208 
THE LADIES’ MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
flowers, I hardly know ; therefore you must take my arm and accompany 
me, attended by an intelligent gardener, into the two conservatories, 
attached as wings to Mr. Paxton’s house, which were filled, on one side 
with stove plants, all gigantic but flourishing, and in full flower, such as 
are in season, the parasitical plants falling from the roof in clusters of 
flowers; on the other side, conservatory plants, among the most conspicuous 
of which were some Ericas standing two or three feet high, and five or 
six feet in circumference, so covered with flowers as to leave hardly a 
space through which you could discern the leaves and branches. Among 
many other plants falling in graceful tresses from the roof, was the 
Mimosa procumbens , the most elegant plant I ever saw, and to me 
entirely new (perhaps it is figured in Paxton’s work). But I shall never 
show you Chatsworth if I stop to describe each plant that threw me into 
ecstacies; the gardener, finding he had a man who enjoyed plants, could 
not be attentive enough to William and me. 
We next went to the succession fruit houses, consisting of eight 
ranges of hothouses, three in each range, measuring 240 feet long each 
range: in the first six houses were pines in every state, from ripe fruit to 
young plants ; the next six houses, grapes, each house in succession to the 
preceding one, and with the most superb crop of grapes you can con¬ 
ceive ; then came peach-houses, the fruit of which was all over; next 
melon-houses filled with fine fruit; and last of all, fig-houses, with full 
crops of figs just ripening. These houses, though very interesting to 
many, I have hurried you through to accompany me to the mushroom- 
houses, or rather cellars; I dare not say what length these were, but I 
should think at least 1000 feet long. We will next walk through part 
of the kitchen-garden, consisting of half an acre of asparagus beds, quarter 
of an acre of onions, quarter of an acre of carrots, quarter of an acre of 
rhubarb (the finest I ever saw) ; every other vegetable in the same pro¬ 
portion. 44 Why,” observed William to the gardener, 44 you can never 
consume these vegetables ? ” The reply was, 44 When his Grace is down, 
we make a pretty considerable hole in them, when you recollect we have 
one hundred mouths in the servants’ hall, besides from fifty to sixty at 
his Grace’s table, and the stewards’ table, housekeepers’ table, &c., to 
supply in addition.” I will not take you into the orchard, which also 
consists of eight acres of ground, and contains the finest sorts of apples, 
pears, plums, damsons, &c. &c., but walk across the park to the orna¬ 
mental garden; but I forgot to give you first a peep into the orchideous- 
house, containing I believe a specimen of every orcliideous plant known 
in England. The house is not ornamental, being built so as to suit the 
plants, but it covers an immense space of ground, and finer specimens, 
