Calls at Suburban Gardens. 



361 



Art. V. Covent Garden Market. 



The supply of culinary vegetables and hardy fruits continues to be more 

 than usually abundant. Excellent white broccoli brings from 6d. to 3s. 6d. 

 per bunch. Onions from Is. 6d. to 2s. per bushel. The very best onions 

 that can be purchased do not bring more than 2s. 6d. per bushel, while the 

 best kidney potatoes bring 4s. ; and the best Scotch, sent up from Leith, 

 3s. per bushel. There have been large importations of Newtown Pippins, 

 some in excellent condition, and some nearly rotten in the barrels ; the 

 price of the best 12s. per bushel. Best Nonpareils and Golden Pippins 15s. 

 per bushel. Good Reinettes, and other kitchen apples, 5s. 6d. to 7s. per 

 bushel. Chaumontelle pears, 9s. to 18s. per bushel. Colmars, and other 

 choice sorts, 10s. to 20s. per half sieve. Quinces sell at from Is. 6d. to 2s. 

 per bushel. Medlars have been very scarce this season. Dutch grapes, of 

 the Frankenthal, or Hamburgh variety, have been sent over in such quan- 

 tities every week during the autumn,' as to have materially lowered the 

 profit of the market-gardeners. There are still some in the market of very 

 good quality, at 5s. per lb. Pine-apples have been- very abundant and 

 reasonable, and there are now more than can be sold of inferior and small 

 pines, which are offered at 3s. per lb. — J. G. December 8. 



Art. VI. Calls at Suburban Gardens. 



The Villa of Joseph Wilson, Esq., on Clapham Common. — The house is 

 large and commodious ; the grounds consist of a few acres chiefly in grass, 

 but with a small kitchen-garden and shrubbery, the latter more selectly 

 planted than usual ; and chiefly, as we were informed, by Messrs. Ball and 

 Brookes, of Ball's Pond nursery. Though only finished about four years, 

 the evergreen and American shrubs have thriven astonishingly, iigustrum 

 lucidum deserves to be mentioned as an evergreen shrub formerly kept in 

 the green-house, but now found to be as hardy as arbutus or laurustinus, 

 It has fine, broad, ovate, pointed, shining, deep green leaves, and large 

 racemes of white flowers, which, as the trees grow older, will no doubt be 

 succeeded by berries. There is a good collection of shrubs in the American 

 ground; abundance of Magnolia grandiflora, in its different varieties; several 

 of M. conspicua and trip£tala, and handsome plants of Thomsomawa and 

 glaiica : but the grand feature of this place is a conservatory lately erected. 

 It is a parallelogram about 50 ft. long, 20 ft. wide, and 20 ft. high. There 

 is upright glass to the height of 12 ft. on three sides ; the remainder is like 

 a wall. The roof is a vault composed of two segments, so as to raise 

 it rather higher than a semicircle, in order to throw off* 126 

 the water from the centre : but, at the same time, 

 these curves are so united, as to form at a distance 

 what appears to a general observer but a semicircle; 

 and, to a more correct eye, a section similar to that of 

 the broad end of an egg, or what botanists would call 

 ovate. (Jig. 126.) The floor is paved, and the whole 

 is heated by steam-pipes concealed beneath the pave- 

 ment. The only thing we could not approve of in 

 the architecture of this house, was a row of props 

 (fig. 127.) to the arched roof, running along its centre. 



