CHAP. II. 



BRITISH ISLANDS. 



127 



ornamental trees and shrubs are from North America. Our 

 greatest hopes for future introductions are from the unpene- 

 trated regions of North America, and the mountainous regions 

 of Asia and New Zealand. 



We shall conclude this chapter by enumerating some of the 

 principal planters of arboretums, and places where arboretums 

 were planted, during the present century ; premising that we do 

 not include in this list any of those places which were com- 

 menced during the last century. 



Among the planters of arboretums in Great Britain during 

 the nineteenth century, the first place belongs to George, 

 fourth duke of Marlborough. This nobleman, when Mar- 

 quess of Blandford, resided on the estate of White Knights, 

 near Reading, from the year 1800 till he succeeded his father 

 in 1817. About 1801 he began to collect plants of every de- 

 scription, built numerous hot-houses for the exotics, and occu- 

 pied a large walled garden with the hardy herbaceous plants, 

 and the more choice trees and shrubs. Soon after, finding this 

 garden too limited, he employed, as an arboretum, a space of 

 several acres, called the Wood ; and throughout the park at 

 White Knights he distributed many trees, and a collection, as 

 extensive as could be then procured, of the genus Crat^^gus. 

 About this time magnolias, rhododendrons, azaleas, and other 

 American trees and shrubs, being rare, or newly introduced, 

 bore enormously high prices ; but price was never taken into 

 consideration by the Marquess of Blandford. He was never con- 

 tent with only one plant of a rare species, if two or more could 

 be got; and the late Mr. Lee of the Hammersmith Nursery in- 

 formed us, that he had sold several plants of the same species to 

 the marquess when they were at twenty guineas, and even thirty 

 guineas each. In consequence of a similar mode of proceeding 

 in his transactions generally, the Marquess of Blandford soon 

 found himself involved in debt and lawsuits, M^hich, since 1816, 

 have greatly crippled his exertions. He has still, however, the 

 same taste for plants, and indulges it,^ as far as his limited re- 

 sources will permit, in the pleasure-grounds of the palace at 

 Blenheim, where His Grace at present resides. Wliite Knights 

 is now chiefly remarkable for its magnolia wall, which is 14.5 ft. 

 long and 24 ft. high, entirely covered with twenty-two plants of 

 Magnob'tt grandiflora, which flower every year from June till 

 November. They were planted in the year 1800, when the 

 price in the nurseries, for good plants, was five guineas each. In 

 the Wood there are a great number of remarkably fine speci- 

 mens of all the species of Magnolm, and especially of M. auri- 

 culata and acuminata. There are also very fine trees of ^^cer 

 rubrum, saccharinum, and striatum ; of ^'sculus and Pav?V/, of 

 ^'rbutus, of Kolreuterm, of Virgilia, of Cornus florida, qf 



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