Botanic Garden at Twickenham. 521 



have seen of Ribes speciosum (at a guinea a plant), and abun- 

 dant crops of cedars, Pinus Lavicio, P. Cemhra, and other rare 

 and valuable pines, rising from seed. The same may be said 

 as to a number of American trees and shrubs. 



The Fruit-garden of Mr. H. Knevett, at Isletwrth. — This 

 is a very old fruit-garden on excellent soil, and well sub- 

 divided by brick walls, on which the finer kinds of fruit are 

 trained. The intervening compartments are almost entirely 

 devoted to strawberries, and to gooseberries, and other fruit 

 shrubs and fruit trees. The only culinary vegetables grown 

 are tart rhubarb and sea-kale. This garden, and a number 

 of others surrounding it, from the Thames on the one hand to 

 the Brentford road on the other, may be considered, in 

 gardening history, as classic ground. It has probably been 

 garden ground for centuries; for the first nursery mentioned 

 in British history was at Twickenham ; and Batty Langley, 

 the first gardening author who figured fruits, lived there, and 

 his house v/as, till lately, pointed out to those who enquired 

 after it. Mr. Henry Knevett is proprietor of the ground 

 which he cultivates, and it is sufficiently extensive to afford 

 him a handsome income. He probably lives better than nine 

 tenths of the Caledonian gentry do at this moment, when at 

 their country seats, and without company. We happened to 

 call while he was at dinner, and saw the whole of his fine family, 

 five sons and two daughters, all grown up, sitting round his 

 table. His strawberry we believe, with Mr. Munro, to be the 

 very best now in cultivation. 



The Botanic Garden of the late Mr. Swaitison at TwicJcen- 

 ham. — We first visited this garden in April, 1804, during 

 the lifetime (if we are accurate in our recollection) of the late 

 Mr. Swainson, a good practical botanist, and much attached 

 to gardening. Every thing, we recollect, was then in the very 

 highest order and keeping, under the care of Mr. Arthur Biggs, 

 now of the botanic garden, Cambridge. The general impres- 

 sion on our minds, for the last fifteen years, has been, that 

 this garden, as such, no longer existed ; but we were agree- 

 ably surprised to learn that we weramistaken, when attending 

 the meeting (noticed p. 463.) which was held, on July 18., to 

 arrange a plan for forming a Metropolitan Botanic Garden, 

 by the present gardener, Mr. Castles, coming forward, and 

 voluntarily offering a donation of 500 species. Mr. Castles 

 did not succeed to the management of this garden till some 

 years after Mr. Biggs left it. He found that Mr. Biggs's im- 

 mediate successor had taken the shortest method of managing 

 the place, viz., pruning the arboretum by clipping all the 

 trees and shrubs to round heads: allowino- the more tender 



