May 2, 1865. ] 



JOTJKXAL OF HORTICULTURE XSD COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



341 



The principal contributions to the Herbarium and Library 

 have been : — 



1. The collection of specimens, drawinprs, and MSS. of 

 Carioes, of the late Dr. Francis Boott, F.L.S., formerly 

 Tresisurer of the Linniean Society; presented by his widow. 

 It is impossible to over-estimate the value of this gift. Dr. 

 Boott devoted the greater part of his life to the study of 

 this particular and very difficult tribe of plants ; he formed a 

 complete and beautifully arranged and named collection of 

 the species firom all parts of the world ; and was for thirty 

 years the standard authority for their nomenclature. At bis 

 own expense he caused to be prepared in Paris and London 

 a superb series of folio drawings of all the species, of which 

 upwards of 400 were published, with descriptions, in three 

 volumes, and privately distributed, also at his own ex- 

 pense. The entire number of drawings amounts to upwards 

 of 700. 



2. The Herbarium and 5IS3. of the late Dr. P. B. Ayres, 

 colonial surgeon of Mauritius ; presented by his widow. 

 Dr. Ayres spent upwards of ten years in the ITanritius, 

 during which time the whole of his leisure was employed in 

 exploring its botany, and describing the plants for a Flora 

 which he intended to publish. This Herbarium, which 

 is a very considerable one, together with the MSS., wiU 

 prove of great use in the event of a Flora of ilauritius 

 being published, which is in contemplation by the Colonial 

 Government. 



BAEEEI?" STEAWBEEET PLA^'TS. 



At page 304 your coiTespondent "W. B." has thrown 

 out some hints on baiTen Strawberry plants, and it may not 

 be out of place here to mention what has come under my 

 own notice. 



A firiend has a large garden, and some years since, when 

 I was taking a walk with liiin in the garden and chatting on 

 bee matters, my attention was also drawn to the fruit, which 

 promised to be abundant. "But what is the reason you 

 have no Strawberries ?" These were at the time growing 

 to the south of some Arbor Titae trees. '■ Oh," replied my 

 friend, " these are some plants which my nephew sent to 

 me five years ago." " Then they are too old ; they ought 

 to be transplanted." "But," said my friend, "there never 

 was either fruit or blossom on them; they are male plants." 

 "Oh dear!" rejoined I, "that is wrong. Transplant them, 

 and you will see them grow into females." He did trans- 

 plant them, and in two years afterwards he had the most 

 abundant crop I have ever seen. — A IiAuakkshiee Bee- 



KKEPEE. 



ELOWEE-GAEDEX PLANS. 



Tot: have taken me rather at a disadvantage by pubUsh- 

 ing the remarks which I sent you upon flower-garden plans 

 (which were elicited by your adverse criticism on borders 

 in front of houses), as they were hastily written and I in- 

 tended to write you a paper on the subject. 



I did not wish to make any invidious remarks between 

 " E. A. L."s " design and the one from Houndstone House, 

 TeoviL; but merely alluded to them as they happened to 

 illustrate my ideas on the subject. I have, I am afraid, 

 misled you to suppose that the design by "E. A. L." was 

 one of my own, as I said I originally laid out the garden, 

 and recommended that the border in front of the house 

 should remain. Since then, however, all the ground in front 

 of the house has been levelled into two terraces, the upper 

 one for King Croquet and the Lords and Ladies of the Hoops, 

 &c. ; the other has been occupied by the design in page 214, 

 of your Journal, which is "E. A. L.'s" own. When I 

 originally laid out the garden, I had to cut out beds adapted 

 to the uneven surface of the ground, and they were rightly 

 done away with when the ground was levelled. I may, 

 therefore, without prejudice, defend "■ E. A. L.'s " design, 

 which is one particularly well adapted for the piece of ground 

 it occupies, which is level with an irregular outline. 



And now I would add a few remarks°upon the rules which 

 I laid down for flower-garden plans, and also upon your 

 criticisms. 



First. Every bed ought to make a perfect and uniform 

 shape. By this I mean, that if it is divided by a line down 



its centre, one half ought to be equal to the other half; 

 circles, squares, ovals, quatrefoils, trefoils, &o., follow this 

 ride, as do nearly all geometrical figures. This is easily 

 illustrated by architectural details, as windows, arches, staU 

 ends, &c. TThen I use the word perfect, I do not mean to 

 say that there are not other shapes more perfect or more 

 beautiful, but that it does not require anything added to it 

 to make it uniform. It is, therefore, perfect, of itself. A 

 circle is perfect in itself, and is, perhaps, for bedding-out 

 plants the best possible shape, but it is not beautiful, at 

 least as far as the mere outline is concerned. The circle is 

 not a beautiful figure in architecture, but a cii-cular window 

 filled with tracery and painted glass is, perhaps, one of the 

 most strikingly beautiful features in many buildings— for in- 

 stance the circiJar windows in Tork Minster. I adduce these 

 as an example, because a circular bed, which is a very simple 

 form and not beautiful in itself, is often made most beautiful 

 by its setting with bedding plants, aided by other beds or 

 the set of beds, of which it may be the centre. 



2. "Walks ought to form patterns as well as the beds» 

 No doubt, as you remark, the walks will always form 

 patterns, but very often the patterns of the walks are sacri- 

 ficed to the beds, the beds being cut out with very little 

 reference to the shape of the walks, merely leaving an 

 irregular space, haphazard, after the beds are cut out. The 

 walks are generally intended, I presume, to enable persons 

 to walk amongst the flowers, to enjoy their beauty, and 

 examine them closely, or to allow the gardener to work 

 amongst the flowers without treading on the beds. Now, 

 in many plans I have seen the grass left so narrow in places 

 between scroll-beds, that no lady could walk between the 

 beds to pick a flower without brusliing the beds behind, and 

 even a gardener at bedding-out time would find his feet in 

 the bed behind him if he knelt down to plant. I say, then, 

 that walks ought, as far as possible, to be of a uniform useful 

 width, one which will admit a barrow or a mowing-machine, 

 and they should net be merely spaces left at random. A 

 flowing artistic outline may sound well theoretically, but 

 practically it does not work so well, unless it is in Box and 

 coloured gravels for winter gardens. Patterns, that would 

 look well for ladies' embroidery, would not leave suitable 

 spaces for ladies' crinoUnes, and we do not wish to banish 

 the fair sex from our gardens. 



3. All pointed or unequal-shaped beds ought to be avoided. 

 I own that "E. A. L.'s " beds have a good many points, but 

 none of them present any difficulty in planting, as the en- 

 graver by diminishing the size of the beds, 2, 2, &o., has 

 made all the points in the set, 2, 3, &c., much more acute 

 than they really are. I do not think any angle over 60* a 

 shai'p point, especially if not too much prolonged. Now, in 

 the plan, page 232, the points, 6, 6, and the ends of the 

 scroll, 4 and 3, are prolonged points — that is to say, if the 

 bed was 2 feet wide 6 feet from the end, it would be gradu- 

 ally dimmishing from these to the point. Now, suppose you 

 tried to plant 4 with Calceolaria and edge with Purple 

 King, the edging would run to a narrow single line. In 

 fact, with the proposed planting of Calceolaria Aurea flori- 

 bunda, the plants would soon overgrow the points, or else 

 the last foot of the points would have to be left plain sod. 

 No set of beds can well be made without angles, but the 

 less the angles run into prolonged points the better. 



Eule 4 requires no explanation, as I have already referred 

 to it, and I think you quite agree with me as to the truth of 

 it. I alluded to the division of animals through the vertebrae, 

 and leaves through the midrib to illustrate what I meant by 

 a uniform bed, not by a set of beds. I quite agree in pre- 

 ferring that a set of beds should be capable of being divided 

 into four equal parts by lines drawn at right angles through 

 the centre point. It does not necessarily follow, however, 

 that these lines should be on the walks, otherwise the 

 walks must be nearly always cruciform; but if they fall upon 

 beds they must divide them equally. The plan at page 214 

 follows this rule, and two lines through the centre of the 

 quatrefoil 1, at right angles through 2, 13, 14, &c., wiU 

 divide it into four equal parts. I quite agree, however, 

 that the quatrefoils 16, and circles 12, 12, 13, 13, and the 

 bands round are not necessary as far as making a perfect 

 figure, and think that your rule, that in a set of beds, no 

 clump ought to be capable of removal and another substi- 

 tuted in its place without injury to the set, is a perfectly 



