ON THE UTILITY OF RESERVE GARDENS. 
215 
The formation of handsome “ specimens ” of ornamental trees and shrubs, would be one 
of the most useful and not the least interesting purposes the reserve garden could be 
devoted to, for in the generality of cases there is much oversight and neglect apparent in 
this matter. Too often, when a handsome conifer or choice shrub of any kind either 
naturally dies or by accident is killed in the arboretum or on the lawn, the only resource 
is the nursery, where the plants are necessarily too much crowded together to assume 
themselves into what may be termed a specimen habit, or, if a shapely plant of anything 
rare is to be found, its value is of course very justly enhanced in consequence. Add to this 
the necessary expense and comparative difficulty incurred in removal of the specimen to a 
distance, and after all, as is very frequently seen, the “ chances ” of the plant doing well 
(and more especially if, as is too generally the case in our nurseries, it has ever been pot- 
grown,) when transferred from its sheltered quarters in the nursery, to be isolated on the 
lawn and subjected to the freer atmosphere of the pleasure-ground. I think all this 
speaks loudly for a portion of the reserve-garden being applied to the rearing of handsome 
“ specimens ” of hardy ornamental trees and shrubs, of course including conifers. 
If another side of the question be glanced at, that of the indiscriminate and impolitic 
part-occupation of forcing-houses and plant structures generally with hosts of flower-garden 
stock, annuals, &c., in boxes or pots at one time, and quantities of forcing plants, as pinks, 
roses, &c., at another, for five or six months out of the year, as we are too frequently 
obliged to see the case, abundant ground (were any more needed) for the concentration of 
all miscellaneous affairs such, as I have described in the reserve department is here found 
to exist, under circumstances too, not only embarrassing to the performance of business in 
a systematic way (from the removal from structure to structure that must be continually 
making), but what is worse, absolutely detrimental to the well-doing of the rightful 
occupants of these structures. 
This is a truism that needs no argument to support it, for every practical gardener who 
has or has had the misfortune to be thus situated, can testify to the fact from dire 
experience. We have repeatedly seen fine crops of late keeping grapes, almost, or 
totally lost, through the baneful practice of introducing quantities of flower-garden stock in 
the late vineries towards autumn, whilst on the other hand the plants themselves were not 
in the best situations for their well-doing, when fire-heat became indispensable for the pre- 
servation of the grapes from the very effects which those plants, by their introduction 
in the vinery, had been mainly instrumental in causing, or if not mainly instrumental, 
had at least by the cold evaporations arising from their being watered, &c., materially 
assisted any tendency to decay which the fruit might have otherwise acquired, or become 
susceptible of. 
By the introduction of plants into the early fruit forcing-houses too, it is no uncommon 
thing to see peaches, cherries, &c., infested with aphides and other entomological vermin, 
introduced with roses, pinks and other plants ; for despite the exercise of the greatest 
vigilance on the part of the gardener, let but units of these pests gain a footing, and 
millions, aye, tens of millions, will soon colonise themselves, unless the most unremitting 
perseverance is adopted to exterminate them (and this being a work of much time and trouble, 
when enough besides can generally be found to do) : it follows therefore, that “ prevention 
is better than cure.” Nor are the evil results of the practice, or rather of the necessity 
which compels gardeners thus to crow T d their forcing-houses in winter and spring, confined 
to the forcing structures alone ; the plants introduced into them are not in their proper 
sphere ; for be they ever so healthy and robust at first, undue excitement and etiolation and 
their natural consequences, exhaustion and debility, must, undoubtedly, be the lot of half- 
hardy plants that ought to be enjoying comparative rest and hardihood by full exposure in 
cold pits or frames. Plants intended for forcing too (even though they experience the 
full benefit that every ray of winter sunshine can confer upon them,) are seldom what we 
would have them to be. How much less then, can we expect them to be in accordance with 
our wishes, when blanched (not forced) beneath the shade of vines and figs and peaches ! 
