August 25, 1870. ] 



JOUKNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



145 



ment. We have now commercial floral establishments, green- 

 houses, gardens, &c, that are a credit to the community, and 

 an illustration of progress in the love of the beautiful that can- 

 not fail to work a marked effect on the health and moral cha- 

 racter of the community. The total sales for a single week 

 this spring come to the very neat amount of 3550 dols. The 

 annual sales of a single firm for several years amounted to 

 12,000 dols. In regard to the character of the stock for sale, it 

 embraces every article in the greenhouse, conservatory, and 

 open garden ; with all the equipments for parlour, window, and 

 table floral ornamention. In the department of bouquets and 

 cut flowers what amazing progress has been made. The finest 

 flowers of the garden and conservatory, arranged in the most 

 artistic styles, with all the most recent accompaniments, as 

 rich and costly holders, vases, baskets, &c. ! The houses and 

 grounds are generally in excellent order, and the collections 

 embrace everything new as it comes out in every department of 

 floriculture, whether in Europe or the United States. The 

 displays made at some of our fairs and horticultural exhibitions 

 fail to furnish an adequate idea of the variety or extent of the 

 floral trade of our city, and this is yet in its infancy. — (Rural 

 World.) 



KENFIELD HALL, AND ITS CONIFERS. 



In passing by the South-Eastern Railway through the Weald 

 of Kent the traveller remarks that it is a level tract highly 

 cultivated, plentifully interspersed with woods and coppices, 

 Hop gardens and orchards ; that there are small meadows and 

 equally diminutive corn fields separated by hedges of every 

 conceivable shape, with considerably more than the usual 

 number of dwelling-houses met with in a purely agricultural 

 district, only it is seldom these buildings are seen until one is 

 close to them, as the woods and orchards conceal the comfort- 

 able farm houses and cosy cottages with which the district is 

 studded. No high embankment gives the traveller a distant 

 view, and only occasional gaps in the almost continuous line of 

 coppice, trees, orchard, or Hop garden that hems in the railway 

 afford glimpses of far-off objects. It is only when the train 

 pulls up at Ashford that another kind of scenery presents 

 itself, especially if the journey is made in the direction of the 

 ancient city of Canterbury. The heavy Wealden clay and com- 

 parative flatness give place to gently rising hills, which by 

 degrees assume greater altitude, and gradually Hop gardens 

 and orchards give place to corn fields of considerable magni- 

 tude, and should there be any portion of such fields in tillage, 

 the colour reveals at once that chalk predominates. Corn and 

 green crops are the principal objects cultivated, the valleys 

 being meadow land, with now and then orchards and Hop 

 gardens, and it is not unusual to see the crests of the hills 

 clothed with wood. This undulating country bordering the 

 valley of the Stour between Ashford and Canterbury, along 

 which the line of railway runs, is not without its interest. 

 Occasionally mansions are seen, and still more freuqently 

 the parks attached to them. The parks of Eastwell, God- 

 mersham, and Chilham Castle form conspicuous objects along 

 the line of route, but it is to one some distance from the 

 railway that I would here more especially call the attention of 

 the reader. 



About three miles eastward from Chartham station and six 

 irom Canterbury is Kenfield Hall, one of those commodious brick 

 edifices whose erection might, perhaps, date from the beginning 

 of the last century, The road thither from Chartham leads over 

 some of those chalky downs which afford such excellent ma- 

 terials for roads ; flints in great quantities were to be seen 

 wherever the surface was not hidden by the crops, for these 

 uplands were invariably arable land, the valleys being generally 

 meadows ; but care had been taken to break the largest of these 

 stones, so that rarely was anything larger than ordinary road 

 metal to be seen, so that the action of the harrow and other 

 agricultural implements should not be impeded. 



Passing along the crest of one of these ridges some little 

 distance, we at length obtain a glimpse of the residence we are 

 bound for, occupying a position on a sort of natural terrace 

 facing the north, and overlooking the valley which lies be- 

 tween us and the grounds. The house is so well sheltered by 

 timber that only a portion of it can be sees at a time until it 

 is nearly reached, when its elevation is found to be more than 

 might be expected, although there is still higher ground to the 

 south of it. The carriage front is at the north side, the various 

 offices being to the west, while a more spacious front opens to 

 the south, where there is a neat and well-stocked flower gar- 



den. The dressed grounds, occupying many acres, surround the 

 whole on all sides but the west, which abnts on the park. The 

 mansion and grounds are in the centre of a well-wooded park 

 of large size, and sufficiently broken by undulations to render 

 it interesting without being romantic. The character of the 

 soil is much superior to that of the downs I have noticed. 

 The soil of the dressed grounds, including the pinetum, is a 

 rather stiff loam, such as one often meets with at the base of 

 chalky hills, and much deeper than is generally the case. 



A good-sized flower garden on turf extends some distance 

 southward of the house, ample space being allowed between 

 the bed?, which in no case approach each other nearer than 

 10 feet, while they are each of not less than 6 or 3 square 

 yards. The design of the whole was pleasing, and the beds 

 were all filled with well-selected plants of the usual charac- 

 ter. I noticed very good beds of Geraniums Lady Cullum, 

 Mrs. Pollock, Beauty of Calderdale, and other ornamental- 

 leaved varieties, as well as kinds cultivated for their flowers, 

 Lord Palmerston being by no means the least important. 

 The most striking bed was a circular one about 12 feet in 

 diameter, composed entirely of Centaurea candidissima, Coleus 

 Verschaffelti, and Golden Pyrethrum, the last-named being 

 used as an edging. The rich colouring of the Coleus and 

 Centaurea I have never seen exceeded. Other beds to the east 

 of the house were of a more mixed character. A piece of 

 interesting rockwork, forming a suitable screen between this 

 part of the garden and the carriage entrance at the north- 

 eastern corner, was well worthy of inspection, for the frag- 

 ments of stone composing it are said to have been taken from 

 an old religious edifice in the neighbourhood that had been de- 

 molished. Carved corbels, portions of clustered columns, and 

 capitals with some foliage in an exceedingly good state of preser- 

 vation attest the quality of the stone, which assuredly was not 

 obtained in the neighbourhood. Relics like these give a charm 

 to rockwork, which mere flints and petrified clay fail to do. 

 There was likewise no lack of plants suitable for such a place. 

 A very fine Sumach (Rhus Cotinus), at a short distance, in full 

 flower attracted my attention ; this very handsome shrub is not 

 planted so much as it deserves to be, neither is the common 

 Berberry, which in another part of the grounds was really 

 beautiful. 



Having described the flower garden and its appendages as 

 adjoining the mansion on its southern, eastern, and north- 

 eastern sides, I Bhall now proceed eastward, and as there are 

 plenty of walks leading in that direction, I will follow the most 

 southerly one, by which I soon come to the choioe Conifers 

 and shrubs for which this place is noted. Broad, well-kept 

 gravel walks in easy graceful curves intersect the grounds in 

 all directions, now and then approaching the boundary fence 

 so as to afford a peep into the park, and at other parts skirting 

 a mass of shrubbery on one Bide, with a thriving Conifer on 

 the other, the intervening spaces being closely-shaven turf. 

 Some of the shrubbery was necessarily dug ground ; but even 

 the marginal belts of these were in many places mado acces- 

 sible by neatly-formed turf walks curving through them. The 

 centre of this extensive area, the ground originally level, had 

 been broken into agreeably-shaped mounds in the most natural 

 manner possible, and these, being planted with choice speci- 

 mens, gave an ever-varying character to the scene. 



The only attempt at formality was a bowling-green or croquet- 

 ground forming a circle upwards of 100 feet in diameter, and 

 sunk about 2J feet below the surrounding level. Flights of 

 steps descended to it on opposite sides with fairly-grown speci- 

 mens of Irish Yews flanking the steps, and on one side a pretty 

 summer-house occupied an elevated position overlooking the 

 circle, the other being approached by an important walk. The 

 quality of the turf forming the bottom and sides of this fine 

 bowling-green showed that pains had been taken to secure a 

 suitable depth of good soil for the grass to grow in, which is 

 not always the case where extensive ground works are carried 

 out. The undulations of the ground are, I believe, wholly arti- 

 ficial, for although a long period of dry weather had preceded 

 my visit (early in August), and many meadows and grass fields 

 had not thrown off their russety garb, there did not appear to 

 be any place in the grounds more burnt up than was common 

 everywhere, while the general aspect of the Pinuses and other 

 shrubs was such as indicated the most robust health, with the 

 exception of those which formed the belt or boundary to the 

 north ; but as these were for the most part common trees and 

 shrubs planted for shelter, and, consequently, exposed to cold 

 blasts, their weather-beaten appearance to windward is not to 

 be wondered at. The valuable trees inside had sustained no 



