Calls at Suburban Gardens. 363 



but is kept in very neat order : there is an abundant supply of water, which 

 rises some feet above the surface, and which was obtained by boring to the 

 chalky stratum. The ground for raising fruit trees and shrubs being at a 

 distance, we did not go to see it. 



Cobbetfs Nursery, Kensington, Feb. 7. — Some of our readers having re- 

 quested us to give an account of this garden, we called there with a gen- 

 tleman who was about to purchase some trees. We found the veteran 

 writer sitting in his garden-house, by a wood fire made in one of his 

 cast-iron American stoves, a table beside him covered with newspapers, 

 and a few books behind on a shelf. The garden contains about four acres 

 of deep sandy loam, admirably adapted for raising seedling trees, and 

 almost the whole of it is so occupied. The sorts are as follow; the par- 

 ticulars respecting them are taken from the Register for December 1825: — 



Locust, Robinia Pseud-Jcacia. Recommended to be grown for pins 

 for ship-building, and for hop-poles; also for fuel and hedges. The dur- 

 ation of locust is said to surpass that of all other timber; it grows faster 

 than the ash, and while a pole of the latter tree lasts only three years, a 

 locust pole will last twenty or thirty. At Earl's Court, near Kensington, a 

 plantation was made, fifteen years ago, of locusts, Scotch pines, sycamores, 

 limes, Spanish chestnuts, beeches, ashes, and oaks, and measured in October 

 last. It was found that the locust grew faster than any other tree, in the 

 proportion of 27 to 22 ; and faster than the average of these trees in the 

 proportion of 27 to 18. It is acknowledged, however, that the locust is 

 not a tree to thrive to a great age ; and two old specimens in Mr. Cobbett's 

 garden, in the most favourable soil and situation, are striking proofs that 

 it is not a tree to produce a great bulk of timber. 



White Oak, Quercus alba. Recommended as producing tough, durable, 

 and light timber, fit for implements of husbandry, and coach-making. In 

 Loddiges' collection, this oak appears a more tender tree than the common 

 species. — Black Oak, Quercus nigra, or tinctoria. . Valuable on account 

 of its bark, which makes the fine yellow dye called quercitron; grows fast, 

 and on poor soil. — Black Walnut, Juglans nigra. Used as knees in ship- 

 building in America. — Hickory Nut, Juglans squamosa. Wood hard and 

 tough, but not durable. — Persimon, .Diospyros virginiana. Wood so. ex-, 

 cellent for poles and shafts, that Michaux calls it the American lance-wood. 

 — White Ash, T^raxinus americana. Grows faster, and is better . timber 

 than the common ash. The fastness of its growth will be doubted by 

 most British gardeners who have had it in their shrubberies. — Tulip Tree, 

 Liriodendron tulipifera. A tree of very quick growth, and the timber is 

 as useful as the deal, and more ornamental. 



Occidental Plane, Platanus occidentalis. " This is to a certainty the 

 largest tree in the world, and the wood far from being of no value." 

 " There ought to be a forest, or, at least, a thousand or two of acres of 

 these trees in England, to provide blocks for the navy. How is it that 

 this tree, and also the tulip tree, both of which push up so in America, 

 are seldom worth looking at here ? Because there they come from seed, 

 and here they come from layers. That is the cause, and the sole cause. 

 A layer is not a tree, but the branch of a tree ; and it always will be a 

 branch, and grow like a branch, with a broad head, and a constant incli- 

 nation to make big limbs. It will be crooked, and every way misshapen. 

 It never will get to the height or the size of the seedling tree ; and will 

 not, at the end of ten years from the start, be a quarter part of the size of 

 the seedling." 



Honey Locust, Gleditschz'cs triacanthos. Not so fast-growing as the 

 other locust, but its timber is " as good in nature." " With a little pains- 

 the plants would make the most beautiful hedge in the world, armed with 

 thorns that even a fox-hunter would not dare to face." 



