THE MILL-niLL HAMBURGH GRAPE. 
As a place where pleasant exercise might be taken daily among beautiful trees and flowers, there 
can be no comparison between the house just described, and one in which the whole building is so 
choked up with plants and flower pots, that there is no room to move ; — where the air is so overladen 
with close earthy smells, that any sensation of pleasant or healthy exercise within its heavy 
atmosphere, must at once evaporate, as inconsistent with the place. — H. N. H. 
THE MILL-HILL HAMBUEGH GEAPE. 
5H OWEVEE cautious a man may be, it frequently happens that in purchasing new fruits 
<**■ he is deceived, and hence it has become a matter of considerable importance that they 
should be thoroughly proved before being recommended to the public ; for nothing can be more dis- 
heartening to a purchaser than to find, after perhaps years of care and attention, that his plant when 
it comes into fruit proves to be a useless thing. The grape under notice is a very distinct variety of 
Hamburgh, and so perfectly distinct that no person need fear for a moment to plant it — indeed, 
if proof were wanting of its quality, no stronger or more satisfactory evidence could be adduced 
than the fact that the late Mr. Wilmot of Isleworth planted last spring one of his largest 
vineries with this kind alone — so convinced was he of its suitability for market purposes. On 
the 1st October, 1850, Mr. Fleming, the Duke of Sutherland's clever gardener at Trentham, sent 
some bunches of this grape to exhibit before the Horticultural Society, and at the same time he 
sent some of Old Dutch Hamburgh. The same day we received from Mr. Fleming the bunch 
from which our plate was prepared, and also some of the Dutch Hamburgh, and a drawing of a 
most remarkable bunch of another new grape grown at Trentham, and called the "Pope 
.Hamburgh." "With the grapes sent to the Horticultural Society was the following memorandum, 
which we quote from the Society's Journal: — Mr. Fleming observes: "Many persons being 
doubtful as to the existence of any real difference between the Mill-hill Hamburgh and the 
common one, and others confounding the "Mill- bill with the Old Dutch Hamburgh, I send some 
of each, in order that the question may be decided. The Mill-hill is later in ripening than the 
common Hamburgh, and its skin being firmer, renders it a good keeping grape. The vine 
makes strong roots, and, unless means are taken to keep them out of the subsoil, they will soon 
be reveling in it, and the wood will not ripen well. Our border is shallow and concreted below, 
and the wood ripens perfectly. This grape is in my opinion the best of the late black kinds, 
and seems to be a cross between the Black Damascus and the Hamburgh, but partaking more of 
the latter. The grape, which I call the Old Dutch Hamburgh, is large in the berry, of excel- 
lent flavour, and very juicy. It does not always become black, but with us is often of a flame 
or red colour, in which state it is much admired. The fewer the number of berries left upon 
the vine the nearer to black do the berries approach, although I have never seen them perfectly 
black. There seems to be much confusion of names among the grapes. We have here no 
fewer than four kinds of Hamburghs, all of which I have tried in one house, and, for early 
forcing, none excels the ' Pope,' a grape for many years grown most successfully at Swinnerton 
Hall in this county (Staffordshire)." To this history we may add that the Mill-hill vine is a 
strong grower, with the foliage, as will be seen by (he piece represented, very coarsely but 
regularly toothed. In form of bunch and berry it appears midway between the Hamburgh and 
Black Damascus, the shoulders being compact and the pedicels of the berries very strong — the 
flavour is rich and juicy, and the flesh is rather more film than the common Hamburgh. "We 
regard it as a perfectly distinct and excellent kind, most admirably adapted for late keeping. 
The variety was raised some eighteen or twenty years back from seed of the Black Hamburgh, 
in the garden of Miss Crompton at Mill-hill, near Derby, where the original plant may be 
seen; the place being now in the possession of T. B. Bainbridge, Esq. It found its way into 
cultivation mainly we think through Mr. Barron of Elvaston, who sent it to Trentham. 
Eespecting the Pope, we strongly suspect it, from the few berries we have seen and the 
circumstance of its ripening before the Hamburgh, to be identical with the "Welbeck Black 
Tripoli, and this impression is strengthened by the fact that the "Welbeck Black Tripoli was 
