508 HOltTICULTURAL TOUR. 



The celebrated Black Hamburgh vine had a large crop up- 

 on it. It is now much extended since I saw it 85 years 

 ago, and a new house has been erected over it. 



We called on Mr Wilmot, a distinguished market-gar- 

 dener at Iskicorth, who has raised several new fruits and 

 improved others. He uses steam for cultivating pine-ap- 

 ples, and also for forcing other fruits. He was unluckily 

 much engaged at this time ; and we were not able to make 

 a second call. 



We next went to Spring- Grove, the seat of Sir Joseph 

 Banks, and saw Mr Oldacre, who very civilly shewed us 

 every thing about the place. They have here newly erect- 

 ed a steam-apparatus, copper-boiler, and triangular cop- 

 per-pipes. He drew our attention to the effect which heat, 

 from steam, had produced upon an orange-house. The 

 orange-trees had been in a declining state, but no sooner 

 was steam-heat applied, than they sent forth new shoots. 

 He had a great quantity of the true vegetable marrow 

 gourd, and gave us some seeds of it. The pine-apples 

 here were excellent. We saw Mr 01dacre , s mushroom- 

 house, the first of the kind in this country ; but the beds 

 were not, at this time, in a state of bearing. It was around 

 the margin of a small pond, at Spring-Grove, that the 

 large-fruited cranberry was first cultivated in this country ; 

 and in the same pond, the Canadian rice has become na- 

 turalized. On the lawn appear some of the first Rhodo- 

 dendrons and Kalmias that came to Britain. 



At Sion Hill the pine-apples were equal to any we had 

 yil seen. Mr Boss, the gardener, had received a consider- 

 able quantity from abroad, which were doing very well. 

 The garden is plain, but the hot-houses arc extensive. We 

 got a few potato tubers from a publican at Brandford, who 

 stid llicy were the earliest in that quarter, and who makes 

 money bv them 



