January 19, 1888. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
49 
yill.—The Committee also recommended that Elizabeth George, 
Patrick John Haraby, and Caroline McElroy, being in distress and 
having complied with the regulations, should be placed on the pension 
list, in accordance with rule 6, without the trouble and expense of an 
election. Mr. Veitch moved and Mr. Watkins secondal this proposition, 
which was adopted. 
IX.—Moved by Mr. A. F. Barron, and seconded by Mr. Monro, That 
the best and grateful thanks of this meeting be presented to Baron 
Ferdinand de Rothschild for his great kindness in presiding at the last 
Anniversary Festival, for the able and eloquent manner in which he 
advocated the cause of the Institution, and for his liberality and that of 
his friends upon the occasion. 
It was unanimously resolved that a grant of £10 be made to the 
widow of Charles Osman of North Wootten, Sherborne, who died only 
a fortnight before the election, and who, if he had lived till then, would 
have been certain of success. 
The total number added to the pension list was twelve—namely, the 
three mentioned above and the following—Thomas M. Wall, Matilda 
Charlton, Charles Papworth, James Ewing, William H. Head, Elizabeth 
Horton, Henry Meeham. 
In reference to the proportion of the working expenses to the 
amounts paid in pensions the following figures are interesting. The 
per-centage of working expenses was in 1861, 26-6, the pensions paid 
^ing £739 ; in 1866, 26'9, pensions £739 ; in 1871, 22'4, pensions, £824 ; 
in 1876, 21'2, pensions £986; in 1881, 19’5, pensions £1200; in 1886, 
14'8, pensions £1950; and in 1887, 15‘8, pensions £2779. 
STATEMENT OF THE RECEIPTS AND PAYMENTS OF THE 
GARDENERS’ ROYAL BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION FOE 
THE YEAR ENDING DECEMBER 31st, 1887. 
De. 
1282 15 0 
1544 7 2 
To Balance,-1886 . 
„ Annual Subscriptions 
„ Donations at and in 1 
consequence of Annual J- 866 15 0 
Dinner ) 
„ Jubilee Collecting Cards 677 12 2— 
„ Advertisements 
Dividends on Stock. 633 0 0 
Interest on Deposits. 42 10 3 
Stock in 3 per cent Consols, £21,100. 
Ce. 
By Pensions . 
„ Special Jubilee Grant 
„ Secretary’s Salary and honorarium 
„ Printing . 
„ Rent of Office . 
„ Stationery ... . 
„ Advertising. 
„ Expense of Annual Dinner 
„ Postage and Travelling Expenses 
„ Balances—viz.. 
With Treasurer at Bankers 
With Secretary 
1 John Lee, 
Audited 9th January, 1888 < Joseph F. Meston, 
( J. WiLLAED. 
£ s. d 
380 3 10 
53 
18 
6 
2881 
0 
8 
675 
10 
3— 
3556 
10 
11 
£3936 
14 
9 
£ 
S. 
d 
. 2124 
10 
0 
. 655 
0 
0— 
2779 
10 
0 
• 
186 
5 
0 
• ■ ... 
... 166 
11 
6 
• • *« 
50 
0 
0 
• ... 
17 
14 
8 
. ■ . .. 
1 
16 
6 
. ... 
77 
6 
0 
. 
93 
10 
4 
£3372 
14 
0 
. 548 
11 
10 
15 
8 
11— 
564 
0 
9 
£3936 
14 
9 
LONDON’S LESSER OPEN SPACES—THEIR TREES 
AND PLANTS. 
NEW SERIES. —No. G. 
A MOVEMENT for planting trees about our towns is one of the 
favourable signs of the time, and owing to the changes that occur in 
the metrop(jlis, many opportunities offer for the introduction of trees or 
shrubs along roads, in odd corners, and vacant ifiots turned into gardens. 
Perhaps those concerned in this limit themselves too much to a few 
species, as witness the abundance of Planes of the Oriental and Ameri¬ 
can varieties, though many other trees will thrive in London smoke 
nearly or quite equal to these. But now we are improving somewhat 
the London atmosphere, its fogs are less frequent than they were ; one 
thing, however, against the vegetation is, that through the extensive 
digging and boring that has gone on, especially about the central dis¬ 
tricts, the numerous springs have been dried up that our ancestors found 
favourable for their orchards and groves outside the city walls. The 
yet existing names of Moorfields and Finsbury testify to the moist 
character of old London ; even when the Mansion Hoirse was erecting 
early in the reign of George 111. the builders were impeded by such a 
flow of water that piles had to be driven to get a foundation. It is 
worth remembering that the site was once that of the Stocks Market, so 
called like the adjacent church, from a huge jjair of stocks close by, and 
which at first a meat market, became after the great fire a market for 
herbs, roots, and fruits. It was, in fact, the parent of the present 
Farringdon Market. Within the walls of the Baideof England a garden 
yet remains that was formerly the burial gi'ound of the Church of St. 
Christopher-le-Stocks. It has two trees, and is planted with evergreens, 
which, when their enclosed situation is considered, look fairly healthy. 
It owns two Limes, not very aged, but interesting as being probably 
descendants of older trees that once gi-ew here, for on this ground, or 
somewhere near, tradition says there was formerly a rookery in the 
heart of the City. For the sake of variety some of those in charge of 
the small open spaces of London have introduced pigeons and monkeys, 
and one clergyman has asked a scientific journal whether a rookery 
could not be started in a garden he has charge of. Rooks, like most 
birds, are foiul of their own choice in the matter, but the circumstance 
that extinguished the rookeries about London was the building over 
the fields, this depriving them of their subsistence ; and this difficulty 
remains still unless rooks could tx: fed like tame birds. 
On the west side of the Bank of England, enclosc<l by a high wall, a 
straggling group of Elms, tall, but of moderate girth, look down upon 
Princes Street, with its rush and roar by day, and its contrasting still¬ 
ness at night. These are in what is left of the Grocers’ Garden, which 
it is likely once extended from Old Jewry to Lothbury. Even in the 
eighteenth century enough of the garden grounil remained to furnish 
citizens with a pleasant evening stroll. Other City Halls had their 
gardens in days of yore. One much famed, yet extant but raluced sadly, 
is that of the Drapers’, between London Wall and Throgmorton Street. 
It was part of the garden of Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and the Drapers’ 
Company when they acquired it laid out the plot with walks, planted 
rows of Limes and Elms, also put up “ pavilions,” and for centuries the 
ground was open to the public. An old author mentions it as com¬ 
manding fine views of the hills and woods about Highgate. In 1888 
we find the diminished space shut in by tall buildings, but Limes and 
Elms are still to be seen, and there are shrubs scattered over small beds, 
in which, during summer, plants are put ; but, of course, during January 
the ground appears drear}'. A fountain which is kept playing sounds 
singular amid the busy hum of the talk and traffic just outside. 
Finsbury Park is one of the recently formed parks, with an extent of 
more than a hundred acres, but it is a long way from Finsbury. North 
of London Wall there is a densely populated district at raesent poorly 
oS for recreation grounds, but Finsbury Circus and its ^uare, which 
might delight the thousands of children who are now obliged to play in 
courts and gutters, are jealously closed except to a privileged few. It is 
to be hoped the Public Gardens Association will succeed in getting 
these and some other suburban spaces at the north made free to the 
public. The Circus is one of the metropolitan gardens that are of oval 
form, and it is a fair example of one laul out in the Georgian style ; trees 
far too numerous to favour the growth of flowers, yet picturesque, 
because they have not been extensively clipped for years. None very 
venerable, the older being Hawthorns, Limes, and Poplare, the locality, 
once fenny, and still rather moist, suits the last. Though it encloses 
only four acres, by his arrangement of the paths and shrubberies the 
projector managed to give the impression that the si)ace is much larger ; 
it is below the level of the adjacent ground. Finsbury Square beyond 
is about half as large again, but contains a less number of trees, none as 
old as its formation, which was just a centur}' ago. Here are a few 
specimens of the BLadder Senna, which might be more frequently 
planted in London gardens. We are now close to Bunhill Fields, so 
called from the largest of three fields belonging to Finsburj' Farm. 
Another was named Mallow Field, from the familiar wild plant growing 
freely there. Bunhill, if not at first “ Bone-hill,” as some think, might 
have been thus styled, for it had been a place of interment before the 
Stuart times, when the present grounil of about seven acres was 
formed. Interesting, certainly, as an historic spot, but though it is 
reckoned as one of the City recreation grounds, it possesses few advan¬ 
tages, save that of being an open space free to the sky. It is too 
crowded with monuments of all sorts to allow of its being properly laid 
out as a garden, though a number of small beds have been made here 
and there amongst the tombstones and the dank grass. The number of 
shrubs is small, but there are some avenues of trees shading the 
as|)halted walks, probal)ly planted since Her Majesty’s accession ; the 
older trees, of w'hich there wore a few, have been removed. A less space 
adjoining, also a part of the Bunhill Fields, is the Artillery Ground, loi^ 
reserved for military exercises. At one time, so one author tells us, the 
ground of the Artillery Company was called Tassel Close, from the 
“ ta.ssels ” grown there for the benefit of cloth-workers. These, of course, 
were what we now style " Teazels,” the heads of Dipsacus fullonum, and 
still applied to the like use. An ancient thoroughfare near this space is 
Cherry-tree Lane, ])erhaps a reminiscence of the nursery and garden 
owned by John Milton, temp. James 1., and which was south of the 
Old Kent Road. 
Hoxton, to the north, is still badly off for open siiaccs. Our fore¬ 
fathers knew it as Hogsdon, and at one time it was a resort on account 
of a mineral spring of some supposed virtues. Its squares, Hoxton and 
