1058 



STATISTICS OF GARDENING. 



Part IV. 



the botanic gardens of the universities and other public bodies, and to the gardens of 

 the two horticultural societies. 



7491. The public squares are generally kept in order by jobbing gardeners at a certain 

 rate by the year. Tlie principal part of their business consists in keeping the grass 

 short, by mowing once a fortnight in summer, and rather seldomer in spring and 

 autumn j in keeping the gravel clean, and keeping up a display of flowers in the dug 

 groups. 



7492. The j^ublic parks and other equestrian promenades are mostly managed by 

 officers appointed by government ; being once formed, and the trees grown up, they 

 require little annual expense. The Mary-le-bonne or Regent's Park is in ptu-t let as a 

 nursery-ground, and, instead of a rent, the occupier is bound to plant a certain number 

 of ti-ees the first year of his lease, to nurse up these, and leave a certain number of them 

 on each acre at the end of his lease. A considerable part of this park is also, as already 

 mentioned, let to private persons for the pvirpose of erecting villas, M-hich, though it will 

 control the rambles of the pedestrian, will give and maintain a woody appearance, 

 without any expense to the public. 



7493. The botauic gardens of the universities are under the general direction of the 

 professor of botany, and managed by a head gardener or curator : those, founded by 

 subscribers, or a society, as the gardens of Liverpool, Hull, Glasgow, and Dublin, are 

 under the direction of a committee, and similarly managed. The duties common to 

 curators are the keeping up and increasing the collection of plants ; those who manage 

 university-gardens, have, in addition, to furnish specimens of certain plants in sufficient 

 numbers for the use of the professor and students. In some cases, the curator is required 

 to instruct students ; and in others, he is permitted to do this, and to take pupils or ap- 

 prentices for his own emolument. Most gardens exchange, and some, as that of Liver- 

 pool, sell plants and seeds. 



7494. On the cultivation of botanic gardens we shall offer onlj' a few general hints. Instead of the prin - 

 ciple of rotation, is hei^e substituted that of a renewal, partial or wholly, of the soil. On shallow soils it is 

 to "be effected by removal of the wliole, or a proportion of the old soil, 'and the introduction, and thorough 

 mixture of a proportionate quantity of good virgin loam, or of virgin peat, bog, or sand, according to the 

 plot or border to be renewed. In rock-works, and bogs, American grounds, and in most of what may be 

 called particular habitats, there is no other way ; but in the plots which contain the general arrange- 

 ments, deep trenching may partially or wliolly supply its place. 



7495. Manure cannot altogether be dispensed with in botanic gardens, particularly for some or most of 

 the vegetables which will be included under the culinary, agricultural, and flower-garden departments ; 

 but, in general, decayed leaves is the best manure for all other plants and trees, not in a state of mon- 

 strosity or otherwise changed by cultivation. 



7496. Shelterinix and shading are parts of culture which demand very considerable attention in botanic 

 gardens, especially in warm climates. Delicate plants which require a moist atmosplvere, as some alpines 

 and Americans, require to be closely covered with a hand-glass, and this again partially with a wicker case 

 during the whole summer, even if under the shade of a wall or hedge. 



7497. In sowing, and causing to vegetate, seeds which have been brought from a distance, a good deal 

 of skill is often requisite. Sowing in very fine earth in pots, covering them with a bell, and placing them 

 in the shade and in moist heat, is the most likely mode to succeed, whatever climate the seeds may have 

 been sent from. To this, some add previous steeping of the seed in pure water, and in water impregnated 

 with oxygenated muriatic acid. Others water with water impregnated with this acid or with its gas; 

 some charge the earth of the pot with the gas, and others invert a bell-glass over it, containing an at- 

 mosphere partlv or wholly composed of the gas. (See Hill, in Hort. Trans, vol. i. 233.) All these modes, 

 and others suggested by vegetable chemistry, may be tried ; but where the vital principle is not extinct, 

 the first mode will generally be found sufticient. Numerous annual and biennial seeds require to be 

 sown every year, independently of seeds of new sorts from foreign countries. For collections of these in 

 beds or in a general arrangement, the moAe of sowing in rows across the bed, is obviously the best ; and 

 sr-eral rows radiating from a polygonal tally in the centre, is the most economical, as admitting of the 

 greatest number of sorts in the least space. 



7498. With respect to management, there are various duties belonging to the office 

 of curator of a public botanic garden which are peculiar to the situation ; some of which 

 we shall briefly enumerate. 



7499. Gathering and drying specimens to maintain the herbarium, and to exchange or give away ; fre- 

 quently inspecting the herbarium to guard against damp and moths ; collecting and preserving seeds of 

 everv kind for the purposes of exchange. 



7501). Collecting wild plants, and seeking for new species in proper situations ; in unfrequented haunts 

 for herbaceous plants ; in haunts much frequented by birds, for trees ; in bays, and sheltered creeks, and 

 shores, for aquatics ; in rockv shores for marine plants; among the tops of snow-clad mouirtains in win- 

 ter, for mosses ; in old forests in winter for lichens, and in spring for fungi, and so on. 



7501. Acclimating plants, by raising them from seeds, one generation after another, till the final progeny 

 will endure the open air throughout the year. Dr. Walker (^Essays) states how the passiflora c?erulca 

 was acclimated in Scotland, merely by time, without propagation from seed. Sir Joseph Banks (7/o?-/. 

 Trans, vol. i. 21.), by sowing the seeds of succeeding generations of the zizania aquatica from 1791 to 1804, 

 " proved that an annual plant scarce able to endure the ungenial summers of England, became, in four- 

 teen generations, as strong and as vigorous as our indigenous plants are, and as perfect in all its parts 

 as in our native climate." Next to the ordinary duties of a botanic curator, this appears to us much the 

 most imoortant of the services he can render the horticulture and agriculture of his countrj-. 



7502. Distributing seeds, cuttings, and plants of all sorts, among all who are liliely to keep them, and 

 set a due value on "them, but to none else.' The illiberality of the administrators of some gardens, in this 

 respect, has been much and deservedly blamed. The surest mode of preserving a plant in the country is, 

 to render it as common as possible ; and the easiest mode of effecting this is, to distribute a few specimens 

 among the nurserymen. From an opposite conduct, many of the plants introduced at Kew, and described 

 in the Hortiis Keweiisis, are not to be found in the Kew garden : and, thus, never having been dis- 

 tributed, are lost to the countrj'. The policy of this garden, for a number of years past, is considered as 

 IT; Illy reprehensible : being supported by tlie public, it ought to have been devoted to its service. 



