COLLECTIONS OF OUR DAY. 



COLLECTIONS OF OUR DAY. 



BELGROVE. 



Mr. W. E. Gumbleton's garden at Belgrove is situated on the great island of 

 Queenstown, which has a circumference of about twelve miles ; Queenstown, 

 Fota, and Belgrove being nearly equi- 

 distant from each other and four miles 

 apart. Blessed with a fertile soil, ample 

 shelter, and a climate unusually mild 

 and genial, the locality is a land of 

 gardens, and many rare plants, both 

 hardy and half-hardy, and some even 

 which are reputed tender or extra-tropi- 

 cal, thrive and luxuriate there in the 

 open air. 



The Belgrove garden is agreeably 

 situated on a sunny slope that runs 

 down to one of the creeks connected 

 with Queenstown Harbour, and over 

 which crosses the u East Ferry," a name 

 commonly also employed to indicate 

 the locality generally. The Master of 

 Belgrove has for a long time been known as an 

 energetic amateur gardener, and apart from the genial 

 natural position, the scenic beauty of the grassy lawns, 

 and fine trees of his ancestral acres, he has long been 

 a specialist so far as the testing of new trees, shrubs, 

 and flowers are concerned, be they of British or Con- 

 tinental introduction. No pains, personal labour, or 

 reasonable expense has been spared in the acquire- 

 ment of botanical rarities at home or abroad, for at 

 least a period of probation or for permanent culture 

 according to their merits, from a broad and liberal- 

 minded or proprietorial point of view. 



Belgrove is dominated by a personality at once 

 independent and critical, and as a trial garden it 

 occupies a place unique in Ireland, even if not in 

 Great Britain as well. It must not be for a moment 

 thought that the place is wholly devoted to testing 

 novelties. There are always plenty of old and well-tried things here for use as 

 well as beauty — a well-stocked kitchen garden and fruit orchard, vineries, etc., 



EUCRYPHIA PINN ATIFOLIA. 



