, 

 on a surface of turf, surrounded by a shrubbery of evergreens. The plants 

 are exceedingly well managed, and flower, as we have been informed by 

 several persons, with greater vigour than roses do almost any where. The 

 cause of this is, their being planted in a loamy rich soil, the plants not too 

 much crowded, cut down at every winter's pruning to within a few inches 

 of the soil, and taken up and renewed every six or seven years. When the 

 flowering season is over, the stools, as they may be called, throw up the 

 most vigorous shoots, which, with the exception of one here and there, 

 which overtops the rest, and injures the tufted outline of the masses, are 

 allowed to perfect their leaves, and ripen their wood. This, as Mr. Toward 

 observed, must greatly strengthen the roots, and is, no doubt, the principal 

 reason why they grow so vigorously the following year, as in a great measure 

 to defy the attacks of the aphides. 



The next leading feature in this garden is an extensive compartment {d) 

 laid out in masses of showy herbaceous plants, edged with box, and separated 

 Vol. IV. — No. 16. f f 



