TEE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



511 



ment is (is., and new blades can be obtained separately 

 when necessary. The next most essential instrument 

 is the marking hammer and axe combined. I know 

 of no firm which makes this a specialty, so its manu- 

 facture has generally to be intrusted to local people 

 who imperfectly understand what is necessary. This 

 hammer may be in various forms, the chief points 

 to consider being a clear and well cut letter or letters 

 on the face and au axe at the tail, large and keen 

 enough to remove Ivy, the rough bark, &c, from 

 the stemsof the trees, and leave a surface sufficiently 

 smooth to obtain an effective impression from the 

 opposite end of the hammer. The blade of the axe 

 liuv eithei be hollow or solid. In the former case 

 the" cutting edge will be merely a curved band of 

 steel, welded at the extremities to two arms springing 

 from the centre of the hammer. When made in thi3 

 way there is a considerable gain as regards light- 

 ness, and the whole thing looks more symmetrical, 

 without any great sacrifice of strength. The brush 

 will not need much comment, as almost any ordinary 

 paint, or small white-wash brush will do for tin- 

 purpose. As the usage, however, on the bark, 

 mosses, Ivies, Sc, is rather rough, one which has 

 been partially worn will answer, especially where 

 dashes of colour and not letters or figures are 

 required. 



Methods of Marking. — The points to be borne in 

 mind in carrying out this work are intelligibility, and 

 giving a character to the marks which cannot easily 

 be imitated or tampered with. What I mean by 

 intelligibility is that it is necessary to consider that 

 the bulk of the people who have subsequently to 

 view, fell, and cart away the trees will not be so 

 well acquainted with names of fields, plantations, 

 hedgerows, and the like, as those to whom the mark- 

 ing is entrusted. Auctioneers are apt to cause a 

 good deal of confusion in this way. I have not 

 unfrequently seen in a catalogue of a single sale 

 the numbering commence with one in half-a-dozen 

 places. This is most perplexing to strangers, as they 

 cannot be expected to know the situation from any 

 description appended. It is a thing which often 

 leads to trouble and confusion, and is a caution as 

 necessary in private sales or sales by tender as in 

 auctions. Circumstances must of course suggest the 

 actual way ; but, speaking generally, a combination 

 of figures and letters in white paint, will be found 

 the most simple and correct, as, if carefully managed, 

 any repetition can be avoided. In the prevention ol 

 tampering with, or the imitation of marks, the 

 hammer is most useful. In using the scribe or 

 paint-brush, it is obvious that no great skill would 

 be necessary to multiply the marks indefinitely, and 

 cause loss or error. If, however, a hammer with a 

 distinctive letter is used on each bole, either with or 

 without the paint mark, and proper care be taken of it 

 when not in use, the chance of felling the wrong 

 timber will be reduced to a minimum. 



Selection. — Though coming first in order I have 

 purposely left this until last, so as to touch upon the 

 tools and methods of marking. It is, however, out 

 of all proportion, the most important part of the 

 subject, and a thing requiring more judgment in 

 park lands, fields, and the like, than in plantations. 

 In thinning or felling plantations, when the order of 

 work has once been laid out, it can be gone on with 

 methodically, and does not entail the critical ex- 

 amination of every individual tree or pole, as must 

 be done when timber is in any degree isolated. In 

 mixed woodlands, too, where the trees are often of 

 varying ages, greater care is necessary. Where it is 

 possible, a second survey should be made before the 

 final decision is come to. When this plan is followed, 

 marking the trees iu the first instance with a dash of 

 whitewash greatly aids the operation, as it is at once 

 seen, and when any alteration is made in the second 

 survey, is as easily removed. The actual trees 

 selected will naturally depend upon the object for 

 which the felling is contemplated. If merely to clear 

 the defective, ill-formed, and too crowded wood the 

 business will be greatly simplified, and the chief care 

 needed will be, that in removing a defective tree it 

 does not spoil the appearance of its neighbour or of 

 a group. I know a place well which a few years ago 

 was one of the best timbered estates in the district. 

 It is true that many of the trees had passed their 

 prime, and the clearance of a considerable number of 

 them was a necessity. In doing this, however, it does 

 not appear that the slightest judgment was used, 

 with the result that what would previously have 

 made, for its size, as beautiful a park as any 

 in England — as the site is of a delightfully 

 undulating nature — has been reduced to a mere 

 wilderness, and looks as though a tornado had 

 swept through it. This is the more to be regretted, 



as there is still timber enough to make a fairly 

 wooded demesne, if only a little intelligence had 

 been used in felling. It is, however, only fair to say 

 that this is not the work of any one professing any 

 knowledge of the subject, but I believe is the joint 

 effort of the estate carpenter and the merchant. I 

 speak of this incident at some length, as when on 

 occasion I have had to say some rather strong things 

 upon the way in which such important matters are 

 allowed to drift, some writers have doubted whether 

 they were really so bad. 



One mistake amongst inexperienced men — and one 

 which often leads to the disfigurement of places — i3 

 the fear of cutting down a small or young tree. 

 None will dispute that it is most important 

 to preserve every young tree possible, when it is 

 in the right position, yet there are many cases 

 where I would not for a moment hesitate to 

 sacrifice a young tree and preserve an old one. 

 This is especially so with groups which are often 

 composed of trees of all ages, but which, neverthe- 

 less, so entirely depend upon each other that the 

 larger ones cannot be removed without entirely 

 destroying the effect of the others, if it does not their 

 existence. Under such conditions I would remove 

 the whole and replant, rather than leave two or 

 three sickly, lanky objects simply because in the 

 matter of years they had not come to maturity. By 

 doing this one would often be able to save an inter- 

 ference with some other group altogether, as the cubic 

 contents of an entire clearance would equal that of a 

 tree here and there from two or three groups, and 

 avoid the destruction of effects which it takes an 

 average lifetime to produce. The same thing is true 

 in a lesser degree of hedgerow trees, but does not 

 apply nearly so much to woods which depend for 

 beauty on their general mass. This selection ques- 

 tion is so many-sided that in a paper like this it is 

 only possible to touch upon a few of the commonest 

 mistakes, but there can be no doubt that many of 

 these mistakes could be easily avoided if owners 

 would only recognise that it requires a considerable 

 nicety of judgment in determining what trees to fell, 

 and that the mere ability to handle an axe or a saw is 

 not neccessarilv a qualification. D. J. Yco, Lyneham, 



Wills. 



Nursery Notes. 



MESSRS. BACKHOUSE & SONS', YORK. 



This grand old establishment, with its fine collec- 

 tion of Orchids, its matchless stores of Filmy Ferns, 

 its complete and well-kept collection of alpine and 

 other hardy plants, and its large, select, and well 

 grown stock of most things appertaining to a first- 

 class nursery fully maintains its old reputation, and 

 that is all that need be said on the point, for that 

 that reputation is one of the highest that a nursery 

 establishment need aspire to is well known. It seems 

 a difficult task to undertake an enumeration of even 

 the most prominent of its attractions, but neverthe- 

 less a note of a few things taken at a visit on the 

 25th nit. will be of interest to many. 



The Ouchids. 



Among these the York Cattleya-house has always 

 caused a great amount of interest by reason of the 

 excellent quality of the plants and flowers which 

 were formerly grown in the fine, well-ventilated, 

 roomy, span-roofed structure, without the least 

 attempt at shading from the fierce heat of the sun's 

 rays even in the hottest summer. That the plants 

 were fine none could gainsay, although most good 

 Orchid growers condemned the practice of growing 

 them unshaded. Ultimately, Messrs. Backhouse 

 decided to use a thin shading, and all Orchid 

 growers will be interested to know that it has had a 

 beneficial result; less water being required, more 

 root is made, and improvements in all directions 

 have resulted. 



The varieties of C. gigas, the large leafy masses of 

 which are well-known to visitors, are, if possible, 

 more robust and more floriferous than heretofore ; 

 and the C. Trianas are equally good, and contain some 

 charming named varieties, among which the follow- 

 ing may be named : — C. T. The Bride, a lovely white, 

 with pearly tints ; C. T. Enchantress, a grand light 

 form ; Aurora, Eboracensis, insignis, and the crim- 



son-feathered C. T. Backhousiana. Cattleya labiata 

 Schroedera, Lrelia purpurata, L. elegans, and other of 

 the large Cattleyas and Lailias are also well sheathed 

 for flower in the large Cattleya-house ; and a good 

 batch of Odontoglossum citrosmum enjoys the well- 

 lighted situation in a corner thereof. 



The varieties of L;clia anceps have many flower- 

 spikes, and form the principal feature in the Mexican- 

 house ; in which, too, is a grandly flowered lot of 

 Ddantoglossum grande, Lailia albida, L. pur- 

 purata. L. Gouldiana, L. autumnalis, &c. ; and a 

 number of robust plants Cypripedium Spicerianum 

 which have been grown in the Odontoglossum-house 

 for the past summer, are just expanding their flowers. 

 The plants are immeasurably superior to any that 

 have been kept in heat all the year, and so probably 

 would be more than one-half of the other Cypri- 

 prediums. 



The Odontoglossums and other cool Orchids are in 

 splendid condition. A sprinkling of good things noted 

 in flower among the plants of O. crispum and 0. 

 Ilarryanum. The best white Lycaste Skinneri alba, 

 some pretty scarlet Sophronitis, Uielia prastans, 

 Odontoglossum Insleayi splendens (in bud) were 

 remarked in flower or approaching the flowering 

 stage. Among a well grown and varied collection 

 of Cypripediums in one of the warm houses many 

 were in flower or in bud ; and in another house 

 some plants of an importation of Cattleya aurea, 

 which it is expected will yield some of the beautiful 

 C. Hardyana, were in bud. One great advantage to 

 buyers of Orchids at the York Nurseries is that the 

 plants are fairly and even hardily grown, so that 

 they travel well and thrive after a journey, which 

 uursed-up plants often succumb to at once, or are 

 invalids for years. 



The Disas are marvellously well done here, and 

 the greater part of a cold house is devoted to a 

 plantation of them. Here many yards of D. grandi- 

 flora may be seen of a vigour altogether astonishing 

 to those who have only seen ordinary plants. As 

 may be required the strongest are taken up and 

 potted for sale, and when in bloom the house is a 

 beautiful picture of vivid scarlet flowers. Other 

 distinct and lovely forms of D. grandiflora, too, are 

 here, and notably a rich crimson form, and one with 

 vermilion flowers tipped with yellow. Treated also 

 in a similar manner are lesser quantities of the 

 handsome D. racemosa, the rare and lovely large 

 white D. crassicornis, and several species of the 

 grassy-leaved section. 



The Filmy Ferns. — These form a display which, 

 for quantity and variety, is unequalled. The 

 collecting and growing of these lovely plants 

 have cost Messrs. Backhouse many years of labour, 

 but the result attained is such, that a very beautiful 

 array of them has been acquired, whose beauty must 

 be seen before a true idea can be formed of them. 

 In the matter of variety, it should be said that this 

 firm publish a separate catalogue of Filmy 

 Ferns, in which some thirty fine species and 

 varieties of Hymenophyllum, and fifty of Tri- 

 chomanes, are enumerated and described. Those 

 seen in the sunk, unheated rockery, falling in 

 graceful masses over the rocks, or nestling in quiet 

 nooks, are very beautiful ; nor are the lesser speci- 

 mens in pots or on Tree Ferns in the houses devoted 

 to the plants for sale scarcely less attractive. In the 

 rockery is an unique mass of a very elegantly cut 

 form of Trichomanes radicans, collected many years 

 ago in a stone quarry near Leeds, and perhaps the 

 last recorded ill Yorkshire. Very lovely too, were 

 great masses of Hymenophyllum flexuosuin, H. pec- 

 tinatum, H. caudiculatum, H. crispatura, H. cruen- 

 tum, H. dichotomum, H. dilatatum, H. demissum ; 

 Trichomanes radicans dissectum, T. reniforme, T, 

 Luschnathianum, T. meifolium ; while Lomariopsis 

 heteromorpha seems also to revel in the cool cave- 

 like atmosphere. 



The general collection of Ferns and the noble 

 rockery with tree and other Ferns, are worthy of the 

 Filmies. The house of Gleichenias contains perfect 

 specimens of all sizes ; Niphobolus lingua corymbi- 

 fera is in quantity, so also the rare Onychium 



