and Suburban Gardens. 



327 



kind of artificial preparation or substructure. It would 

 not only be revolting to good taste to see a statue set 

 on the bare ground, but even a bench or seat which 

 had the character of being fixed, or even comparatively 

 so ; such, for example, as the benches in Hyde Park 

 and in Kensington Gardens. There ought always to 

 be a visible foundation of masonry under the legs or 

 supports of such benches. No garden wall, no front 

 wall of a hot-house, no wall even of a pit, unless, in- 

 deed, it is a turf wall, ought to rise abruptly from the 

 ground without showing a plinth or basement. This 

 basement may be produced by a set-back of even a 

 quarter of an inch, which would neither create addi- 

 tional expense, nor impede, in the slightest degree, the 

 training of wall trees. Persons connected with building 

 and gardening, whether in the way of employers or 

 employed, have much to learn in matters of this kind ; 

 and greatly will their enjoyment, from looking at 

 architectural objects, be increased, when their minds are 

 once imbued with this description of knowledge. 

 In some of those interesting architectural recesses which were formed in the 

 garden walls here, by Sir John Vanbrugh (about 6 ft. wide, 2 ft. deep, and 

 about 5 ft. higher than the general height of the wall), Mr. M'Intosh has 

 planted Coe's golden drop plum, with the intention of covering the front of 

 the recess with glass or mats after the fruit is ripe, in order to ascertain how 

 long it can be preserved on the tree fit for use. In the culinary hot-houses we 

 found, as usual, excellent crops of pines and grapes. When we last went 

 through them, on the 23d of August, 1830, we saw an Enville pine plant, 

 eighteen months old, with a fruit 18 in. in circumference, and 13 in. high. Mr. 

 M'Intosh then promised to send us an article on the advantages of cultivating 

 pines in hotbed frames rather than melons ; and which article we still expect 

 to receive from him. In the plant stoves there was the most healthy and 

 vigorous vegetation; and among the rare plants was Omalanthes populifolia, 

 of which there are only one or two other specimens in the country. There are 

 here the male and female Testudinaria elephantipes. The orchideous epiphytes 

 are very luxuriant ; and Calanthe and Oncidium, with Gongora and others, were 

 in flower. Quisqualis indica (now in bloom, and perfuming the house with 

 its fragrance), Mr. M'Intosh informed us, retains the freshness of its flowers 

 longer in crowded rooms than any other plant he knows, and is not liable to 

 drop its petals. It may be used (he says) a second and even a third evening; 

 and there are but very few other plants, except the everlastings, that can be used 

 more than one evening. The Camellza, however, when not too fully blown, 

 will sometimes retain its petals two evenings. Dr. Courtois, who visited 

 Claremont in 1833, says, of this plant of Quisqualis, and one of Poivrea 

 coccinea in the same stove, that their garlands, intertwined, presented to him 

 a most enchanting sight : the one, by its plumes of scarlet flowers nearly a yard 

 long; and the other, by the abundance and sweetness of its blossoms. (Ma- 

 gasin d' Horticulture, No. x.) 



Along the front of this hot-house there is a border of sandy heath soil, in 

 which are planted a great many Cape and other bulbs, and various green-house 

 plants, with a view to prove their hardiness. Mr. M'Intosh has promised us 

 a list of those which he finds will stand through the winter; among them we. 

 found Lodsa nitida in bloom, and not in the slightest degree injured in its 

 foliage. In a pit, we were shown the cochineal insect thriving on plants of 

 Opuntia cochinillifera : it had been tried on the allied species without success. 

 Here Mr. M'Intosh has propagated Bignonwr grandiflora successfully from 

 single eyes, exactly as is done with the common vine : a fact worth knowing 



