London Nurseries and Suburban Gardens. Si 7 



or a wall, may be built, and covered with this admirable evergreen at once. 

 By the help of the large trees and shrubs in many of the London nurseries, 

 and the large American plants at Waterer's, near Woking, a garden and 

 grounds of any extent may, in the com-se of any one planting season, be 

 completely furnished, so as to have the appearance of having been planted 

 twenty or thirty years. The wealthy have arrived at this degree of luxury 

 in building and furnishing houses, but not yet in gardening | as they get 

 poorer and more intellectual, they will love gorgeous architecture and 

 cabinet-making less, and gardening and planting more. 



Jenkins' s ]\Iari/-le-bone * Nursery. — Feb. 13. Some improvements in the 

 mode of heating the peach-houses by hot water have lately been made in 

 the New Road branch of this nursery, by Messrs. W. and D. Bailey of 

 Holborn. An accident which happened here induces us to caution gar- 

 deners who have their houses so heated against the danger of leaving the 

 water in the pipes in the winter season, when no fire is applied. In one 

 night many feet of pipe burst, and were rendered useless for any pui'pose 

 but remelting, by the freezing of the water contained in them. 



The circle in the Regent's Park, which now forms the principal scene of 

 Mr. Jenkins's operations, is every year looking better from the increased 

 growth of the trees destined to remain permanently. This circle would 

 make an admirable public garden. We have suggested the idea of cover- 

 ing the whole of it with glass {Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. i. p. 383.) ; but the 

 time for such an extravaganza is gone by ; as a hardy garden it might con- 

 tain, in groups arranged according to the natural system, all the more hardy 

 and easily cultivated of the trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, including 

 grasses and ferns, which would endure the open air in Britain; and, if these 

 were all conspicuously named on the ends of bricks, as in Loddiges's 

 arboretum, it would form a scene of much rational recreation and useful 

 instruction to the rising generation. By way of architectural and sculptural 

 ornaments, government might let spots of a few feet square, here and there, 

 to rich persons, on condition of their building handsome monuments, either 

 for their own families or in commemoration of some of their ancestors. 

 Some public-spirited individuals might erect statues to great men of dif- 

 ferent ages and countries. The garden should be open to every body 

 during the whole day, every day in the year ; and one or two of the police 

 might perambulate it for the sake of protection and order. The govern- 

 ment (that is, the commissioners of woods and forests), which owns the soil, 

 might make an arrangement with the occupant to hold it for a number of 

 years, on condition of gradually forming it into a botanic garden of the 

 kind to which we allude, and of leaving it in that state. We have no doubt 

 Mr. Jenkins would readily enter into the idea of such an arrangement, since 

 he is having prepared, notwithstanding the deplorable depression of the 

 times, above a thousand named bricks for a herbaceous ground, to be 

 planted alphabetically along one of his borders. To those gardeners who 

 prepare their own paint for painting names on bricks or other tallies, we 

 may mention, that a good mixture for this purpose is composed of vegetable 

 charcoal, which any gardener may burn for himself, ground to the finest 

 powder, a little powdei'ed resin, which may be procured from any chemist, or 

 from a spruce fir tree, and raw linseed oil, boiled together till they are of 

 the consistence of cream. If common lampblack is used, as that is generally 

 more or less mixed with grease, it is good to dry or roast it in an iron vessel 

 till the grease evaporates ; but, by using vegetable charcoal, this is rendered 

 unnecessary. The names ai'e written with a camel-hair pencil, the use of 



* Mary-le-bourne, or Mary of the little brook. The channel of the 

 brook may still be seen in the Marquess of Hertford's grounds in the 

 Regent's Park. 



