388 General Results of a Gardening Tour : — 



habitat, which has a tendency, wherever it occurs, to encourage 

 the same plants. 



Stellaria ^raminea is found ahiiost every mile, with the 

 exception of some parts of the Peak, from Bays water to Man- 

 chester. The common trees on the London clay are oaks 

 and elms ; beech abounds in masses on the chalk ; ash on 

 the red sandstone, especially on the drier and richer soils ; 

 the wych elm is found on the shady side of limestone hills in 

 Derbyshire and Staffordshire ; on the dry parts of such hills, 

 and especially in Dove Dale, the Fyrus Ana abounds ; and, 

 in the moister parts, the yew. 



We shall say little respecting native birds and insects ; the 

 singing birds everywhere were of the thrush family, and of 

 the lark and the linnet kind : in the milder parts, as far as 

 Kidderminster, the nightingale was heard ; the plover and 

 cornrail were also heard near Kidderminster. House spar- 

 rows, like the house fly and the cabbage butterfly, were found 

 everywhere near human habitations. 



The weather from the 24th of April to this 24th of June 

 has been chiefly dry ; and until the last three weeks, the 

 wind has been in the east. About the 7th of May a se- 

 vere frost injured the blossoms and young shoots of both 

 native and foreign plants and trees, over the whole tract in- 

 cluded in our tour. The American shrubs were the most 

 severely hurt ; their young shoots and their expanded blossom 

 buds being entirely cut off. Even the incipient shoots of the 

 ash tree were blackened, and hundreds of acres of larch and 

 spruce firs in the extensive plantations round Heath House, 

 Alton Towers, 111am, and other places, were rendered quite 

 brown, and still continue so. The Scotch pine had not com- 

 menced growing, and therefore escaped. Seedlings of every 

 kind in the nurseries, the blossoms of fruit trees and straw- 

 berries in the market-gardens, and in private gardens even 

 the wall trees, have all suffered in a degree only equalled 

 by two or three seasons within the remembrance of the oldest 

 gardeners. The only similar injury sustained in our remem- 

 brance was in the spring of 1819. The potatoes in the fields 

 were cut down by the frost ; but they have since sprung up 

 again, and their appearance, together with that of the corn 

 crops, is now generally promising. 



Having thus slightly indicated the mode of generalising the 

 natural history part of a gardening tour, we shall next 

 attempt to generalise the gardening information obtained, 

 arranginff our remarks under the heads of Palace and Man- 

 sion Residences, Villas, Cottage Gardens, Town Gardens, 

 Public Gardens, Nurseries, and Market Gardens. As belong- 



