470 Calls at the London Nurseries, 



is an inch in diameter, and which promises to become quite a tree. 

 Mr. Lowe has a considerable stock of that splendid plant, Lobeh'a Tujm. 

 He has also a good collection of hybrid Gladioli, and a new Zyathyriis, 

 which resembles L. californicus. A very rare and high-prized 7>llium, 

 purchased from M. Makoy of Liege, and somewhat in the style of L. longi- 

 florum, is just coming into flower. Among the alpines, there is a good 

 stock of the Primula cortusoWe^, a plant much in demand in spring. The 

 same may be said of O'xalis crenata, which sold better last year than 

 almost any plant Mr. Lowe had. In 1829, we gave a packet of the seeds 

 of Wistaria Consequawa, which we brought from Carlsruhe, to this 

 nursery, from which many plants have been raised, and there are a number 

 still on hand. It is evidently the true Consequa?ia, though this was 

 doubted by some when we brought the seeds over. The price of this 

 plant is now reduced to 1^. Qd. to the trade. There is a large stock of 

 Ribes sanguineum, which sells to the trade at 5/. per hundred. If it is 

 not, therefore, soon as common as the black currant, it must be from 

 want of knowledge, or want of taste. There is no doubt but that Ribes 

 speciosum, which cannot now be purchased for money, will soon become 

 equally common, and the same as to a new species only just sent home 

 by Mr. Douglas to the Society's Garden. Mr. Lowe has one vigorous 

 plant of R. speciosum, which he is propagating as fast as nature and art 

 will permit. This species being an evergreen, it does not propagate 

 readily by cuttings taken off in spring ; but will no doubt succeed well by 

 autumnal cuttings, treated like those of the common laurel ; or, what we 

 should prefer, by cuttings of the young wood during summer, planted in 

 sand under a bell glass. Mr. Lowe and other nurserymen are now pro- 

 pagating it chiefly by layers. Among the pans of American seedlings we 

 noticed one filled with Gaultheria Shallon, from seeds ripened in the 

 Glasgow Botanic Garden. Three parallel ranges of pits here have been 

 heated by hot water from one boiler, by Mr. Kewley. The work is 

 admirably executed, in the siphon manner, and it cost so moderate a sum, 

 and requires so little fuel and labour, that Mr. Lowe considers that he 

 saved the whole expense in one season. These pits were before heated 

 by dung ; the prime cost of which amounted to nearly 40/. per annum, 

 independently of the expense of wheeling it in, putting it in place, turning, 

 stirring up, &c., and taking out when done with ; add also that at a certain 

 season every spring, when the occupiers of the numerous villas in the 

 neighbourhood are making up their cucumber beds, not a load is to be got 

 under double or treble the ordinary price, and sometimes not for any 

 price, and thus a great risk is incurred of checking cuttings or seedlings 

 at the time when a trifling check might destroy them. The heat from the 

 hot water is found to be, in all respects, as congenial to young plants as 

 that of the dung ; and, therefore, the substituting this mode of heating for 

 dung, in many cases, is well desei-ving of imitation both by nurserymen 

 and private gentlemen. Mr. Kewley's apparatus is most scientifically 

 arranged ; all the three ranges of pipes are exhausted by one air-pump, 

 communicating with them by small leaden pipes, half an inch in exterior 

 diameter. A great part of the business of this nursery is with the foreign 

 trade, for which Mr. Lowe has the great advantage of a foreman who has 

 been some time in a French nursery, and who not only speaks French, 

 but gardeners' French. Mr. Lowe had, the morning we were with him, 

 just received a letter from Mr. Anderson, at Sydney, stating that he had 

 shipped a number of boxes of seeds for him, and an extensive collection 

 of dried specimens, consigned to Mr. Hunneman, the well-known botanical 

 agent, for sale. Mr. Anderson also mentioned the safe arrival of Mr. 

 Richard Cunningham, and the pi'osperous state of a nursery lately esta- 

 blished at Sydney. 



