52 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ July 18, 1878. 
of later were coming well on. At the end of the Peach range 
there is a large span-roofed greenhouse. Many Maréchal Niel 
Roses are planted out, and their usefulness for supplying cut 
blooms in spring cannot be over-estimated. The body of the 
house was filled with a variety of healthy plants of the kinds 
generally used for decoration in greenhouses at this season of 
the year. The next range we enter, a span-roofed plant stove, 
where Caladiums, Draczenas, Begonias, and many fine-foliaged 
plants are growing freely, and their high colourings are re- 
lieved with the soft green tints of many choice Ferns. Round 
some of the shelves Maiden-hair Ferns are planted out, and 
they do much better in this way than in pots. 
The next house is a successional Pine pit containing many 
fine plants. Cucumbers grow along the back wall and bear 
wonderful crops, and at the further end from the door is a 
collection of Orchids, amongst them the Aérides and Vandas 
are particularly fine. The next house is a large three-quarter 
‘span-roofed Pine stove. Mr. Harris is regarded as the best 
Pine-grower in Wales. Scoresof Queens were in fruit, some of 
them green, othersripe. Not one of them would weigh less than 
4 Tbs., and many of them over 5 tbs. In fact the average may 
safely be taken at the last figure, and those who are practically 
acquainted with growing Queen Pines will understand that to 
have scores of fruit averaging 5 tbs. a-piece is no mean achieye- 
ment. Mr. Harris depends a great deal on atmospheric mois- 
ture and water at the axils of the leaves to develope the fruit 
properly. The soil in which they are growing contains a good 
admixture of peat and a little horse droppings. Moscow 
Queens and Smooth Cayennes were much larger than the 
Queens, and altogether they reflect the highest credit on Mr. 
Harris, who was the premier prizewinner for a single fruit at 
the great Preston Show. 
The kitchen garden is about four acres and a half in extent, 
and replete with fine crops of all kinds of vegetables. The 
prick walls are substantial and well covered with finely trained 
healthy fruit trees. The Peach trees on the open walls were 
especially fine, and although the cold winds had injured the 
Jeaves the crops of fruit are heavy. The kinds are chiefly 
Royal George, Noblesse, Bellegarde, Late Admirable, and Sal- 
wey. The last named comes in very late, fruit weighing three- 
quarters of pound haying been gathered from it on November 
20th. Small fruits are a heayy crop, and Apples, Pears, &c., 
moderate. Mr. Harris has a comfortable house looking into 
the kitchen garden, and it is nearly hid with large Fig trees 
which generally bear heavily. 
Many names and dimensions of plants and other features 
worthy of note haye been omitted in these brief notes, but 
we do not think that any person could visit Singleton without 
coming away with our impression, that Mrs. Vivian possesses 
a remarkably fine garden, a gardener highly worthy of en- 
couragement, and a conyiction that this is given and fully 
appreciated. VISITOR, 
A GARDENERS’ HOLIDAY. 
On Wednesday, July 3rd, the members of the Darlington 
Gardeners’ Institute had their annual holiday and spent it in 
an excursion to Riveaulx Abbey and Duncombe Park, the seat 
of the Earl of Feversham. The weather was all that could be 
desired—bright and pleasant, without the tropical heat of the 
preceding week. The route was along the Malton line, run- 
ning by hedges gay with wild Roses and Elders in full bloom. 
Coxwold, one of the prettiest villages in the North Riding, was 
reached. The station was worthy of the village, its garden 
blazing with Geraniums and other summer flowers, grouped 
and disposed with consummate taste, and evidently tended 
with loving care, Laurence Sterne was once curate of this 
place, where he wrote his “Tristram Shandy ” and other books. 
As the train rushes on a good view is had of the Roman Catholic 
College of Ampleforth, pleasantly situated at a short distance 
from the village. Gilling is the next station, where a stay of 
twenty minutes is agreeably employed in a walk to the village 
and a look through the pretty country church. There are many 
objects of interest in it which well repay a visit. The stay 
was not sufficient to admit of a walk to the Castle, long the 
residence of the Fairfaxes. The more ancient part of the 
edifice is said to be of the time of Edward II. 
At the pleasant quiet town of Helmsley the rail is left, and 
the journey is by meadows laden with huge crops of fresh-cut 
grass, by houses covered with Vines or garlanded by Roses, 
amongst which the superb Maréchal Niel in full bloom was 
conspicuous, A brief visit to the church, lately restored at 
the cost of £15,000 by the Earl, and the road to Riveaulx Abbey 
is taken. The walk was uphill, but amply compensated by the 
grand prospect of Duncombe Park, surrounded by its dense 
woods, and the extensive and varied country, comprising a 
portion of the Castle Howard estate and reaching to the edge 
of Hambleton Moors. On by corn land and pasture, by shady 
woods, and down a steep grassy “bank on which the wild 
Thyme blows” profusely, and the little hamlet of Riveauls, 
built out of the ruins, gives a pleasant halt. Riveaulx Abbey 
is now reached. The Abbey (or rather its ruins) occupies 4 
romantic position in the vale of Ryedale, not far from the 
place where three well-wooded valleys meet, built in a deep 
valley surrounded and sheltered by banks clothed with ancient 
trees, a fit retreat for that contemplative devotion which shuns 
the duties and avoids the cares of active life. The ancient 
monks had, as the remains of their buildings show, an appre- 
ciation and love of the beautiful, and nowhere has it been more 
clearly exhibited than in the choice of the site for this the first 
Cistercian house erected in England. The nave is entirely 
destroyed, but the walls of the refectory and portions of the 
transepts, the most ancient parts of the building, and the mag- 
nificent choir, 144 feet in length and 63 in width, still remain. 
The latter is divided from the nave, which measured 166 feet, 
by a light and graceful arch 75 feet high, and has three rows” 
of windows richly carved, but the lofty vault, framed 
“To gather 
And roll back the sound of anthems,” 
no longer rests on the spreading arches. Roses and wild 
flowers grow on the lofty walls and wave in windows once 
gorgeous with tinted glass and: pictured saints. Conspicuous 
amongst the wild flowers were fine specimens of the beautiful 
Viper’s Bugloss, growing on the window sills and ruined walls 
at an elevation of 60 and 80 feet. One great attraction of 
Rievaux is the terrace, a well-kept piece of grass half a mile 
long, and bordered on each side by woods, in front of which 
are planted various flowering shrubs. Openings in the woods 
offer many fine views of the ruins far below and the fields and 
moors above. At the head of the terrace is a Grecian temple 
with scenes from heathen mythology skilfully painted in fresco. 
Beautiful it may be as a work of art, but Venus and Vulcan, 
Hercules and Omphale, Pan and Cupid, have little harmony 
with the monastic ruins beneath and the ascetic celibates who 
once dwelt in them. 
Leaving the terrace, the walk to Duncombe Park leads 
through a wood and breezy fields by the home farm, sheltered 
by splendid Ash trees. Here are kept the high-bred costly 
Shorthorns in which the Earl of Feversham takes great in- 
terest, and for one of which, the Duke of Oxford, he gave 
£2500. In the adjoining fields many fine animals of the 
same famous breed were grazing. The park, where large herds 
of deer were feeding, is of great extent and bordered by woods. 
The pleasure grounds round the hall are charming, laid out 
with skill and furnished with well-grown shrubs and trees. 
Near the hall are the north and south avenues, which afford a 
cool and delicious shade from the summer sun. 
The great charm of the place is the home terrace, to which, 
by the kind permission of Thomas Parington, Esq., the Earl's 
agent, the party was admitted. This ayenue, of the softest 
and greenest sward, is of considerable height above the valley, 
and from it grand views of the adjoining country can be had, 
Below, stretching into the far distance, is the luxuriant valley 
of Ryedale, its meadows and corn lands, its farms and cottages, 
basking in the bright sun of July, with glimpses of the glitter- 
ing river, and in the far distance the edge of the Yorkshire 
wolds. Passing along a walk overshadowed by ancient Yews, 
some of them measuring 16 feet in circumference, Helmsley 
was reached. After this the ruins of the once-powerful castle 
taken by General Fairfax and dismantled by order of Parlia- 
ment during the civil wars was visited, and then the excur- 
sionists, favoured by lovely weather and with nothing to mar 
the pleasures of the day, took the train home, much gratified 
by their visit to one of the loveliest spots in the fair county of 
the white Rose.—B. 
EXTRACTS FROM SIR J. D. HOOKER’S REPORT ON 
THE ROYAL GARDENS AT KEW DURING 1877. 
THE annual number of visitors to the Royal Gardens has 
during the past five years shown a disposition to fluctuate 
about an average of 670,000. Rising to nearly 700,000 in 
1874, it sank in 1876 to a little below 600,000, while in 1877 
it rose again to a number somewhat above the ayerage— 
