144 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ August 17, 1875. 



Society and its arrangements for the ensuing year. A luncheon 

 at 5s. each will be provided at 2.30 p.m. for those who inform 

 Mr. Barron (Royal Horticoltnral Society's garden, Chiswick, 

 London), not later than the 21st inst. of their wiBh to partake 

 thereof. 



■ At the Alexandra Palace, in Mr. J. T. Peacock's col- 

 lection, there are at present three very rare Agaves in bloom — 

 Agave laxa, A. Besserriana, and A. bromeli&folia. 



Messes. Ewinq & Co., nurserymen, Norwich, have sent 



us fruits of two sorts of Plums both ripe with them some time 

 before Rivers's Early Prolific (both are ten days later this 

 season than usual). Blue Perdrigon they have been gather- 

 ing this season since the 7th of July, and it is of fine quality 

 as usual, and a great bearer. Hubbard's Early Prolific is just 

 (August 11th) coming fit ; this is a great bearer, but the qua- 

 lity is poor; in size it is superior to Rivers's Early Prolific. 

 The only two places round Norwich having a fair crop of Plums 

 this year are their own orchard, and the other at Somerleyton 

 Hall near Lowestoft. In the latter place the large Apple trees 

 are nearly destroyed by American blight. In west Norfolk the 

 market gardeners talk of Plums being worth Id. each. 



Quite a feature just now in the border outside the 



curvilinear range at Glasnevin is Ceinum obnatum. Fancy a 

 Crinum with a stem nearly as thick as that of the giant 

 C. amabile of our stoves, with flaccid spreading leaves, each 

 some 5 feet or more in length, and where widest half a foot 

 broad, with a flower stem 4 feet high, and thick and stout as a 

 walking-stick, and crowned with an umbel of a score of pen- 

 dulous, white, rose-tinted flowers, each nearly as large as that 

 of the Belladonna Lily, and the reader will have a good idea of 

 this grand hardy Amaryllid. Tes, perfectly hardy ; for some 

 six years or so have it and its companion plant, C. Mooreii, 

 stood out without the slightest protection, and among these 

 years were some of a character to make the test of hardihood 

 one of the most crucial kind. These two magnificent Crinums 

 are gains indeed to our gardens, and for their introduction 

 and the interesting fact of showing their hardihood the lovers 

 of choice hardy plants have reason to feel indebted to Dr. 

 Moore and Glasnevin. There are several other new and in- 

 teresting plants in flower there just now, among others the 

 Btately Natal Hyacinth, Hyacinthus candicans. — (Farmers' 

 Gazette.) 



Me. Thomas Shoett writes that Globiosa supeeba is 



quite hardy, and succeeds if planted in light rich sandy soil in 

 a dry situation — at the foot of a wall or on rockwork, perfect 

 drainage being indispensable. A few ashes^or fern placed over 

 it will be of service in severe winters. 



The application of the term hotheb, whether to plants 



or other natural objects, intimates that it was considered the 

 origin, the parent of some specialty. " Mother of Thyme " 

 intimates that it is the producer of incense, it is fragrant all 

 the year ; both in Greek and Anglo-Saxon Thyme refers to 

 incense or perfume. "Mother of Pearl" is a lining of the 

 shell of the oysters which yield pearls. " Mother of Millions " 

 is the popular name of the Linaria Cymbalaria, and was sup- 

 posed by the old herbalists to promote fecundity. 



We earnestly commend the following extracts to our 



readers, and emphatically say " Do likewise :" — " It has been 

 one of my greatest pleasures during the past year to distribute 

 some hundreds of bunches of flowers to the sick and infirm 

 poor, and in every case the gift has been received with grateful 

 thanks. Through the kindness of those who have sent the 

 flowers, often the choicest their gardens afforded, many a 

 lonely widow's heart has been made to rejoice, and many a 

 sick one has been cheered and helped on towards recovery : 

 and the rich perfume they shed in the sick chamber has at 

 once been a solace and a joy. One poor old lady who had 

 been ill a long weary time, when I took her a bunch of flowers 

 said, ' It was like bringing the Garden of Eden into the room.' 

 Another, who had not spoken for a long time, found her long- 

 lost speech in praise of a beautiful little bouquet I had placed 

 on a table at her bedside. Cases might be multiplied, the 

 only difficulty being to find one where the flowers have not 

 been tike angels' visits." " The following is from the matron 

 of our General Infirmary : — ' Flowers in the wards of a hospital 

 not only help to enliven the dull monotony of the wards, but, 

 by affording some new train of pleasant thought, they enable 

 the patients, for a short time at least, to forget their sufferings. 

 Often have I seen the pained face of a patient light up with a 

 Bmile at the sight of a few spring flowers. Rely on it, it is 

 such small delicate attentions as these, showing that some- 



body takes an interest in them, and looks on them, not as 

 logs of wood, but as men and women having sympathies and 

 affections, that make all the difference to the comfort and 

 contentment of the sick. The following instance shows how 

 the flowers are valued : — A fisherlad of sixteen had his leg so 

 severely injured that amputation was necessary. A day or 

 two after the operation somebody sent a present of a few 

 Violets, and the notice and care he took of them would have 

 well rewarded the donor. One day an attendant pretended to 

 take them away, on which he said, * No ! you may take away my 

 dinner or my wine, but you must not take away my flowers.' " 

 — (Report on Distribution of Flowers at Hull in 1875.) 



The " American Gardeners' Monthly " states that ''the 



exhibitions oe eeuits at the Centennial promise to be a 

 great success. Horticultural societies from Iowa, Michigan, 

 Kansas, Indiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Canada have aBked 

 for space for ten thousand plates for the 12th of September 

 exhibit. It will no doubt be the most wonderful sight ever 

 seen in the world, and Philadelphia ought to be the great 

 central point for horticulturists in September, 1876." It is 

 further stated that a choice collection of plants exhibited by 

 Messrs. James Veitch & Sons of Chelsea have been presented 

 to the city of Philadelphia. 



THE OLD MABKET GARDENS and NURSERIES 

 OF LONDON.— No. 11. 



Rapid have been the changes that have passed over London 

 nursery gardens during the last fifty years ; so much so, that 

 a map of London prepared to indicate these in the "good old 

 times " when the Prince Regent had become King, and one 

 showing the present extent and localities of these useful 

 establishments, would exhibit a wonderful contrast. Only 

 here and there does a nursery survive which approximates to 

 the busy parts of London, and the owner of which has refused 

 to listen to " the voice of the charmer," preferring to go on in 

 the old style that his father, or perhaps his grandfather, did 

 before him, though the smoke of the metropolis is sadly op- 

 posed to his successful cultivation of any plants that require 

 a pure atmosphere. And in these days, when it is so easy to 

 convey plants, flowers, and fruit from one place to another, 

 there is little need that a man should locate himself near the 

 metropolitan district's, and those are the wiser cultivators who 

 have chosen spots some ten or twelve miles out on the pleasant 

 slopes of north Middlesex, Kent, or Surrey. Yet somehow one 

 laments over the nurseries that have vanished and fled with 

 all their greenery to make place for long lines of doors and 

 windows and the bustle of London streets ; but even more dis- 

 agreeable to a person of any taste at all is the aspect of a 

 neglected nursery garden, where the paths are overgrown with 

 grass or trampled out of outline, the buildings are in a miser- 

 able state of dilapidation and besprinkled about with smashed 

 glass, while on the beds innumerable weeds disport themselves. 

 Such was the condition of the once-celebrated Sloane Street 

 Nursery, the career of which has now closed, when I visited it 

 a few days ago. It is satisfactory, however, to find that the 

 land iB neither to be built upon nor to remain in its wilderness 

 state, but that by-and-by if will be laid out afresh, and under 

 the name of " Cadogan Gardens " serve as a resort for the 

 well-to-do residents of the streets overlooking it. The juveniles 

 will be cared for, doubtless, and croquet lawns with flower 

 beds will serve to delight visitors of all ages, and with judicious 

 management the existing shrubberies can be utilised. But it 

 will not need the lapse of many years to make people forget 

 its history as a nursery garden, which goes back to the time 

 when Chelsea was separated from Pimlico by that ominous 

 waste designated the " Five Fields," and the glories of Rane- 

 lagh were fresh in the memories of the folks living in the 

 neighbourhood. 



A hundred years ago or more there were two contiguous 

 estates in Chelsea, one much larger than the other, known as 

 "Whitelands" and " Blacklands." The latter of these, in- 

 deed, extended into Pimlico and KnightBbridge, consisting of 

 something like a hundred acres. Old chroniclers have not 

 troubled themselves to explain the origin of the name, and 

 my conclusion on the subject is this, that " Blacklands " was 

 not thus called from the actual tint of the soil, but because 

 the surface appeared dark through its being covered with the 

 purple bells of the Heath (Erica tetralix). The sandy soil 

 would suit the plant, and there is extant evidence that it once 

 grew plentifully on the common which adjoined the Blacklands 



