34 



FLORA AND SYLVA, 



endure but thrive in our climate. Har- 

 diness, though an absolute need, is but 

 one condition, as the hardiest trees may 

 fail. It is a blessing in disguise that we 

 have not too many, because people are 

 so apt to mistake a collection for a wood, 

 and the more kinds some planters have 

 the worse the plantation for any good 

 effect. In spite of failures we have enough 

 evergreen trees adapted to the climate 

 of Europe, and which are quite able to 

 give us all the effect we seek in woods 

 and pleasure grounds. Those evergreen 

 trees we have proved to be good,whether 

 they come from Europe, or the colder 

 parts of America or Asia, we should 

 plant in the true woodland way and not 

 in the conventional pinetum. The very 

 plan of that has helped to make these 

 trees unpopular and at the same time is 

 dead against their health ; because on 

 the mountains where Pines are found, 

 there does not occur that rich grass 

 which sucks up like a sponge all the 

 water that falls in our often dry sum- 

 mers, especially in the southern districts. 

 A minor cause of failure which we can 

 but just notice is, that the trees are often 

 planted when too old, from plants 

 brought up in pots and often trans- 

 planted too late. The rarer kinds are 

 not always to be bought in the way 

 forest trees should be, as seedling 

 plants about two years old. I am now 

 planting Atlantic Cedars and Numidian 

 Fir, very promising-looking plants, but 

 from having been grown in pots the 

 roots are more like clinkers than roots, 

 and I shall probably I lose many of the 

 trees. Grafting, too,;and propagation 

 from cuttings are also dead against suc- 



cess and were frequently resorted to in 

 former years. A tree might succeed 

 planted small as a healthy seedling, 

 which would fail in other and more ex- 

 pensive ways. S. 



A GREAT LONDON MARKET 

 NURSERY. 



Though modern invention has brought about 

 no such revolution in horticulture as in many- 

 arts and crafts, yet there have been changes in 

 garden husbandry wide and far reaching, and 

 nowhere are these newer features better seen 

 than in such an establishment as that of Thos. 

 Rochford and Sons, growers for the London 

 market, whose vast ranges of glass are seen by 

 travellers upon the Great Eastern Railway, 

 conspicuous even among the many nurseries 

 of Cheshunt and Broxbourne. It is a little 

 town of glass devoted to plants, with street 

 after street of forcing houses, vineries, and pro- 

 pagating pits, with packing sheds for each de- 

 partment, stabling, cold-storage, and a small 

 army of men and boys to do its work. It is in 



I the extension of these great plant factories, in 

 which plant-growth upon a vast scale is made 

 (as much as it can be) a matter of machine-like 

 precision and certainty, that we see the most 

 striking outcome of the modern spirit in hor- 

 ticulture ; with a great output the cost of pro- 

 duction is reduced to its lowest, while the 

 results are of a high standard of excellence. 

 Even then, as Mr. Rochford admitted during 

 our recent visit, when all has been done that 



| art and experience can devise, the grower is 

 yet much at the mercy of those natural forces 

 beyond control: "a few days of sunshine in- 

 stead of a fortnight's unvaried gloom would 

 have more than doubled our Christmas output 

 of cut flowers ; but, fortunately, it is the same 

 for all." 



A large part of the establishment is given 

 up to the growth of retarded plants, the bulk 

 of which have been kept for many months in 

 frost in the great refrigerator — a large build- 

 ing of eight chambers, in which the cold is 

 generated by a twenty horse -power engine 

 (with a second in case of temporary need), 

 which is working the whole year round save 

 for about a fortnight in each year for repairs. 



