November 15, 1893. J 



Garden and Forest. 



475 



last and be a credit. These hot-water pipes keep the at- 

 mosphere in the houses buoyant and dry, and this is what 

 Pelargoniums like in winter. The conditions may be de- 

 scribed as precisely those of a Cactus-house. It is impos- 

 sible to make a more brilliant flower-picture in October — 

 indeed, one might say at any time of year — than this of Pe- 

 largoniums, as grown by Mr. Cannell, and it will improve 

 week by week until Christmas. The new semi-double 

 Raspael Improved, a crimson, with enormous trusses of 

 flowers, is represented by thousands, and the same is true 

 of the remarkable red and white New Life, which Mr. Can- 

 nell expects to become a universal favorite. The tricolor- 

 leaved Pelargoniums are also largely grown by Mr. Cannell. 



"Chrysanthemums are coming on, and will soon require 

 all the attention we can give them." "Yes, plenty of new 

 ones, but nothing yet to beat Edward Molyneux, the finest 

 type of Chrysanthemum in all points." " We send little 

 Chrysanthemum-plants everywhere, even to China and 

 Japan." " Emphatically a poor man's plant, for he can 

 grow it well in his yard, flower it in a shed with the door 

 open, and keep it in any corner till the summer comes 

 again." "We have over fourteen hundred named sorts, 

 and we are even now asked for sorts which we do not 

 possess." These were Mr. Cannell's remarks as he hurried 

 us through the houses. Carnations of all kinds, with a 

 special position for one named Mrs. Cannell, a variety with 

 the sturdy grovv^th and size of flower of Malmaison, but 

 colored rich magenta-pink. Mr. Cannell evidently has a 

 weakness for magenta. A house filled with an endless 

 variety of Coleus, which Mr. Cannell says find plenty of 

 admirers, harsh though their colors are considered by 

 some. Vesuvius is a brilliant red and yellow, large-leaved 

 variety, which is likely to become a favorite for summer 

 bedding, and The Shah is a singular dwarf, small-leaved 

 variety, the lower half of the leaf colored crimson, the 

 upper half, yellow. We rushed through four acres of 

 Dahlias to look at some of the new ones admired by Mr. 

 Cannell, and I set down the names of Maid of Kent, Robert 

 Cannell, Colose, J. Abrey and Marguerite as varieties of 

 sufficient distinctness and beauty to please my taste. " All 

 the neighbors who care to are allowed to come in and help 

 themselves to Dahlia-flowers," said Mr. Cannell. Of course, 

 the names of the varieties are legion, and they appear to 

 be all represented at Swanley, and Mr. Cannell appears to 

 know the history of every one of them. A house filled with 

 Cacti, Agaves and other succulent plants was of exceptional 

 interest — a good collection, well grown and evidently 

 cared for by Mr. Cannell, who stands alone as a florist 

 among thousands in his combining a florist's feeling with 

 a love for Cacti. Herbaceous plants by the acre, most of 

 them at or going to rest now, but bearing plenty of evi- 

 dences of their health and sturdiness even now. Over at 

 Eynsford, in a valley on the estate of Sir William Hart- 

 Dyke, Mr. Cannell has started another nursery and farm, 

 which in a few years, under Mr. Cannell's energy, is cer- 

 tain to become a much more attractive ' ' Home of Flowers " 

 than that at Swanley. The new nursery is surrounded by 

 a range of hills, and appears to be well suited for the culti- 

 vation of all kinds of plants to which chalk is not distasteful. 



Chelsea Botanic Garden. — It is rumored that this ancient 

 " Physic Garden " is to be handed over to the builder, the 

 Apothecaries' Society having no further need of it as a 

 teaching-school of botany for young "medicos." The gar- 

 den is the oldest in the metropolis, and it is famous as the 

 workshop of Philip Miller, Peliver, Rand and other botan- 

 ists of the seventeenth century. It covers an area of about 

 four acres by the side of the Thames, at the end of Cheyne 

 Walk, Chelsea. The contents of the garden are not of any 

 special interest, beyond a few old specimen trees, includ- 

 ing one of the oldest Cedars of Lebanon in Europe. The 

 land was granted to the Apothecaries' Society by Sir Hans 

 Sloane in 1722 at a nominal yearly rental on condition that 

 it be used as a physic garden to enable students to distin- 

 guish the good and useful plants from the hurtful and "for 

 the manifestation of the power, wisdom and glory of God." 



It has been suggested that in the event of the Apothecaries' 

 Society desiring to be relieved of the burden of maintaining 

 such a garden, it might well be kept up as an educutional 

 instrument for fostering the study of botany, and if prop- 

 erly managed it could be made of sufficient public utility 

 as to justify the London County Council in keeping it up 

 for educational purposes. At Kew, the demand for facili- 

 ties for the study of systematic botany by the public has 

 grown to such an extent in recent years that a special gar- 

 den, known as the " Students' Garden," has been set apart 

 for the use of bona fide students, who are allowed to collect 

 specimens and examine them unmolested by the crowds 

 that visit the garden proper. Should the London County 

 Council decline to interest itself in the Chelsea Garden, one 

 might hope that rather than permit this historically inter- 

 esting and educationally useful place to become obliterated 

 by the builder, the Government might be induced to in- 

 terest itself in the maintenance of the garden as a supple- 

 ment to Kew. This latter establishment is in some degree 

 an offshoot from the Chelsea Garden, for we read that "in 

 1759 William Aiton, who had been a pupil of Philip Miller, 

 at the Physic Garden, Chelsea, was engaged by the 

 Dowager Princess to establish at Kew a Botanic, or as it 

 was then called, a Physic Garden." The only objection to 

 this scheme would be, that owing to the smoke and poison- 

 polluted atmosphere of Chelsea by the river, it would not be 

 possible to keep many plants in health there. Indeed, the trees 

 and other plants there now show evidences of injury from 

 impure air. Still the fittest might be grown there. We can- 

 not afford to relinquish town gardens because of the unfa- 

 vorable conditions consequent upon the growth of the 

 towns, or it would not be difficult to show that most of our 

 most useful gardens, even Kew itself, cannot be maintained 

 as gardens many more years 1 



London. 



W. Walson. 



Cultural Department. 

 Grapes under Glass. 



'X'HERE is a general impression that to grow grapes of the 

 •^ highest quality under glass, one must have specially con- 

 structed and expensive houses with all the latest improve- 

 ments ; but the fact is, tiiat vines under glass do not have to 

 contend with such serious dangers as threaten those out-of- 

 doors, and there is hardly any fruit which can be produced 

 with greater ease and certainty than hot-house grapes, if tiie 

 proper varieties are selected and proper care is e.xercised. A 

 chapter from my own experience may be encouraging on tliis 

 point. 



Four years ago it was my fortune to have a block of modern 

 greenhouses erected for growing plants and flowers, to replace 

 old and dilapidated ones which were to be torn down when the 

 new ones were ready for use. As the work went on it was 

 difficult to decide what to do on the site of the old houses 

 which stood on the hill-side, with a twelve-inch wall at their 

 back supporting four feet of soil and gravel. Our outdoor 

 grapes had suffered much from mildew and black-rot, and as 

 we had no grapes under glass, the thought came to me that 

 the old greenhouse might be used for Vines. This old house 

 could not be styled a plant-house, and no one would ever con- 

 struct such a building for the purpose of growing grapes, but 

 it was the only available house, and I set to work to make it as 

 convenient as possible. It was a hip-roof structure, thirty-eight 

 feet long by twelve wide, facing the south-west. At the ridge 

 it was eight feet high, front sash three feet high, and being 

 built when timber was cheap the rafters were rive inches by 

 six in size, had been set three feet and eight inches apart. The 

 sashes were correspondingly heavy, glazed with seven and 

 three-eighths by twelve-inch glass, and the shorter sashes in 

 the rear were glazed w^ith ribbed glass. Of course, so much 

 timber and thick glass obscured the light and was very dif- 

 ferent from a modern grapery ; besides, there was a small 

 house at the south-east end of it which cut off the rays of the 

 morning sun. 



I first made a border inside of the house by digging out the 

 soil to a depth of eighteen inches, side walls were built and 

 a concrete-bottom laid, and four inches of broken brick, 

 the most available material on hand, was used for drainage. 

 As no sod was available, a covering of cinders, free from 

 ashes, was used on top of the brick to prevent the soil 



