168 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ August 24, 1893. 
cage, and now I cross the road to make a jotting or two about Brock- 
hurst, the charming place of Mr. Murchison, where gardener Simmons 
gives a welcome and a good account of himself to gardening visitors. 
It would be far from easy to find a place with gardens more 
undulating than these. I have a lively recollection of climbing some 
steepish banks at Abberley side by side with Mr. Arthur Young some 
few years ago, and I thought then that a course of athletic training 
would not be amiss for helping one to get about in comfort. It is very 
much the same—if anything, a little more so—at Brockhurst. It is 
really all climbing, not quite of the lope and alpenstock sort, but still 
fairly steep, and what it lacks in this respect it makes up for in 
quantity. There are banks and slopes whichever way you turn. All 
this, though it may be somewhat tiring to those who have not been 
dieted and sweated and bustled about as though they were going in for 
a university boat race, gives very unusual features and presents aspects 
of considerable charm. There is a sameness about level ground as there 
is about smooth water, and one appreciates an uneven surface as he does 
the foam-tipped swell on broad ocean expanses—always providing there 
is no sea-sickness about. 
The house is a long, somewhat low informal structure. I do not 
know what style it is in, for the difierence between the Gothic and 
Renaissance is about the extent, I grieve to say, of my architectural 
knowledge. But I do know that it is handsome, cool and inviting. There 
is nearly as much difference btween houses as there is between gardens, 
some being massive, formal and cold, with a frowning and gloomy 
aspect, such as are fitted by a setting of clipped Yews and the like ; others 
rambling, natural, and comfortable looking, with which an undulating 
garden surface, luxuriant shrubs and bright mixed borders at once 
associate themselves in the mind. Mr. Murchison’s house is one of the 
latter type, and a more charming country residence is not easily 
imagined. It is a home, not a mansion. The conservatory attached is 
lofty, spacious and cool, being heavily draped with green creeper 
growths, and softened with the filmy humidity of Ferns, but not devoid of 
brightness, either, for well grown flowering plants are sufficiently repre¬ 
sented to prevent any suspicion of sombreness. I have never entered a 
more attractive conservatory, and Mr, Simmons may be pardoned if he 
feels somewhat proud of it, but he is one of those modest men who hide 
their feelings from the vulgar gaze, and so I cannot say what his senti¬ 
ments thereon may be. _ 
The residence faces north and south. I am a little dubious as to 
which would be styled the front, but accord that honour to the broad 
sweep of windows and entrances looking upon the southern hills. A 
beautiful view may be had from them, one of the most delightful with¬ 
out a doubt in the county. There is absolutely nothing to obstruct it. 
The garden sinks away below the walls in many a grassy terrace and 
steep declivity, and beyond it stretch the fields and woods, which melt 
away at the base of the wolds. It must present a charming spectacle 
of soft tender pastoral beauty in the glow of early morning, not less 
pleasing than the mellow aspect of meadow and forest when the heat of 
the day is upon the country side. I did not see it under either condi¬ 
tion, but under the tearful mantle of a heavy and protracted rainstorm; 
but it is there, and no exaggeration of imagination is needed to invest it 
with features of beauty, reposefulness, and charm. 
Mr. Simmons will, I feel sure, forgive me for not going into details 
of his excellent flower gardening under the circumstances. I must 
sorrowfully admit that it is not within my scope to recall from memory 
every bed in every place I enter—would that it were. And as to notes, 
why they would have presented much the aspect of the tear-punctured 
missives which writers of love stories have familiarised us with, even to 
the extent of being undecipherable, had I attempted to take them in 
the pelting storm. It was worthy work of its kind, particularly the sub¬ 
tropical beds, which linger with me as exceptionally well arranged and 
admirably furnished examples. Nor were the conditions favourable for 
noting down the names and altitudes of the many good Conifers with 
which the grounds were studded, or for a description of the shrubs over¬ 
hanging the lake. Personal wishes are as nothing when the rain falls 
with that tropical luxuriance and steadfastness which make umbrellas 
more sighed for than lead pencils, and mackintoshes more desirable than 
notebooks. I am not prepared to say that the drops were as large as 
eggs, which is the sort of thing Clark Russell tells us about in those 
wonderful sea stories of his, but the rain fell long and with a waspish 
persistency. I must sum up the gardens and grounds by saying that 
they have been most judiciously laid out and planted, and are a not 
unworthy reward for the thought and care which both master and man 
have bestowed upon them. _ 
There is not a great amount of glass at Brockhurst. One would 
expect rather more from a place of its size. This, however, only affects 
a writer in that it leaves him less to say than he would otherwise have 
ab his command. What space there is is made the most of. The Peaches 
and Nectarines were eloquent with the language of health, foliage, and 
abundant fruit. The main plant house was as full of fine, strong, clean, 
and healthy material as it could be comfortably packed with ; indeed, 
the thought strikes me that there must have been as much ingenuity 
exercised to get the plants in as skill to grow them so well. To be sure 
it is a hard thing to throw healthy plants away. A gardener no more 
likes to do it than parents do to cast their children out upon the world. 
Amongst various good things in one of the houses I noticed a batch of 
a Carnation much thought of locally, named Pope’s Seedling. It is a 
very floriferous tree with lemon, rose-flaked flowers, but 1 am told often 
throws seifs. It appears to be a very useful variety worth seeing in 
other parts. _ 
Brockhurst boasts a well-stocked kitchen garden and a noble 
array of fruit trees, but as the concentrated iniquities of a score of 
shower baths had done their worst upon us by the time we got amongst 
them, we were fain to hurry through. The place is in good order all 
over, and if the gardener is as satisfied with his handiwork as he might 
justly be, he is far from being a discontented man. All the soft water 
there was about moved neighbour Dunn, who was one of the saturated 
ones present, to dilate on his favourite theory of the value of rain water 
and the absolute worthlessness of hard. The young Oakleigh gardener 
is as smart and promising a man as I know, but he really has most 
eccentric ideas in respect to water. According to him a nice strong 
solution of arsenic would be about as nourishing to a plant as hard 
water. A medical gentleman with a strong antipathy to alcohol 
recently propounded the statement that there is about the same amount 
of support in the bite of a mad dog as there is in a glass of stout. Mr. 
Dunn gives hard water about an equal value for plants. Of course he 
does not forget to let loose a deluge of arguments on the head of anyone 
who questions his theory. What does he say to putting some of them 
in print? _ 
It would be bad for town gardeners if hard water were as injurious 
to plants as some of our friends assert. What, I wonder, would the 
many earnest and persevering amateurs do whose plants never receive 
any except hard water, and in a season like the present, too 1 Gardening 
for them would be a more troubled pastime than it is now, and it is 
already full enough of dififlculties and drawbacks.—W. P. W. 
SCAELET RUNNER BEANS NOT SETTING. 
I HAVE read with much interest what has recently appeared in the 
Journal on this subject, and I desire to take this opportunity of thanking 
all those correspondents who have kindly replied to my inquiry (page 80). 
There is, however, so much differing among the doctors that I am yet at 
a loss how to decide ; still, I am thankful for the information contained 
in their communications. 
In my letter I naturally connected the scarcity of humble bees with 
the scarcity of Beans, having read at some time that their presence was 
necessary in order to secure a crop of red Clover seed, but now that I 
have observed more closely the way they work at Bean flowers, I do not 
think they are instrumental in the “ pollination.” The proboscis is 
directed to the very base of the corolla, and not towards the reproductive 
organs. On the other hand, I cannot agree with those who consider 
these insects injurious to the organs or the embryo Beans, for I have 
known seasons that it was next to an impossibility to find a flower whose 
calyx was not pierced by them, yet Beans were abundant. 
One writer thinks that the earlier blooms failed to set owing to the 
excessive heat and atmospheric dryness. Granted, but why was there 
not a change for the better, say in a w'eek after the rain came, and the 
consequent lowering of temperature ? Whereas my Beans did not 
begin to set until the Slst of July. This improvement continued for 
about ten days, when the flowers began falling again to some extent. 
During that period we have had a good downpour, and to all appearance 
the weather was perfect. A neighbour living a mile distant called my 
attention to this circumstance, when we at once proceeded to examine 
my own Beans, and found it even so. 
I agree with Mr. Abbey that drought and poverty will cause the 
flowers to drop wholesale. Probably I have not grown so many crops of 
Beans as he has, but I have grown about tHirty, and I have never before 
failed to get a fair amount of pods by copious waterings. Indeed, I 
had come to regard the Bean crop as a certainty if plenty of water could 
be given. 
Among other causes advanced are over-luxuriance, growing in en¬ 
closed spaces, thrips and other insects infesting the plants. With regard 
to the two former reasons, it appears from the writers on page 106, and 
from my own inquiries and observations in this neighbourhood, that no 
matter what the treatment, position, or state of the fertility of the soil, 
the results are pretty much alike. I certainly found a few yellow thrips in 
some of the flowers I examined, but not enough, I think, to do any 
serious damage, and even if it were so I cannot account for their sudden 
disappearance about the end of the month, which we must suppose 
took place, thus allowing the organs to fulfil their functions.—T. S., 
Bristol. 
THREE DAYS’ HOLIDAY IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 
Abriving at Ryde I went by train to Shanklin, distance ten miles, 
and near the Chine who should I meet but our old gardening friend, Mr. 
C. Orchard, manager of the Bembridge Hotel and gardens. With him 
was Mr. W. Drover of Fareham, well known as one of the leading 
Chrysanthemum growers. We adjourned to the Chine Hotel for lunch, 
and I soon found these gentlemen were on business, having to act as 
judges at the Shanklin Horticultural Show, held in the beautiful grounds 
of Ryleston, kindly lent by Mons. Spartali. At the outset I must say of 
all the local shows I ever attended I never was in such charming grounds 
and scenery. The grounds stand well up on the cliffs and overlook the 
