506 Notes on Arboretums : — 



that we have seen elsewhere, except in Mr. Donald's arboretum. 

 It is a light, graceful, rapidly growing tree, with wide-spreading 

 branches, which droop to the ground. We consider it as 

 nothing more than a variety of the species, whatever be its name, 

 to which Q. rubra, coccinea, tinctoria, macrocarpa, and half a 

 dozen other specific names in our nurseries, belong. We are 

 perfectly satisfied that, from a bushel of American acorns taken 

 from one tree, all these sorts, and many others, might be obtained. 

 We are happy to find that Messrs. Young and Penny have 

 begun an arboretum, distinct from that at Milford House, in 

 their own nursery ; and, as they have abundance of room (above 

 150 acres), we have no doubt they will form a very complete one. 

 Among the herbaceous plants, we observed that the statices were 

 least affected by the drought. Many of the new sorts are very 

 beautiful, and deserve to be in every good flower-garden. 



Among the nursery practices which were new to us here, is 

 that of buying in seedling birch trees which have been pulled up 

 out of the copses. These are found to root much better than 

 seedlings of the same age and size taken out of a regular seed- 

 bed ; doubtless because, in the latter case, a greater proportion of 

 the taproot requires to be cut off. In the case of the young 

 birches pulled out of the copses, the taproot, which could not 

 get far down into the hard soil, has its substance in a more con- 

 centrated form, and is more branchy; hence little requires to be 

 cut off it, except the ragged fibres ; and it may be considered as 

 acting as a bulb to the upper part of the plant. The tops of 

 the seedling birches are shortened before planting ; and the 

 plants, Mr. Young informs us, make as much wood in one year, 

 as regular nursery-reared birch seedlings will in two. It is 

 found, in this part of the country, that the downy-leaved black- 

 barked seedling birches stole much freer when cut down as 

 coppice wood, than the smooth-leaved white-barked weeping 

 variety. The plum-leaved willow is here grown to a great ex- 

 tent for planting in copses, as also are the common ash and the 

 sweet chestnut. 



Pepper Harro'W Park, Lord Viscount Midleton, is a very fine 

 place, many points of which reminded us of Broadlands; but the 

 situation of the house, and the terrace walk on the high bank of 

 the river Wey, are here far grander. The house is much too low, 

 and, from being overtopped by the trees, it has but a poor effect. 

 When the ajjvantages of having lofty and well-lighted and venti- 

 lated rooms, and particularly lofty kitchens and bedrooms, and 

 when the superior healthfulness of sleeping in a stratum of air 

 considerably elevated above the ground in any given locality, 

 are properly understood, no such mansion as that at Pepper 

 Harrow will be built. There is a singular inconsistency, though 

 it is not a very obvious one, in sleeping for perhaps twelve hours 



