240 Select Suburban Residences. 



and, notwithstanding their seeming relationship, Mr. Beaton has 

 hitherto failed to obtain a cross between them. In another 

 house we noticed a standard of that fine old plant the Euphorbia 

 phoenicea, with a head 4 or 5 feet in diameter, and just coming 

 into bloom. There is also a good stock of mesembryanthemums, 

 aloes, and the common epiphyllums, in another house appro- 

 priated to this section of plants. The day being very cold, we 

 did not see much of the plants in the pits. These pits, and 

 some of the houses, are heated by Rogers's conical boilers ; and 

 also a long shed in the farm-yard, with glass sashes in front, 

 where rare specimens of single camellias, acacias, and such- 

 like plants are wintered, to be turned out in summer into the 

 flower-garden, and other convenient places round the house. 

 The subsoil here is so cold and damp, that it is found necessary 

 to take up in the autumn such plants as Benthamz'a fragifera, 

 Garry« elliptica, and many other half-hardy plants, which are 

 kept in this shed conservatory all the winter. 



"A large number of apple and pear trees were planted here 

 this spring. The pits for these were from 4 ft. to 5 ft. in 

 diameter, and paved with common slates, their edges lapping 

 over each other, as in common roofing. Prepared compost 

 was filled over these slates till it was 6 or 9 inches above the 

 common level of the garden, and the trees planted on these 

 round hillocks, and mulched all over with a compost of rotten 

 dung, rotten tan, and about one third of sifted coal ashes. The 

 trees were bought at Mr. Forest's nursery, Kensington ; and, 

 though Mr. Forest is an entire stranger to Mr. Beaton, the 

 latter thinks it but justice to say, that these fruit trees were the 

 finest he ever saw coming out of any nursery whatever. 



" All the paths in the houses are of Welsh slate, half an inch 

 thick, which is found far cheaper and more durable than stone 

 pavements ; besides, there is no dust from them like that from 

 stone paths. Many of the shelves are also of this slate; but, 

 for this purpose, the slate ought to be ribbed, in order to carry 

 off the drainage from the bottom of the pots more effectually, 

 and to be drilled with small holes to let through the wet from 

 the furrows formed by the ribbing. In one division of a range 

 of low houses are some fine pine-apple plants, which never had 

 any bottom heat, and nothing can exceed their vigour and 

 healthy appearance. They are plunged in old tan, and an 

 empty pot placed, mouth upwards, under each pine pot. The 

 water from the pine pot passes down freely into this pot, and 

 the worms are never found to get into the pine pot. If the 

 lower pot were placed bottom upwards, the drainage from the 

 pine-pot would not be complete, nor the worms kept back. 

 When bottom heat is used for pines or other plants, this is 

 always a safe mode to guard against too strong bottom heat. 



