210 
THE FLORIST. 
first crop ripens about the end of April; when that is full grown 
before it ripens, I set my second crop, keeping one fruit, as before, to 
each plant, and as soon as the first crop is cut, I give heavy waterings, 
and get up a fresh heat at the same time; which, imparting fresh 
vigour to the plants, the new crop grows rapidly and ripens about the 
latter end of May. When a third crop is required, it is managed in a 
similar manner. W. 
A VISIT TO SAWBRIDGEWORTH. 
If I had been told, years ago, when first I courted the Rose, with all 
the bashfulness of early love, that I should hereafter be invited to 
Sawbridgeworth, and wander among its glories in pleasant and easy 
converse with Mr. Rivers himself, I should have been as astonished as 
a midshipman might be supposed to feel if summoned to play at leap¬ 
frog with the Lord High Admiral, or some timid curate suddenly 
slapped upon the back by his bishop, and requested to give his opinion 
on the merits of a mild Havannah. 
But some experience in Rose growing, and some previous acquaint¬ 
ance with Her Majesty the Rose’s Government, having given confidence 
in my own knowledge, and the kindness of Rose-growing potentates, I 
received the invite aforesaid with unmixed pleasure, and on Tuesday, 
June 23, set forth, as happy as the happiest schoolboy just now come 
home for his holidays. 
Nor did a shadow fall on the sunlight of my mirth until, diverging 
from the Great Northern line, I found myself, for the first time in my 
life, upon the rails of the Eastern Counties ; and then, as I recalled 
the conversation in Punch, “ Augustus, whither goest thou ?—Dearest, 
to the ‘Eastern Counties .’—Then farewell for ever /”—I must confess 
to a temporary tremor, and to a painful, and perhaps imaginary con¬ 
viction, that we wobbled about more than was wholesome. 
But I had overcome my fears ere we arrived at Cambridge, could 
look collectedly around, and read the advertisements with calmness. 
One of the latter especially struck me, to wit, “ Glennie’s Nursery 
Biscuits,” as I supposed from a first glance that the article in question 
was a peculiar food for florists and gardeners, invented by Mr. Glennie 
for his horticultural brethren. In the garden opposite the station a 
mutilated image spoke, plainly as anything headless could, of tipsy and 
iconoclastic undergraduates. Of course, you know, it is very foolish, 
but I could not help laughing for the life of me; and whether we smile 
or frown, “ they will do it,” as Mrs. Nickleby remarked of lovers. 
We broke statues as well as statutes in my time, and I have a distinct 
recollection how that for a whole term the countenance of “ glorious 
Apollo,” enriched with a pipe and college cap, enlivened my rooms 
at Oxford. 
Mr. Rivers’s pleasant home stands on the top of a bank sloping to 
the road, and that hank is like a cataract of flowers, covered with 
white Roses, as though a million butterflies were resting there awhile, 
and brightening the scene as if a large supply of newly made stars 
