June 7, 1894. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
453 
coming for more another year. It is even conceivable that some of the 
old John Bulls, who had a particularly good opinion of themselves, might 
go so far as to think the young stranger had more money than brains, 
and they might as well have a little of the former while it lasted, leaving 
him to gain wisdom with experience as he arrived at years of discretion. 
Little would they think they were dealing with a bland young floral 
Napoleon, conscious in the strength of his reserves and of his power to 
raise Dahlias in battalions large enough for distribution all over the 
occasion on ordering the cabman to drive to Colvill’s Nursery he could 
not find it. It had disappeared, and on its site were large houses and a 
Colvill Terrace.* A glance sufficed for comprehending the enormously 
enhanced wealth of the site, and this gave birth to an idea. Antwerp 
was growing in wealth, and gunnery in power. The old fortifications 
were useless, and new ones would become necessary at a greatly increased 
distance from the city. Why not purchase the then cheap country land 
around the homestead for extending the nursery? Charles the first 
Fig. 74.—CORNUS FLORIDA. (^See page 454.) 
world. Yet that is what happened as the fruits of a fortunate discovery 
now for the first time recorded in the Journal of Horticulture., more than 
sixty years after the event. 
A Lost Nuesbby and a New City. 
Of the Dahlia growers visited in England by Mr. Van Geert in his 
early campaigns all have long since passed away, but he remains with a 
mind as young and intellect as bright as ever, physically healthy and 
active too, but a bronchial trouble has to be managed by equability of 
temperature during the winter season. He profited in another way 
than by Dahlias in consequence of one of his visits to England. On one 
could not see his way to a speculative extension, but Charles the second 
could, and was at liberty to invest his own money, and from time to 
time did so until he secured a considerable area. Soon afterwards the 
insecurity of the city was mooted, and the question of better defences 
raised, culminating in a committee of defence and deputations to the 
Ministers and King. In a word new fortifications were demanded by 
the citizens, and the claim could not be ignored. The Act was passed, 
the lines laid down, and the country land within them went up at a 
bound to building value, this increasing as new streets extended, till 
* Colvin’s Nursery was in the King's Koad, Chelsea, exactly opposite the Duke 
of York’s School. 
