332 Calls at Nurseries 



by the possessors of small gardens. Since this was written,_Mr. Waterer has 

 adopted this idea, and has sent some most splendid specimens of Kalim'a 

 latifolia to the Horticultural Society's Show at the Chiswick Garden, June 10., 

 for which he obtained the silver medal. There is a new variety here of .Rho- 

 dodendron, raised between R. caucasicum and R. arbdreum : the plants are 

 bushes not above 18 in. high, and the flowers, which appear in the open air at 

 Christmas, are of a deeper red than those of any other variety. It is per- 

 fectly hardy, and ought to be in every nursery, in order that it may be propa- 

 gated and spread over the country in a short time. We have frequently 

 praised the hedges here, of thorn, yew, beech, hornbeam, Portugal laurel, 

 common laurel, holly, box, &c. ; and we have now to mention two screens 

 of the hedge kind, planted since our last visit. The first consists of apple 

 trees, 10 feet high, trained like pyramids, or rather truncated cones, and 

 placed so near together as almost to touch ; the second of these hedges is of 

 double-blossomed furze, which being planted on fine deep sandy soil, has 

 grown most rapidly, and has produced one entire mass of rich yellow bloom. 

 Among the deciduous trees we observed a beautiful new variety of weeping 

 beech, the foliage of which we can safely say is very much larger, greener, 

 and more glossy and beautiful, than that of the weeping variety commonly 

 cultivated in the nurseries. It might, indeed, be taken for a different species ; 

 and this circumstance alone proves how much remains to be done in the se- 

 lection from seedlings raised accidentally, and from the production by cross- 

 impregnation of superior varieties of timber trees, as well as of fruit trees. 

 An oak-leaved birch is also a variety, like the beech, newly introduced here 

 from the Continent, and which we have not seen in any other British nursery. 

 We also saw a distinct species of Yucca, with leaves as large as those of the 

 Y. gloriosa, now coming into bloom, which is very early for this family. In 

 the deep sand of this nursery, asparagus grows so well, without any manure, 

 that Mr. Waterer assured us, that he had seen stalks of it an inch in diameter. 



The Bagshot Nursery, at Bagshot, also belongs to Mr. Waterer. Both 

 nurseries were commenced about thirty years ago ; and, in both, the foreman 

 of the peat-earth department, who planted the first stools, still continues in 

 the same capacity. There is here a good stock of young American shrubs, 

 and the ground is admirably situated with respect to peat earth and water. 

 It might be made one of the first of provincial nurseries. 



Bagshot Park Farm is, as usual, beautifully cultivated, and most scientifically 

 and economically managed, by Mr. Burness. No one who does not understand 

 the East-Lothian farming can fully appreciate the merits of the system pursued 

 here. All the crops are drilled ; and, by the force of bone manure, which is 

 drilled in along with the seeds, good crops are raised on the poorest sand. 

 Mr. Burness sows the TVifolium incarnatum on his wheat stubbles, covering the 

 seed with the harrow, but on no account stirring the ground deeper than 3 in., 

 and finds a good crop of clover, either for grazing or cutting in the following 

 May. The plants were now from 1 ft. to 18 in. in height, and in full bloom. 

 This clover was also sown by Mr. Hill, a Northumbrian farmer, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Mr. Donald, and it seems to be considered a valuable addition 

 to our British clovers. It is strictly an annual, and will on no account live 

 through a second winter. In Mr. Burness's parlour, we saw the picture of an 

 ox of the Sussex breed, five years old, fed on the farm without the aid of oil- 

 cake, which weighed 240 stones of 8 lbs., contained 30 stones of fat, and 

 sold for 60/. The painting of this ox was by Mr. Steers of High Wycombe. 

 In the farmery are some new sheds for fattening cattle on the plan described 

 by Mr. Newall of Dumfries, in our Encyclopcedia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa 

 Architecture. In the breeding pigsties, Mr. Burness has introduced a con- 

 trivance for preventing the mother from crushing her sucking pigs against the 

 wall. It is simply a shelf carried round the interior of the sty, about 9 in. 

 wide, and raised about 9 in. from the ground. This shelf prevents the sow 

 from pressing herself against the wall when lying down, and leaves space suf- 

 ficient between her and it, for the pigs to pass. This contrivance, and also a 



