472 Calls at the Loyidon Nurseries, 



m this garden, it would certainly tend to create a taste for them. As the 

 Society is rapidly getting rid of its debt, we hope many years will not 

 elapse before this part of the duties of the establishment be restored. 

 The trees in the arboretum are thriving, many of them have now attained 

 a considerable size ; so much so, indeed, that in most of the clumps they 

 are crowding each other, so that the characteristic forms of the indi- 

 vidual species will soon be lost. We intend, before this is the case (the 

 permission of the council, of course, being first obtained), to have 

 portraits of a good many of them taken, and to draw up an account of 

 each species, stating its height, age, the length of shoot which it makes 

 each season, the time of foliation, the colour of the buds and spray in 

 spring, and the defoliation, and colour of the leaves in autumn. This, 

 with a number of other particulars of a popular nature, we intend to 

 prepare, so as to be able to give to general readers, and especially to 

 architects and lady gardeners, a useful knowledge of 500 or 600 of the 

 trees purchasable in British nurseries. We intend to publish this, along 

 with engraved portraits of the trees, all drawn to one scale, so as to show 

 the comparative heights at the same age, in our forthcoming Encyctojicedia 

 of Lnndscape-Gardening and Garden Arcli'dectui-c. We had portraits of 

 all the trees in Messrs. Loddiges's arboretum taken in 1831, and a 

 number of observations made on the trees in the arboretum at Kew and 

 other places in the same year, which we intended for an Arboretum 

 Britannicum (see Vol. VI. p. 718.) : we have, however, entirely given up 

 that work, finding that Dr. Lindley has long had a similar one in con- 

 templation ; and we mean to confine ourselves, as to what we say of trees 

 in the Encyclo2Jcedia of Landsca2]e-Gardenmgf to the consideration of their 

 effect in landscape, and their value as timber, and for shade and shelter. 

 In short, we shall chiefly treat on what may be termed the popular 

 qualities and economical relations of trees and shrubs. We cannot help 

 repeating our expression of regret that the trees and shrubs in the 

 Chiswick arboretum were not distributed round the cii'cumference of the 

 entire garden, in which case they might have grown for many years 

 without touching each other, and a really useful knowledge of their forms, 

 colours, and effect in landscape, might thus have been obtained by the 

 public. Had the Society taken our advice, and begun to alter the garden 

 according to our plan, or any other calculated to display these trees to 

 advantage; even if they had only executed a small fractional part of it 

 every year, the landscape-gardener would have had confidence in the 

 final result. He would have visited the garden, season after season, 

 delighted at seeing the trees gradually developing their shapes and 

 characters ; while the public in general would have been equally delighted 

 at alwaj's finding something new going on; whereas, now, there is no 

 thinking gardener v/ho cannot foresee that in two or three years this 

 arboretum will become nearly useless for every purpose of the garden 

 artist. 



In the orchard there is a great show of fruit on the apple trees, a 

 tolerable crop of pears, plums, and peaches, but scarcely any apricots. 

 This orchard, with the use that is making of it by Mr. Thompson, is now, 

 indeed, the only truly valuable part of the garden, because it comprises 

 such an assemblage of fruit trees as exists nowhere else in the world. 



We mentioned (p. 2.34.) that a small house had been erected for 

 orchideous epiphytes. The plants in this house have been lately so much 

 infested by woodlice, that they have been obliged to be entirely removed, 

 v/ith all the material on which they were planted, in order to get the 

 house thoroughly cleaned. The woodlouse seems a very simple insect 

 to occasion so much trouble ; but, we believe, it will be found one of the 

 most difficult of all insects to eradicate. In hot-beds and common hot- 



