448 Recollections of a Tour made in May, 1839, 



and double glass, very little artificial heat is required during the most severe 

 weather, and it is always cold in the hottest days of summer. The greater 

 part of the pictures in the gallery are by foreign artists ; but one room in 

 the house is exclusively devoted to native talent, and contains fine specimens 

 by Hogarth, Reynolds, Morland, Wilkie, Landseer, Martin, Calcott, &c. 



In the Hot-house at St. Helen's, Derby, the vines were formerly planted 

 in the inside of the house, and rather too deep ; but Mr. Mackay, the present 

 gardener, planted them on the outside, in 1829, and they have since done 

 well, and produced extraordinary crops. The glass roof, which is of the 

 ridge and furrow kind, is entirely fixed, but it contains ventilators for admit- 

 ting air, and the whole is now managed with the greatest ease. The heat is 

 produced from a cockle stove, and a continual flow of warm air is poured into 

 the house, in the same manner as is done in warming the Messrs. Strutt's 

 manufactories. This warm air, in the most severe weather, is, by a very sim- 

 ple contrivance, more easily conceived than described, returned to the cockle, 

 and heated and reissued to the house, so that, at that season, very little heat 

 is lost. Several new pits have been built, which are heated partly by linings 

 of dung, and partly by pipes of hot water. The walls for peach trees are of 

 brick, furnished with horizontal wires, strained tight by means of screws and 

 nuts, to which the branches are tied, without the use of nails, and without 

 injuring the walls. Other trees are trained to wires fixed in the form of semi- 

 circles ; the lower part of the stem of the tree forming the centre, and the 

 semicircular wires being placed about 18 in. apart. The appearance reminds 

 us of Seymour's mode of training, but it has no other connexion with that 

 mode than the general appearance of the semicircles intersected by the radi- 

 ating branches. There is much in these gardens to observe and to com- 

 mend. 



The Hot-houses belonging to Jedediah Strittt, Esq., at Belper, are contrived 

 with great ingenuity. The glass roofs are in the ridge and furrow manner of 

 Mr. Paxton, and the pines, grapes, and bananas are in the greatest vigour of 

 growth, and showing abundant crops. The vines in pots were here, as at St. 

 Helen's, and at Mr. Joseph Strutt's, uncommonly vigorous and prolific. 

 Indeed, throughout Derbyshire, as far as we have observed, the growth of 

 grapes in pots seems to be a main object with every gardener, and the success 

 is most remarkable. The vine border has the bottom paved, and supported 

 on stone piers, by which a vacuity below it is formed, into which heated air 

 is admitted in the winter season, and the surface of the border, throughout 

 the whole of the winter and spring, is thatched, so as to conduct the rain and 

 melting snow to a gutter in front, which communicates with an underground 

 drain. In short, the gardener has as complete a command of the soil contain- 

 ing the roots of the vines as if they were planted in pots ; and this, indeed, is 

 essential to successful early forcing. All the walks and paths, in and about 

 the hot-houses, are formed of flag-stones raised on props ; and the whole of 

 the garden is, by this and other means, kept constantly in the most complete 

 order and neatness. There is so much to admire and commend in this place, 

 that we can only advise all proprietors and gardeners, who have an oppor- 

 tunity, to visit and study it. 



At Bridge Hill, Belper, many of the steep walks in the pleasure-grounds are 

 entirely of flag-stone, which, in our opinion, is peculiarly appropriate to the 

 situation, and contributes much to the pleasure of walking, both in dry and 

 wet weather, as well as being much more economical than gravel. All the 

 walks in the kitchen-garden are also of flag-stone ; which, though more costly 

 than gravel at first, yet is much cheaper in the end, because it saves the expense 

 of edgings, weeding, rolling, renewing, &c, does not harbour insects, and at 

 all times affords the most comfortable description of walk. The forcing 

 houses are most extensive, some of them heated by hot air, and others by 

 flues. The back sheds, into most of which we entered, are kept perfectly 

 clean, and all the materials and tools arranged in the most orderly manner. 

 In one house, heated by hot air, the orange trees were covered with fruit and 



