the manual of gardening. 
72 
they require peculiar treatment, in order to have them in any per- 
fection. They succeed best when planted under a north wall ; for 
if exposed to the full blaze of a spring or summer sun, the leaves 
will become brown and sickly, and in the summer the plant will 
perish from drought, no supply of water being adequate to their 
wants in such a situation. They must be planted in pure peat 
or heath-mould, for they will not thrive in garden-mould, or loam, 
though a small portion of the former may be added to the peat or 
heath. 
If planted in an open or exposed situation, it will be requisite 
to water them frequently, or their flower-buds will wither with- 
out expanding. They are propagated by layers, by seed, or by 
cuttings; but most easily by the two former. Great care is re- 
quired to raise the plants from seeds, which must be sown very 
early in the spring in pots, in a sandy soil, and but sparingly 
watered. When six weeks old they may be potted out singly, 
but they require all this time artificial heat. Cuttings of young 
wood will strike under hand-glasses, if the air is excluded by 
pressing down the glass. 
The Rhododendron maximum , or Mountain Laurel, is the or- 
nament of our mountain passes; it thrives well in a cultivated 
state, when planted in a damp shady spot, in soil composed of 
light wood-earth and loam : and is, from the fact of its delighting 
in shade, particularly valuable in cities, where the sun does not 
always reach the gardens. 
Taxus baccata, The Yew, is an invariable appendage to an 
English church-yard ; but the custom for thus planting them has 
never been satisfactorily explained. Some have supposed they 
were placed there to afford branches on Palm Sunday: others 
that they were emblematical of silence and death. 
“ Beneath those ragged elms, that yew tree’s shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap, 
Each in his narrow cell securely laid, 
The rude forefathers of the. hamlet sleep.” 
Gray. 
They now, however, form the most ancient and venerable trees 
in Britain; some are supposed to be upwards of 1000 years old. 
One near Staines, known as the Ankerwyke yew, tradition says, 
was made by Henry VIII. the place of meeting Anna Boleyn, 
while she was living at Staines. The use of the yew in ancient 
gardening, during the 17th century, was very general. It was 
the practice at that time to clip it into all sorts of fantastical 
shapes; in modern gardening it is principally valued for single 
trees, and small groups in particular situations. It will grow 
in any soil, and thrive under the shade and drip of trees. 
Thuja. The Arbor vitw. — The T. occidental!-, or American 
