106 
THE FLORIST. 
entirely new country like Japan. We know some to be hardy, others 
again are not so, as this last season has demonstrated. As a general 
rule, we may take it for granted that Japan plants, which grow at 
a higher elevation than 1500 feet above the sea level will prove 
hardy, and we can say of the others for ourselves, that we shall try 
all we can get. G. F. 
VISITS TO NURSERIES.—No. IV. 
MESSRS. SPARY AND CAMPBELL, QUEEN’S GRAPERIES 
AND NURSERY, BRIGHTON. 
Having been in Brighton some time ago in the “hoighth of the 
sayson,” I bethought me of paying a visit to the above establishment, 
to see whether, amidst all the evil influences under which floriculture 
must labour in that miniature edition of London, it were possible for 
skill and enterprise to surmount them. We knew, of course, that we 
were not to expect the freshness and trim neatness of Slough, or the 
large and luxurious growth of Bagshot; but had no doubt but that 
something would be gained, and perhaps some information useful to 
the public in general elicited. There are great difficulties in the way, 
the biting east wind, the chalky soil, the quantity of dust, the descent 
of blacks, the burning sun in summer, and sou’ westers and sea-fogs 
at times, make a nurseryman’s time no sinecure. Then the season is 
from October to February—the most unfavourable time in the year for 
flowers—when there is, nevertheless, a constant demand for cut flowers 
and plants for decorative purposes every day. However, there is a 
wonderful adaptiveness in our Anglo-Saxon nature. We find it very 
hard at first, with our angularities, to fit into a round hole, but, after a 
trial or two, we settle down; so here, Messrs. Spary and Campbell 
have found out the way to satisfy the demands of a craving public with 
profit to themselves. 
As the name implies, their establishment is well known for its Grapes, 
which are grown in twelve large Vineries (mostly heated with flues), 
and supply that delicious fruit nearly all the year round, the cutting 
commencing in March and the main crop being gathered from August 
to January. These Vineries are used in the autumn for housing the 
greenhouse plants, which are required more particularly for sale in the 
spring and summer. At the same season, the plant houses are occupied 
with plants approaching a flowering state, in order to meet the demand 
during “the season,” both for drawing-room plants and for cut flowers; 
and as these are sold out, their place is supplied by others from the 
Vineries, and thus the plant houses are always full; and at the time of 
year when in most nurseries stock is going to sleep for the winter, in 
this nursery they are all growing fast and rapidly advancing for bloom. 
Necessity is said to be the mother of invention—she is certainly the 
mother of discovery —and hence Messrs. S. & C. have found out what 
suits them best for the bouquet part of their business; seme plants of 
single Primulas were grown to a monster size, and they had furnished 
immense quantities of bloom for this purpose. Various sorts of 
flowering Begonias also come in, and the very pretty Heterocentrum 
