544 Notices of some Gardens and Country Seats 



elsewhere, or even when he sees something like it in other 

 gardens. Thus, step by step, a person who would never have 

 noticed a tree if he had not seen it named, becomes an amateur 

 of trees and shrubs, than which no objects, scarcely even archi- 

 tectural ones, form more beautiful or permanent ornaments to a 

 country residence, and to the general aspect of the land. Next 

 to agriculture, therefore, a taste for planting and landscape- 

 gardening is the most to be desired in a country gentleman ; for, 

 while he is improving and ornamenting his own estate, he is, at 

 the same time beautifying and enriching his country. All 

 nurserymen who plant arboretums are aiding in infusing a taste 

 in country gentlemen for trees and shrubs, and hence they well 

 merit the general thanks of the public. 



Every nurseryman, when he sends out trees and shrubs which 

 are not quite common, ought to send out along with them properly 

 prepared names to be nailed to wooden pegs or stakes. This 

 may either be done by having the names stamped with type on 

 plates of lead as practised by Messrs. Whitley and Osborn, and 

 for which they charge only 125. per hundred, as mentioned in 

 our Volume for 1841, p. 584. ; or by writing the names with 

 prepared ink, as practised by Mr. Rivers of the Sawbridgeworth 

 Nursery. These labels, Mr. Rivers informs us, will last at least 

 10 years; but we shall have more to say on this subject in 

 our next Number. 



At the Vinstone Nursery resides Mr. Pontey, senior, a most 

 intelligent and intellectual gentleman, young in mind and ac- 

 tivity, though above eighty years of age. He pointed out many 

 things to us, and told us many anecdotes. His chief amusement 

 is reading history. He noticed to us the intense bitter of the 

 leaves of Viburnum j^runifolium, and gave us the history of 

 several varieties of trees which will be spoken of hereafter. 



In Mr. Pontey's Plymouth Nursery, there is a straight walk 

 from the entrance, the longest of the kind we recollect to have 

 seen ; Mr. Pontey says it is upwards of a quarter of a mile. 

 On each side there is a border with specimens of the more 

 showy or rare trees and shrubs. Among these we noticed good 

 specimens of a variety with very large leaves raised from seed of 

 Pyrus Morbus vestita; P. A~y'\sl fr. luteo with large yellow fruit; 

 fine specimens of the different varieties of P. arbutifolia, P. 

 spuria, and P. A s y\& grae v ca ; Cotoneaster acuminata, frigida, and 

 affinis ; Berberis umbellata a new species, and Deeringm indica, 

 with many others. Against the gable end of a house, the Isa- 

 bella grape was covered with bunches of its fine black fruit 

 nearly ripe. Among many plants in the houses, we observed a 

 good stock of a new tropaeolum, supposed to be T. azureum ; 

 of two new sorts of yuccas, one with narrow leaves from 5 ft. to 

 6 ft. long, and the other with broader leaves, said to grow from 



