Domestic Notices : — England. 529 



some time about January. Mr. Garbing, also, has a place of more magnifi- 

 cence than Col. Perkins, in the high style of finish in which every thing about 

 his gardens and forcing-houses is executed. Here all the houses are heated 

 by hot water, circulating beneath the marble pavements in large copper 

 tubes. A steam engine hidden behind the high northern wall forces water 

 into an elevated reservoir, which supplies the fountain in the centre of the 

 garden during the almost tropical heat of our violent summers. This gentle- 

 man was the first to grow pines in North America, so far as I am informed ; 

 the inducement not being by any means so great to force that fine fruit with 

 us as in England, our proximity to the West Indies enabling our importers 

 of fruit to supply the market, all the summer and fall, with very fine fruit, 

 for the trifling sum of 9d. English, which is cheaper than they can be raised 

 under glass. — R. Silliman, Jun. 



Art. III. Domestic Notices. 

 ENGLAND. 



Mr. Buist of Philadelphia is now in Europe, visiting the principal commer- 

 cial gardens of London, Edinburgh, and Paris, in search of new and rare 

 plants, to carry back with him to his adopted country. Mr. Buist gives a 

 most striking and gratifying account of the progress of gardening in the 

 United States within the last six years, and more particularly in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Philadelphia. We hope some correspondent, who has more 

 leisure than Mr. Buist, will furnish us with some details. — Cond. 



The English Agricultural Society held their annual meeting at Oxford, on the 

 16th, 17th, and 18th of July. On the first day was read a paper on wheats, 

 by Colonel Le Couteur of Jersey, whose pamphlet on the subject has been 

 noticed in preceding volumes. A paper, by H. Handley, Esq., M. P., was 

 read, on the comparative advantages of wheel and swing ploughs, the prefer- 

 ence being given to the former. The other papers were chiefly in relation to 

 live stock. Among the machines exhibited was one called a scorcher, by 

 Messrs. Jones and Draper of Charlbury, being a hand machine, with a fire 

 close to the ground, and fanners to blow it ; for the purpose of destroying by 

 fire weeds, insects, &c. Several new drills and a light one-horse cart were 

 exhibited, and the meeting seems to have gone off' as well as could have been 

 expected. (Oxford Herald, July 18. 1839.) 



Cottages and Cottage Gardens of LlanhennocJc. — Colonel Sir Digby Mack- 

 worth, Bart., gives annual prizes to the cottagers of this parish, and so bene- 

 ficial has been the effect, that, on a late occasion, the inspectors had the 

 greatest difficulty in awarding the prizes, " every cottage and garden appearing 

 so neat and clean." ( Neivport Merlin, as quoted in Gardener s Gazette, July 

 20.) Would that our country gentlemen generally would imitate the enlight- 

 ened and benevolent Sir Digby Mackworth ! The good they might, in this 

 way, do to their poorer neighbours is immense ; and such as a rich man, who 

 has only to desire in order to obtain, can form no idea of. The ladies of a 

 family in the country would find this kind of attention to the cottagers in their 

 neighbourhood particularly healthful and gratifying. Every cottage and cot- 

 tage garden rendered more neat and comfortable than it was before, is not only a 

 benefit to the possessor, but an ornament to that part of the country in which it 

 is situated. Would that gardeners everywhere would take an interest in this 

 subject, as some of them do, and try to communicate it to their employers ! 

 There is abundance of gardeners who have excelled in growing house-plants 

 and fruits for exhibition, and we should now wish to see them engaging in 

 the more noble ambition of raising the character of the cottager's garden, by 

 encouraging the patronisers of horticultural shows to imitate the practice of 

 Colonel Mackworth. — Cond. 



Rhododendron arboreum. — Dr. Wallich has sent home some seeds of this 

 Vol. XV. — No. 114. n n 



