THE 



GARDENERS MAGAZINE, 



JULY, 1834. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. Notes on Gardens and Country Seats, visited, from July 27. 

 to September \ 6., during a Tour through Part of Middlesex, Berk- 

 shire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Hamp- 

 shire, Sussex, and Kent. By the Conductor. 



{Continued from p. 259.) 



Elcot Park, Bacon, Esq. — Aug. 16. This place is 



celebrated as the scene in which the mode of heating hot-houses 

 by hot water was displayed, in 1823 (III. 186.), to the British 

 public ; we will not say for the first time, because we have 

 shown (III., Pre/.) that it was exhibited in the hot-houses at 

 Sundridge Park, by the Comte Chabannes, in 1816 ; but we do 

 say that it was from the apparatus displayed in this garden that 

 this mode of heating first became generally known to the British 

 public. We also believe that the late Mr. Bacon invented it at 

 Aberaman, in 1821 (IV. 439.), as Mr. Atkinson appears to have 

 done in London, in 1822. (III. 423.) There is nothing un- 

 common in different persons inventing the same thing at nearly 

 the same time, without any knowledge of each other's ideas. 

 Inventions are more commonly results of the general state of 

 science on a particular subject, at a given time, than of the cha-„ 

 racter or degree of knowledge of an individual mind. 



" 1*1 



Elcot Park displays an even, featureless surface, sloping to the 

 south, surrounded by a wall of flints, and very imperfectly varied 

 within by clumps and single trees. The house is, we believe, 

 exceedingly comfortable in the interior; but it has a very com- 

 monplace appearance externally, and the walks about it appeared 

 to us arranged without sufficient regard to simplicity and dignity. 

 There is a good kitchen-garden, and a most excellent gardener's 

 house. Mr. Whale, the gardener here, has removed a whole 

 wall of full-grown pear tree?, taking up all their roots, and plant- 

 ing them in puddle. In front of these, he has, first, a border, 

 3 ft. wide, which he never crops ; next, a grass walk, of 2 ft. ; 

 and, lastly, a border, of 6 ft., which he crops very slightly. 

 Vol. X, — No. 52. Y 



