108 Notes on Gardens and Country Seats:—* 



Z)aphne pontica from cuttings as stocks for the rarer species, and 

 variegated hollies from cuttings, 



Pensdn's Nursery adjoins the Botanic Garden ; but he has 

 other grounds, of greater extent, along the London road. Mr. 

 Penson, senior, is 92 years of age, and in vigorous health. 

 The articles produced are chiefly fruits and showy flowers. 

 There are apple trees here, on a wet bottom, of small size, of the 

 burr-knot kind, and upwards of 80 years of age, which bear well 

 every year, producing very little wood, and abundance of fruit; 

 and a black cluster grape, above 100 years of age, the roots of 

 which have also got down to the wet bottom, which produces 

 scarcely any fruit. Some parts of this nursery were passably 

 clean ; but a part of it, facing the main street of Oxford, on the 

 outside of the Botanic Garden, though neatly laid out in flower- 

 beds, was, in respect to cleanliness, far below the economic 

 point. Mr. Tegg's nursery is in an obscure part of the town, 

 and its disorderly state chiefly concerns himself; but Mr. Pen- 

 son's nursery forms the very eye of the city when entering it 

 from London ; and, as a point of honour, he ought to keep it in 

 the very highest order. 



Bates's Nursery is about two miles from Oxford, on the Ban- 

 bury road, and ranks, we believe, in point of age, the next to 

 Penson's. Mr. Bates chiefly grows florists' flowers, and the 

 commoner forest trees and shrubs ; he also grows culinary vege- 

 tables. He has 13 acres thus stocked; and, in point of clean- 

 liness, his ground is superior to the two preceding nurseries. 

 He seems to have raised some good seedling georginas, in flower- 

 ing which he is much annoyed by earwigs, which eat the flower 

 while in the bud, and he is in consequence obliged to enclose 

 some of the buds in small calico bags, kept distended by a 

 ring of fine wire inside. The opening of the flower is retarded 

 by these bags ; and, in very hot weather, this may be an advan- 

 tage, as, by opening slower, it may possibly open better. Mr. 

 Bates endeavours, like other gardeners, to catch the earwigs in 

 hollow tubes, formed of tubular flower stems of rhubarb and 

 other plants, and in small pots of hay and moss turned down on 

 the tops of the props. 



Fairbairn's Nursery is close to the garden of St. John's. It is 

 of very limited extent, but contains several forcing-houses and 

 pits, and a number of good things. Mr. Fairbairn's great object 

 in this nursery is to force strawberries, cucumbers, and flowers ; 

 finding that, at Oxford, these pay better than any thing else. 

 One of his forcing-houses is heated by a smoke-flue from one of 

 Witty's stoves, which has been improved in construction by Mr. 

 Edwards, ironmonger, of Oxford. Mr. Fairbairn has another 

 garden, chiefly for growing fruits and culinary vegetables, which, 

 being at some distance, we did not go to see. The pits, in 



