August 22, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



153 



anything I ever saw, and there is such a sweetness and soft- 

 ness in the flowers, and such chasteness in the foliage, that the 

 flowers and foliage contribute to each other's beauty. Mrs. 

 Bishop had lilac pink flowers, and those of Miss Minna Hollins 

 soft delicate pink. 



I must now return to a few Zonals that will be sent out 

 next season. Some of them were planted out in the trial- 

 grounds in a mass, so that there was every chance of testing 

 them both for out-door and in-door purposes. Bosiva May 

 was excellent in the open garden ; it had a fine bold truss. 

 Contessa Quarto was bright and beautiful, with dark pink 

 trusses of bloom. Mrs. Holden and Mrs. Miles were also very 

 good, with fine pink flower-trusses. Matilda appeared one of 

 the best as a conservatory plant. I noticed on a small plant 

 in a small pot seven or eight trusses of immense size. Mrs. A. 

 Bass was darker than some in this section ; but Mrs. Musters 

 Was the finest and the best of this class of Geraniums. I 

 was curious enough to measure one truss, which was nearly 

 7 inches across. Mrs. Young and Miss Skipworth, however, 

 were also without a fault ; the trusses fine, but not so large as 

 Mrs. Musters. 



The above lists of Geraniums consist of varieties of sterling 

 merit, and far superior to many popular well-known kinds. 

 Many of those sent out we have growing in our own houses, 

 and without exaggeration can testify to their superior qualities, 



I cannot close this paper without adding that the pot Vines 

 were in excellent health, and in a large house of seedling Vines 

 there were several that promised to reward Mr. Pearson for 

 his labour and care in this direction. The fruit trees in the 

 orchard houses were a great success, and whether in pots or 

 planted in the open ground, they were loaded with fine fruit. 

 I was delighted with the system of growing Figs in pots plunged 

 in the open border; the trees were vigorous and healthy, and 

 covered with an abundance of large fine Figs. La Madeleine 

 was among the best and earliest in the collection. — Q. Read. 



AMONG THE MANX MEN.— No. 3. 

 A lettee from a cleric— a friend of " our Journal," and 

 therefore my friend — has this unnecessary sentence : — " Say 

 something of the Manx women, and don't forget good Bishop 

 ■Wilson, the most apostolic bishop of the eighteenth century." 

 Just as if it were likely that I should ignore either, specially 

 the first. 



" For gentle and kind ore its brilliant-eyed daughters, 

 My vision ne'er pictured one other more fair ; 

 Though lovely and noble have come o'er the waters, 

 Give me the Mans maid with the dark flowing hair." 



Yes, and the very light blue eyes which prevail among them 

 and the truest York-and-Lancaster-Rose complexion. Yet 

 they are a strange mixture of our four races, and such they 

 may well be, for as you stand on the summit of Snaefell — said 

 to be the central point of the British Islands — you can see the 

 mountains of Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. The 

 names of places similarly indicate the varied extraction of 

 their original settlers. A large portion of the names begin 

 with Balla, Irish for a village, and there are others evidently 

 of English, Scotch, Welsh, and even Danish derivation. One 

 Glasgow lady asserted that the name of this town showed that 

 it owes its origin to her countrymen, and it was of no avail to 

 tell her that it was named after the rivers Dough and Glas, 

 which here unite, and that both these names are old British. 



Many and deep " Traces of History in the Names of Places " 

 are to be unravelled, and those who delight in such researches, 

 as I do, should read and keep as a handbook Mr. Flavell Ed- 

 monds's volume so entitled. Let me dabble a little in this 

 lore, and I will only meddle with places named from trees. 

 Ashham, of Anglo-Saxon origin, for Aesc, is the Ash, and ham, 

 a village in that language ; whereas, if the old Britons had 

 named it they would have used some compound of Onn, their 

 name of the Ash, just as they called the Shropshire river 

 Onny — that is, Onn-wy, the water near the Ash trees. Again, 

 if the Anglo-Saxons entitled a place in connection, with the 

 Oak, they applied their name of that tree, Oec, as at Oc-cold, 

 in Suffolk, which means the Oak-holt, or Oak grove ; but if 

 the ancient Britons had named a place after that tree they 

 would have used their name for it, deru, as they did at the 

 town now called Nant-y-derry— that is, the brook of the Oak. 



The Elm thrives in some of the valleys, and I travelled 

 specially to see an avenue of this tree at Kirk Michael. Let 

 no one suppose that this name has any reference to the arch- 

 angel ; it is an entire old Anglo-Saxon name — Kirk, church, 



and mycel, great, alluding to the parish having the episcopal 

 residence. There is not usually any great interest to be felt 

 in an Elm avenue, but there is in that at Kirk Michael, for it 

 was planted by that good bishop of whom our clerical friend 

 wrote, and he retained the bishopric long enough for the trees 

 to have attained such dimensions that the wood from one oi 

 them fittingly formed his coffin — fittingly, because he strove 

 to improve the habits as well as the spiritual welfare of the 

 Manx ; and no habit then, and still, more needed improvement 

 than that of cultivating the soil ; then, and even now, too 

 little attention being paid to planting ; thousands of mountain 

 acres might be made beautiful and profitable by judicious 

 planting of ConiferEe. He found the episcopal residence a 

 ruin, but that he more than restored, and showed by example, 

 as he did by precept, the benefits derivable from " large gardens 

 and pleasant walks, sheltered with groves of fruit and forest 

 trees." He lived to do good, and not to accumulate wealth; 

 and although the income of his bishopric was small, and he 

 expended more than that income upon his people, yet he de- 

 clined to be removed to a richer see, and when the offer was 

 made, replied, " No, I will not leave my wife in my old age 

 because she is poor." So he lived through an episcopate of 

 fifty-eight years, and rests in the churchyard with this enviable 

 inscription on his tomb : — " Sleeping in Jesus, here lieth the 

 body of Thomas Wilson, D.D., Lord Bishop of this isle, who 

 died March 7th, 1755, aged 93, in the fifty-eighth year of his 

 consecration. This monument was erected by his son , Thomas 

 Wilson, D.D., a native of this parish, who, in obedience to the 

 express command of his worthy father, declines giving him the 

 character he so justly deserves. Let this island speak the 

 rest." 



I turned from reading that inscription with an increased 

 wish to walk in the gardens the good bishop had founded, but 

 it was a withheld pleasure, for the present bishop only admits 

 visitors to the grounds on Sundays. I could do no more than 

 stand within the Elm avenue and look into the garden. There 

 Jerusalem Artichokes were in abundance. " May be that's- 

 'cause they comes from the Holy Land," said one to whom it 

 would have been useless to explain that the Jerusalem we 

 apply to this vegetable is only a corruption of Girasole, the 

 Italian name for the Sunflower, of which it is a species. 



Inattention to planting — to the beauty obtainable by the 

 addition and arrangement of out-door flowers, or shrubs, or 

 trees — prevails in every district, and in every enclosure of 

 each district. In England our cemeteries are so planted and 

 adorned as is consistent with the hope that the grave is the 

 portal of Paradise, but it is not so in the Isle of Man. I am 

 of the " Old Mortality " genus, and feel deep interest in search- 

 ing among the memorials of the dead. In many a graveyard 

 in lone, unhistoried, unrailwayed country corners, often has 

 the epitaph faced me of some one fondly associated with events 

 in days long ago, and perhaps such might face me in the 

 Douglas cemetery, an unadorned enclosure, well placed for 

 adornment, yet unadorned; so thither I turned, little antici- 

 pating among a crowd of tributes to the memory of Manx com- 

 monalties, to read this — "In memory of John Martin, his- 

 torical painter, born at Haydon Bridge, Northumberland, 

 19th July, 1789. Died at Douglas, Isle of Man, 17th Febru- 

 ary, 1854." Yes, there remains all that was mortal of him 

 who painted " Belshazzar's Feast." Few of your readers will 

 remember that picture ; it was sneered at as tricky, mechani- 

 cal, theatrical, yet it was marvellously effective ; it was original, 

 and no one has succeeded in being similarly effective. Martin 

 was of humble origin, and he left notes of the struggles by 

 which he succeeded in rising and pursuing his chosen path. 

 Those notes show the activity of his mind, but they at the 

 same time show why he failed to be one of the chiefs among 

 artists. No man can be great in any profession who allows 

 his thoughts to be divided among many ; he thus reveals the 

 cause of his rmsuccess : — " My attention was first occupied in 

 endeavouring to procure an improved supply of pure water to 

 London, diverting the sewage from the river, and rendering it 

 available as manure ; and in 1827 and 1828 I published plans 

 for the purpose. In 1829 I published further plans for accom- 

 plishing the same objects by different means — namely, a weir- 

 across the Thames, and for draining the marshy lands, &c. 

 In 1832, 1834, 1836, 1838, 1842, 1843, 1845, and 1847, I pub- 

 lished and republished additional particulars, being so bent 

 upon my object that I was determined never to abandon it ; 

 and though I have reaped no other advantage, I have at least 

 the satisfaction of knowing that the agitation thus kept up 

 constantly, solely by myself, has resulted in a vast alteration 



