63 



JCUENAL OF HOETl CULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ July 27, 1871. 



I have it side by side with Kidneys and Jersey Blues. The 

 Early Rose is badly blighted, neither of the others touched, nor 

 have I heard of blight about here as yet. — W. li.,lBircMngton, 



THE PROGRESS AND CONDITION OF THE 

 ROYAL GARDENS AT KEW. 



The followiog are extracts from the Director's report for 

 1870 :— 



The total number of visitors in the year 1870 has been 586,835, as 

 against 630,594 in 1869, and 502,369 in 1868. 



Total number on Sundays 265,585 



„ on Week-days 821,250 



3,835 



Greatest Monthly attendance (Jane) 145.029 



Smallest Monthly attendance (December) 2,871 



Greatest Week-day attendance (Whit-Monday, June 6th). . 41,572 



Smallest W^eek-day attendance (December 9th) ll 



Greatest Sunday attendance (-lune 5th) 19,365 



Smallest Sunday attendance (February 13tb) 70 



Number of Visitors in each Month of the Year 1S70, 



January 4,971 



February 5,491 



March 10.487 



April !-8.557 



May 65,3u7 



June 145,029 



July 102,878 



Brought forward 422,723 



August 74,831 



September 58.119 



October 21,706 



November j..,. 6,585 



December 2,871 



Total 586,£ 



Carried forward 422,723 



1. BoTAMC Gardens. — The improvements in the laying-out of the 

 grounds of this department, -which have been in progress for the last 

 five years, are now nearly brought to a close by the remodelling during 

 the past year of the herbaceous ground ; by the construction of the 

 Rose walk, 215 yards long, along the wall bounding the herbaceous 

 ground on the west, which has been heightened by the addition of 

 3 feet of pierced brickwork; by the fencing- off of the reserve f;round; 

 by the completion of the terrace on which the new range of stoves, 

 &e., stands {which is, however, only partially planted) ; and by the 

 formation of the paths leading to this. Many Pines and other ever- 

 green trees have been transplanted, chiefly by the transplanting ma- 

 chine, and placed as screens to shut out the view of the backs of the 

 houses on Kew Green, and the fronts' of those along the Kichmond 

 Hoad ; and many deciduous trees have been introduced along the 

 walks ; large beds of Rhododendrons, Laurels, and other shrubs have 

 also been planted along the principal paths. 



An attempt has been made to utilise the Deodars, with which some 

 parts of the garden were too much crowded, by placing a number of 

 them at equal distances along a line concentric with the Yew fence 

 ■which encloses the Palm-house area, leaving a broad grass walk 

 between the fence and the Deodars. Similarly many of the scattered 

 Atlas Cedars have been transplanted, and now form an avenue along 

 the curved walk leading to the back of the old Victoria house. Other 

 Conifers, together with the scattered Wellingtonias, have been planted 

 along the vista which leads from the Tcest door of the Palm house to 

 the gi-eat Cedar in the pleasure grounds. 



Large beds of mixed flowering, evergreen, and deciduous shrubs 

 have been planted on both sides of all the gates leading through the 

 wire fence into the pleasure-grounds, and in other exposed places, with 

 the view of mitigating the effects of the hot summer winds and cold 

 ■winter ones, which since the denudation of the grounds by the loss of 

 trees and old shrubberies, every now and then devastate the gardens. 

 The terrace on which the Palm house stands has been re-levelled for 

 the first time since its construction in 1S46 ; its angles have been 

 filled with large beds of Laurels and Khododendrons, and the whole 

 terrace bordered with Ivy. 



A great deal remains to be done in bringing the many young trees 

 that have from time to time been planted in old shrubberies and on 

 the lawns into picturesque groups, and many more have still to 

 be introduced. Moi-t of the old shrubberies want renewal or clearing 

 away, and the American garden behind the Palm stove, which has 

 aofiered severely from the summer drought, requires replanting 

 throughout. 



The banks of the ornamental water are constantly being washed 

 away by the ripple, owing to the depth of water close to them ; they 

 should be wattled and planted with clumps of Osier, Sedge, &c. 



2. Pleasure Grounds. — The effects of the long and severe sum- 

 mer's drought on the old trees in this department have been disastrous ; 

 they have perished by hundreds, Elms, Ashes, Beeches, and Sycamores 

 especially ; many, no doubt, from having approached the Jituits of the 

 age which such trees attain on so excessively poor a soil as that of 

 Kew, but more, perhaps, through having been drawn up in thick 

 plantations, and thus starved from the first. 



Active steps have been taken to clear large areas of dying and dead 

 trees, to trench the ground, and clear it of old roots, and plant closely 

 a mixture of young trees of all sorts, which will be thinned out as they 

 grow. This operation has enabled me to arrive at an approximate 

 estimate of the ages of some of the more common trees in these 



grounds, and of the average duration which the several sorts have 

 attained. 



The oldest trees in the grounds are undoubtedly Oahs, English Elms, 

 and perhaps Hawthorns, of which some of the first and last may be 

 relics of the aboriginal forests that covered this part of England ; whilst, 

 the oldest of the Elms were undoubtedly all planted. No data have been 

 obtained for ascertaining the age of the Oaks, but probably none exceed 

 three hundred years, and the majority date from the reign of George IL 

 The only large ones that remain are several near the Brentford Gate^ 

 one near the upper end of the lake, and several near the Queen's 

 Cottage grounds. 



The largest English Elms of which the rings have been counted are 

 about two hundred and fiffy years old, but there are a few near the 

 Palace gates which have probably attained three hundred years. Of 

 these the top of that nearest the gates was blown off this winter, and 

 the stump removed; but the butt was too far decayed for its rings to 

 be counted. All the old Elms in the grounds and their outskirts are 

 in rows, and were either planted along former walks, or came up iis 

 hedgerows, and were spared when the domaiu was enclosed and the 

 hedges removed. Of l^lms under two hundred years old there were 

 innumerable examples throughout the grounds; these were for the 

 most part suckers from the roots of older Elms, which, coming up 

 amongst other and better trees, have done irre}; arable damage to them ; 

 the EngUsh Elm being of all plants the most impoverishing in light 

 soils. 



Of the old Hawthorns, the last fine one perished during the summer's 

 drought; they abounded at one time on the gravelly parts, and ap- 

 peared to be of the same age as the old Richmond Park Hawthorns. 



Beech, Oak, and Maple are the only other trees that have sprung 

 up spontaneously in the grounds, and all from originally planted trees. 

 The oldest Beeches were planted in George II. 's reign, and are about 

 one hundred and fifty years old ; but of these there are very few in- 

 deed ; the largest of them is a magnificent tree near the Brentford 

 Gate, with a trunk 10^; feet in girth at 5 feet above the ground ; its- 

 branches, which sweep and root iu the ground, form a circle 116 paces- 

 in circumference. It is showing signs of decay. 



The majority of the Beeches, which formed eight-tenths of the 

 arboreous vegetation of Eew, are part of an extensive and dense 

 plantation, made about 1750, but which, having been wholly neglected 

 daring the succeeding hundred years, have impoverished one another 

 to sucla an extent that the majority are already diseased and fungnssed^ 

 It is upon this Beech forest that the winter gales and last summer's 

 drought have told most heavily ; the majority, having no root-hold,, 

 could not resist the blasts, and the loss of one is immediately followed 

 by that of its neighbours, both fiom the admission of the wind, and- 

 from the sun's rays drying and heating the surface of the previously 

 shaded soil over their roots. 



Of other trees there are several good Limes, Evergreen Oaks, Spanish 

 and Horse Chestnuts, all from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 

 years old ; these trees have thriven well, and last long in the soil of 

 Kew. The Ashes, Poplars, Acacias, and Willows average only from 

 one hundred to one hundred and fifty years, and the Birches sixty 

 to eighty year?. 



The only good Coniferous trees of any age at Kew are Cedars o£ 

 Lebanon and Larches ; many of the former were planted about 1750,. 

 but of these not a dozen remain ; the largest having attained a girth 

 of 11 feet at 5 feet above the ground. The Spruces, Scotch Firs,. 

 Pinasters, and Weymouth Pines have all been ruined by being crowded 

 amongst forest trees. The Hemlock Spruces, with which the path by 

 the Ptichmond Ptoad was ornamented twenty years ago, are eveiyone 

 dead ; the last, which stood near the Pagoda, having succumbed to the 

 drought of the past summer. Of Planes there never were many ; a 

 few tine Orientals, planted in 1740 — 50, remain iu the King of Han- 

 over's grounds, one near the old Palace, and one near the Temple of 

 the Sun. 



The above comprise all the trees of ■which there were any quantity 

 in the grounds previous to their being made over to the public in 1845 ;, 

 since which time four-fifths have either died or have been removed to 

 make ■way for buildings, avenues, paths, &c. 



Between 1840 and 1865 many efforts were made by my predecessor 

 to keep up the sylvan scenery of the pleasure gi-onnds, by planting 

 Conifeis amongst the old trees, in every available open space, espe- 

 cially Deodars, Cedars, Scotch, Douglas, Austrian, Corsican, and 

 Weymouth Pines, Pinus longifolia, Smithiana, and Spruces of various 

 sorts, besides foi'ost trees inuumevable ; but as permission could not 

 be obtained, either to make sufficient clearances or to disturb the 

 roots of the old trees by trenching the ground, these plantations have 

 utterly failed. On the other hand, he covered many acres of unoccu- 

 pied land, by the river and elsewhere, and in the Queen's cottage- 

 grounds, with plantations, which have all done well, and are now being, 

 thinned, by transplanting young trees from them to fill the clearances 

 which are being made elsewhere. 



Eight hundred yards of *' blind paths" for carts, (fcc.., have been 

 made through the woods, with gravel from the lalie beds. 



The lake in the pleasure gi-ounds, which was half finished in 1S69,. 

 has since been completed, and the whole of the ground on the south 

 side of it cleared, covered with good soil, and prepared for the forma- 

 tion of the new pinetum, the planting of which will be begun forth- 

 with. In reference to this pinetum I have to state that, as no complete 

 public arranged and named collection of hardy Conifers exists ia 



