4 
THE FLORIST AND P0M0L0GIST. 
this with only one plant in the centre is well furnished for a sitting-room. 
There is always plenty to be got in the market for this purpose, as Epacrises, 
Heaths, Primulas, Hyacinths, Tulips, &c.,but care should be taken to purchase 
plants in pots of the same size as the empty one used. If the basket 
is suspended from a pulley in the centre of the window, putting the cord 
round another at the corner and a neat brass hook, which the hand can con¬ 
veniently reach, these can be let down to any point, either for watering or 
having them more under the eye. 
For halls and corridors they require to be filled with a very different class 
of plants. The great want of air and light in many of these places, with 
perhaps hot air and gas robbing the atmosphere of what little oxygen it 
possessed, make it a troublesome business to keep the proper supply in 
a healthy state. For such places we have them planted round the sides for 
drooping, Vinca elegantissima, and in the centre Centaurea argentea, also Varie¬ 
gated and other Ivies, with Pompons in the centre. The latter is, perhaps, the 
best for a hall where great height allows more scope for the plants drooping. 
We have been treating exclusively for the winter season. Another class of 
plants are used for the different seasons. 
Cliveden Gardens. J. Fleming. 
(To be continued.') 
CHRONICLES OF A TOWN GARDEN. 
Nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, Thomas Fairchild, who raised the 
Nectarine known by his name, and who was a respectable nurseryman at 
Hoxton, wrote his “ City Gardener.” The design of the book was to give, as 
he says, “ The most experienced method of cultivating and ordering such 
Evergreens, Fruit Trees, Flowering Shrubs, Flowers, Exotick Plants, &c., as 
will be ornamental and thrive best in the London Gardens.” 
The ground whereon these “ London Gardens” then were is now covered in 
a way that would astonish good Thomas Fairchild ; and the part of it whereon 
I now reside has, doubtless, changed in aspect and in circumstances since his 
time. But, notwithstanding all this, it is possible to have a “ City Garden” still. 
The observations I shall give of my experience will be equally applicable 
to gardening in any town, however large or small; and in doing so, I trust I 
may be the means of communicating the same amount of pleasure to others as 
I myself derive from my favourite pursuit. 
The cultivators of a few flower-pots, or a box or two, who have but the inside 
and outside of their window, their mantel-piece, or parlour-table, as their 
greenhouse and conservatory; it is for such an order of cultivators as these 
that my remarks are intended. Go where I will in any of the suburbs of this 
great metropolis—let me penetrate the narrowest courts and most contracted 
thoroughfares of this wondrous city, the ramifications of whose commercial 
enterprises can be found to entwine themselves with the trading resources of 
every habitable part of the globe—do I walk round the famed yard that 
environs its great cathedral, or penetrate the maze of lofty warehouses that line 
the banks north and south of its broad river—there I witness some rude 
attempts to cultivate a silent memento of the fair country that yearly recedes 
farther from its precincts. Do I explore Houndsditch or Whitechapel—refuges 
for the teeming throng who fill the most menial offices in the working of its 
gigantic trade;—or, taking a wider range, do I bend my steps to the region of 
the Tower, or the thickly populated districts of Finsbury, to Clare Market, 
Drury Lane, St. Giles’s, and other parts of Westminster; or, crossing the river 
