28 Bicton Gardens, their Culture and Management. 



grand exhibition at Chiswick, where queen pines were shown of 

 what was considered an enormous weight, 3 lb., and one fruit 

 of that weight got stolen, and found its way to Bow Street. 



The two peach-houses I leave you to describe, as you took 

 some notes of them. I can only say the trees are too far from 

 the glass to get early fruit. The tool-shed, I think, you also 

 noted down ; likewise the shed at the back of the stove, where you 

 noticed tubs, boxes, &c., filled with pebbles of different sizes, 

 broken stones, and broken potsherds of all sizes. 



Bicton Gardens^ Sept. 29. 1842. 



Letter VI. Chrysanthemums. Manured Water. Properties of Charcoal, Sfc. 



Since I have taken in all the plants to the various houses, I have 

 arranged my Chrysanthemums. I believe you made some observ- 

 ations on them, and took notes, and asked me to describe my 

 manner of treating them, which I will now do. In the first 

 place, I make it a rule at this season of the year to take off two 

 or more suckers of each variety; I pot them in small 60-sized 

 pots, let them stand in these pots until the March following, 

 when I remove them into ^H-sized pots, to grow them in. I 

 take the tops off in the beginning of May, and strike them ; then 

 in August lay a quantity from the plants that are turned out for 

 the purpose, to pot (as now) in the beginning of October. This 

 gives me four successions of plants ; so that they are in flower 

 from this time until February next. 1 have also winter-flower- 

 ing pelargoniums. Primula sinensis, cinerarias, Guernsey 

 iiUes, and camellias, always ready at this time, as it makes the 

 houses look cheerful all the winter. The collection of chrysan- 

 themums at Bicton consists of about 100 varieties. I pot in 

 the whole about 1000 plants or rather more. I grow them in 

 charcoal and loam, occasionally giving them a little manured 

 liquid. Do you remember my observation on manured liquid, 

 v^'hen I espied a blunder that had been made on a row of the 

 largest and most forward of my chrysanthemums, and which 

 blunder, I was told on enquiry, had been committed by the boy, 

 viz. " It is well to have a boy sometimes to throw the blame 

 upon?" However, when manured water is properly understood 

 it will be a great thing, not only for gardeners, but farmers, and 

 indeed for all mankind, I hope. 



I think you wrote something respecting the Properties of 

 Charcoal eighteen or twenty months since, and I believe it was 

 translated tVom the German. Now, you did not expect to 

 meet with so humble an individual as myself, who- had not 

 only used it for years before, but even before he rightly un- 

 derstood the wonderful and astonishing properties of it. No 

 doubt but many have tried it in various ways, for I have been 



