54 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 206. 



is black, a third of an inch in diameter, and rather showy, 

 although it is the beauty of the foliage, and not that of the 

 flowers or fruit, which makes Smilax Pseudo-China a good 

 garden-plant C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



London Letter. 



The Introductiox of Exotic Plants into Zuropeax Gar- 

 dens. — A paper on this subject was read in September, last 

 year, by Dr. Gregor Kraus before the Naturalists' Society 

 of Halle. The author has been to considerable pains in 

 collecting information, and his paper has proved of sufli- 

 cient interest to be reprinted. He divides the subject into 

 six periods, as follows : The first period was the middle of 

 the sixteenth century, when Hyacinths, Tulips, Lilies and 

 similar bulbs were cultivated in Augsburg. It was not 

 until nearly a hundred years after that they were taken up 

 by the Dutch. The second period was marked by the in- 

 troduction of North American trees, chiefly into France, 

 the garden of Monsieur Robin, in Paris, then being famous 

 for its collection of these plants. The third period began 

 in the middle of the seventeenth century, when the Dutch 

 introduced many plants from south Africa, and cultivated 

 them in the Botanical Gardens at Leyden and Amsterdam. 



A catalogue of the Cape plants in the former garden was 

 published in 1668. Leyden is said to have possessed the 

 first recorded glass house for plants; this was in 1599. 

 During the latter part of the seventeenth century the for- 

 mal style of gardening known as the French style was 

 discarded by many in favor of the English style, the latter 

 admitting of the use of a greater variety of plants than was 

 possible in a typical French garden. The fourth period 

 opens at the beginning of the eighteenth century and con- 

 tinued till near its close. During this time large numbers 

 of hardy trees and shrubs were introduced from temperate 

 regions. Then follows the Australian or fifth period, when 

 the interesting vegetation of the Australian continent at- 

 tracted the attention of horticulturists. The bulk of the 

 plants were introduced by Kew and the English nursery- 

 men. Dr. Kraus found the part played by the English in 

 the introduction of exotic plants far too great and important 

 to be included with that of the rest of Europe. He there- 

 fore decided to deal with it separately in a second paper. 

 The Australian and Cape plants introduced into England 

 did not receive much attention from the Continental horti- 

 culturists until the beginning of the present century. The 

 sixth period is that of the last ninety years, and is remark- 

 able for the enormous number of tropical plants introduced. 

 It was not until Mr. Ward invented his little portable green- 

 houses, Wardian cases, that much success was attained. 

 The chief cause of success, however, has been the short- 

 ening of the journey by the improvements made in ships, 

 the modern "ocean greyhounds" bringing the plants often 

 in less than one-fourth of the time it took half a century 

 ago. Previous to this period the introduction of living 

 plants was left almost entirely to botanical gardens and' a 

 few wealthy amateurs. But nurserymen now saw their 

 opportunity, and dispatched collectors in the interests of 

 trade. 



Of the modern mania for Orchids, as he terms it, Dr. 

 Kraus says very little. Orchid madness, he states, is al- 

 most peculiar to the English, who import plants by the 

 ship-load and dispose of them by large auction sales. The 

 plants thus eventually find their way all over Europe. 

 Special houses even are devoted to single genera (he might 

 have said species \) and some of the varieties are sold for 

 enormous sums. 



The taste for all kinds of exotic plants and their cultiva- 

 tion have, he says, not only proved a source of wealth, 

 by adding an important industry, but it has also been of 

 great value scientifically, many departments of botany 

 and even chemistry having made considerable progress 

 by means of the living material being available for study 

 and research. 



The history of exotic gardening in England, at any rate, 

 differs in some important particulars from that given above. 

 We therefore look forward with interest to the publication 

 of Dr. Kraus' second paper. 



Included in the first paper are various statistics showing 

 the number of exotic plants cultivated in different periods, 

 and, for comparison, of the number cultivated in the three 

 largest representative collections in Europe now, namely, 

 those at Kew, Berlin and St. Petersburg. The figures from 

 Kew, which I know are approximately accurate, are herewith 

 given, since they will, no doubt, p)rove interesting to your 

 readers : 



The number of species and varieties of the various 

 classes of cultivated plants at Kew in 1891 are as follows : 

 Orchids, 1,500; Ferns and Lycopods, 1,500; hardy Ferns 

 and Lycopods, 800 ; Palms, 500 : Cycads, 94 : Pandanads, 

 36 ; Cyclanths, 19 ; Aroids, 313 ; Scitaminee, 228 ; Bamboos, 

 71 ; succulents, 1,350; miscellaneous stove-plants, 2,756; 

 miscellaneous greenhouse-plants, 3,021 ; bulbs and Oxalis 

 (indoor), 700; herbaceous plants, Dicots, 2,000: herba- 

 ceous Moncots, 1,000; alpines, 1,000: hardy trees and 

 shrubs, 3,000. Total, 19,800. 



Roughl}% therefore, we may say that Kew has in cultiva- 

 tion 20,ooc plants, all, except a very small fraction, exotics. 

 The figures here given do not include such plants as 

 garden varieties of Pelargoniums, Narcissus, Caladium, 

 Roses, etc. 



The history of Kew and its collection will shortly be the 

 subject of a special number of the Kew Bulletin. Last year 

 was the jubilee of the nationalization of the gardens, al- 

 though a portion of them existed as a private garden 

 fully 200 years ago. This, with the house adjoining, was 

 acquired by the son of George II. in 1730, and soon be- 

 came famous for its botanical collection, William Alton, a 

 pupil of Philip ^Miller, being placed in charge of it. In 1841 

 it was handed over to the public by the present Queen, and , 

 Sir William Hooker was appointed Director. The collection Ij 

 now comprises almost every species of plant known to be ' 

 in cultivation. 



HoRTicLLTVRAL TRAINING. — This Subject is now being dis- 

 cussed with some warmth in the London gardening papers. 

 The county councils for the home counties have decided 

 to devote a certain sum annually to the work of teaching 

 the art of gardening by means of lectures. Lecturers have 

 been appointed for each county, and the work of teaching, 

 by means of talk and magic-lantern illustrations, has begun. 

 Some competent judges have questioned the wisdom of this 

 kind of thing, no less an authority than the Director of Kew, 

 Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, having stated publicly that " the cul- 

 tivation of plants is an art which can onl)' be acquired by 

 practice, and therefore, it appears to me, cannot be taught 

 in the lecture-room any more than painting or shoemaking. 

 I know of no royal or theoretical road to the acquisition of 

 a competent or even useful knowledge of the gardener's art 

 except by beginning at the bottom and going through every 

 operation, from the most elementary to the most difficult 

 and refined. . . . The mere reading of books and attend- 

 ance on lectures will never, in my judgment, make any 

 one even a moderatel}'^ competent gardener.'' This looks 

 like a common-sense way of putting it. At any rate, one 

 would not expect practical gardeners to do other than en- 

 dorse every word here quoted. On the other side it is held 

 by some that the teaching is not for professional men, but 

 for farm-laborers, allotment-holders and women. Others 

 ask if the English gardener of the present time is as good 

 as his father, and go so far as to say he is no better, though 

 he ought to be. They say he may be a better gardener, 

 but he reveals a lamentable want of schooling when com- 

 pared with the foreigner. I hear, too, that gentlemen com- 

 plain of the want of polish in their gardeners, which makes 

 them less pleasant companions in the garden than is de- 

 sirable. Altogether, these critics seem to think that profes- 

 sional horticulture in England is in a very bad way. I had 

 thought hitherto that England was the best horticultural 

 school in the world, and that men trained here were in con- 



