CULTURE OF AGAPANTHUS UMBELLATUS. 
65 
they are wished to assume, from the time of their transplantation ; and after they 
have filled the space assigned them, they may be permitted to grow more wildly. 
For the first two or three years, likewise, healthy and vigorous growth should be 
more sought after than flowers ; since these last can be supplied from the sources 
before alluded to. As soon as the more shrubby kinds, such as Mahonias, Camellias, 
Fuchsias, &c., have covered a moderate amount of surface, their lateral branches 
may be allowed to stand out from the wall, that they may make some approximation 
to their true character of shrubs, while they perform their original purpose of 
covering the wall. They will thus bloom more abundantly, and have a more 
natural appearance ; the space above them being occupied by the more rambling 
and purely climbing species. Close training, indeed, ought to be abandoned with 
all the sorts after they have reached their prescribed limits, and they should be 
pruned on the spur-system, or so as to induce them to protrude from the general 
surface a great quantity of short blooming branches. 
CULTURE OF AGAPANTHUS UMBELLATUS, 
At a period when the advantages to cultivators of examining, occasionally, the 
collections of other individuals, are so far from being generally disputed, that they 
areall but universally acknowledged and appreciated, it would be beyond theprovince 
of a writer in such a periodical as this to urge their consideration. Observation is 
only of secondary moment to experience, and will, in many instances, compensate 
for the want of the latter, while in all it enlarges the bounds of its action, and 
supplies it with materials to work upon. 
Though most are agreed, however, as to the importance of visiting other gardens 
than those to which their labours are confined, there is a distinction to be drawn 
in the character of places, with regard to the kind of information to be derived from 
them, which few seem duly to make. Yery extensive domains, for example, com- 
prising every department of gardening, and some of these conducted on a scale and 
in a manner which are quite unapproachable on limited estates, are often thought 
to contain far more instruction for the inquiring culturist than tlie humbler and 
smaller gardens of less wealthy persons. And to some extent this view is an accu- 
rate one ; for, undoubtedly, as far as landscape gardening, comprehensive plans of 
general management, and some of the higher branches of culture, are concerned, 
large gardens are, for the most part, the best schools, whether for constant or casual 
attendance. 
If the intention of the tourist be, on the contrary, to gain hints on the culture 
of popular tribes of plants, or individual species, that are easily grown, and to 
ascertain how this class of exotics may be managed most successfully and economically, 
VOL. IX. NO. xcix. K 
