KNAP HILL AND BAGSHOT 45 
most of the huge bushes being at their best in June. There is 
also a good collection of Rhododendrons in the Edinburgh 
Botanic Gardens. The soil at Glasnevin does not suit them. 
The nurseries in which Rhododendrons are made much 
of — namely, those of A. Waterer, Knap Hill ; ]. Waterer and 
Sons, Bagshot ; ]. Veitch and Sons, Coombe ; Dickson, 
Edinburgh ; G. Paul and Sons, Cheshunt ; and R. Gill and 
Sons, Penryn — are the sources of nearly all the good garden 
Rhododendrons, species as well as hybrids, for it is their 
business to introduce and breed them, as it is to encourage 
others to admire and grow them. A visit to Knap Hill in 
June, where there are about sixty acres of Rhododendrons, 
many of them enormous bushes, the progenitors of thousands 
and thousands of young plants, affords, when they are in full 
flower, a feast for any one who can admire floral display. 
Here and at Bagshot there are countless seedlings, from year- 
lings upwards, being nursed along in the hope that amongst 
them there will be here and there one worth perpetuating. 
An inspection of these seedlings is instructive to any one 
interested in the breeding of plants. Messrs. J. Veitch and 
Sons have done more than any firm to obtain the Chinese 
species for British gardens, and we owe to them entirely 
the beautiful Javanese race bred from plants introduced by 
their collectors from the East Indies. 
Of noteworthy private collections the number is con- 
siderable. It is not easy to say which should be placed first. 
South-west Cornwall is the head-quarters of the tenderer 
Himalayan species. At Tregothnan, Tremough, Tresco, 
Penjerrick, Bosahan, Heligan, Scorrier, Wellington Park, 
and Trewidden, Rhododendrons grow with astonishing 
vigour ; it has even been said that they grow better there 
than in the Himalayas. Suitable soil, a moist atmosphere, 
