184 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ August, 
to take, but it is enough for our present purpose. We would say to the 
rich —Subscribe, and canvass for subscribers; to the nurseryman and 
gardener—Subscribe if you will, but Exhibit, and take every convenient 
opportunity of placing the claims of these Societies before the cultivated 
and wealthy with whom you come so much and so frequently in contact. 
P. 
REMINISCENCES OF OAKHILL: 
HOW WE LEARNED TO GROW GRAPES AND PINE-APPLES. 
,MONG the noted gardens in the vicinity of London thirty years ago, 
one very humble outsider forced itself into notice by producing fruit 
of superior quality, particularly Grapes and Pine-apples. This was 
the garden attached to the country house of the late Sir Simon 
Clarke, Bart., at Oakliill, near East Barnet, in Hertfordshire. Sir 
Simon had large estates in the West Indies, and having tasted the luxuries 
of that charming climate, he resolved to grow exotic and other fruits at 
home, altogether regardless of expense. With this object in view he got Mr. 
Lee, of Hammersmith, to send him the best gardener he could find, and the 
late Charles Dowding got the appointment. Dowding was a man over 6 feet 
in height, and being no idler, being, moreover, like one mounted on stilts, 
ho could travel with apparent ease, at a pace that his followers had to 
match with a trot; while Sir Simon, like the hero of the Nile, expecting 
every man to do his duty, had the greatest confidence that his gardener was 
not only willing, but able and admirably qualified to superintend. But 
some one may say, What have long legs to do with Pines and Grapes ? 
Gentle reader, bear Vvith me, and you shall hear that the accident of one of 
Mr. Dowding’s long legs breaking down, became the turning point of the 
successful Pine and Grape culture in that garden. 
Sir Simon and his gardener had visited the best gardens about the home 
counties to get the outlines of their work. It was evident that the baronet 
was to be in a great measure his own architect, while he employed a first- 
class builder to cany out his views. The soil of the garden, or as we may 
term it the raw material, was as stiff a sample of brick earth as ever was 
made into pug, and this bed of clay cropped out over a substratum of yellow 
gravel, where water was easily got at some 5 or 6 yards deep. The houses 
were built upon the lean-to principle, and were partly heated by hot-water 
pipes, and partly by fire flues. They stood on high ground, and for all 
practical purposes it may be said that they faced the south openly, but had 
considerable shelter from trees on the north and west. 
Mr. Dowding having met with an accident by which one of his legs was 
so seriously injured, that he was confined to his bed for some weeks, had 
to find an experienced gardener to superintend, and Mr. James, who had re- 
