1 8 Heather and other Allied Plants. [Sess. 



discovery by a Scots gardener named Mr Pickard, who found 

 heather in a restricted station in Maine, on Cape Elizabeth, 

 near Portland. We have now the further satisfaction of 

 recording another station, not far from the former ; the finder 

 is also a Scots gardener named James Mitchell, and the 

 station is in the western part of Andover, five miles north of 

 the first station. Finding the heather in so many different 

 stations is thought to confirm the idea that it is indigenous, 

 and has not in any way been introduced through human 

 agency." 



Why are our native heaths not more frequently grown in 

 grounds kept and arranged for pleasure ? Why not have a 

 " heathery " as well as a rosary, rockery, or a fernery ? There 

 are spots in every garden of moderate dimensions where heaths 

 would be an ornament, growing as they do where many things 

 will not succeed. They are sufficiently varied in their growth, 

 structure, colour, and time of flowering to fit them for many 

 different places and purposes. How to cover that bare and 

 ugly bank is often a matter of concern to those who possess 

 such places, and if the bank is sloping upwards and open, 

 heaths would be the right plants in the right place. Being 

 mountain and moor plants, they enjoy plenty of air and sun- 

 shine, and thrive well in soil of a peaty nature : when once 

 established they hold their own. A bank of heaths in flower, 

 with rocks jutting out here and there to give natural effect, 

 would be a sight which would invariably command attention. 

 To see plants in character is the best of all flower-shows, and 

 affords a pleasure which our dazzling terrace gardens do not 

 possess. I have looked through many gardening periodicals, 

 and can find no traces of heaths being cultivated otherwise 

 than as edgings to beds or walks. The era of the natural 

 style of gardening commenced in the early sixties, and when 

 William Ptobinson started 'The Garden' in 1872, he gave an 

 impetus to the natural arrangement which it had not had 

 before, and popularised hardy plants of all kinds. No one 

 up to that time had ever dreamt of imitating nature by 

 making a mound of earth and placing stones thereon, and so 

 forming different elevations and aspects for various classes of 

 mountain plants, encouraging those plants to assume their 

 natural habits, and the giving of plenty of moisture (without 



