September 30. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
411 
if the mind be set upon it. Wet half-worn mats, wet 
litter, &c., will accomplish this with attention. Of 
course, the buyer will not select gummed or cankered 
trees, or, indeed, those diseased in any way; and, above 
all, if Apples, shun those infested with the American 
blight. R. Errington. 
THE GARDEN OF THE I,ON DON HORTICUL¬ 
TURAL SOCIETY— September 15. 
For the last four or fivo years I had very little 
opportunity of examining this garden in detail, and, 
with one or two exceptions, about a dozen years back, J 
never had a right view of it in September, or later than 
the July exhibitions, and exhibition times, we all 
I know, arc not the best for making the most of such 
j information as may be gleaned in this great establish¬ 
ment. I have now examined it moi-e minutely, and the 
first novelty which took my attention was the specimen 
of the new Gktss-walls, as they are called ; and certainly, 
if they answer as well as they are beautiful, they will be 
well worth all the trouble and expense. But, looking 
on gardeners and gardening as a class and calling, j 
their free intercourse of thought and opinion, their 
cheap books and periodicals, and, above all, the superior 
and more general knowledge to which they have 1 
obtained, as compared with other crafts having far 
superior means of improving themselves in these re- j 
spccts, through having more leisure time on their hand, i 
and far better remuneration for the time they are in 
harness, I say, looking at all these circumstances, it is 
difficult to believe that they will ever patronise such 
things and projects as are under the controul of the evil 
genius of the patent laws, as administered in our time 
and country. When the models were lirst exhibited 
last spring, I gave an idea of their form, and the 
capacity of the space inclosed, which may be thus 
repeated—a row of iron posts, uino or ten feet high, 
with arms on either side, herring-bone fashion, then 
strings of wire running from arm to arm the whole way 
to train plants against, and theso to be guarded on both 
sides by upright glass sashes, and these sashes to move 
backward and forward with machinery, so easy to work 
that a child might move long lengths of them by turn¬ 
ing round a handle like that of a coffee-mill; one short 
pane of glass, leaning from the top of each side-wall, meet 
in the centre, thus forming a hipped roof to the whole. 
These roofs, as well as the sides, can be opened at 
pleasure. The specimen put up in this garden repre¬ 
sents a garden door with a good stretch of glass on 
either side of it. To heighten the beauty of the structure, 
a very chaste and simple parapet ot iron in scroll work 
runs along the top on either side, and this hides most of 
the ridge or roof. Altogether it is most beautifully put 
together, and looks remarkably well. The only point 
that struck me, at the time, as an oversight or fault, is 
that in the grooves in which the sashes slide, and the 
uprights which hold them together, too much space is 
left for the working of the sashes, and, ii I am right, 
this will cause a dreadful rattling noise on a windy 
night. Reader! did you ever sleep in a room where the 
windows had play enough to keep rattling on a windy 
night? a feat I never could accomplish. It will not be 
thought strange, therefore, if I give up my old custom 
of sleeping on Turnham Green the nights before the 
shows, until I learn how the glass-walls in the society s 
garden behave themselves in stormy times. In one of 
the divisions, or on one side oi the door, fruit trees aie 
to be tried, and, on the other side, flowering plants will 
put the whole to the test. These things have been 
recently planted, but as no effect could yet be ex¬ 
pected, I did not look what kinds they planted.. I 
am very glad indeed that the Council of the Society 
had determined to try these experiments, and if 
they should fail altogether, the expense will be as 
nothing to that wdiich was once incurred in this very 
garden, and at Regent-street, in making out lists and 
reports to the secretary of all the Tom-foolery, and 
worse than foolery, about every weed, man, woman, and 
child, in the garden even, and of every opinion expressed 
by visitors, and such things, got at by a regular system | 
of low, mean, and scandalous espionage. Any one who j 
had known how this part of the Society’s, or ratber of 
their ambitious secretary’s business was transacted 
before 1830, or wbo read of them when the whole was 
brought to light and smashed to atoms at that time, 
need not express wonder at the difference in the times 
when the Hon. Arthur Wellesley entered the army, and 
when wo lost him as our Noble Duke. 
But to our cabbages. Fitzroya Patagonica is planted 
out here on the grass, and promises to be as fast a 
grower, and as distinct a plant, as the Taxodium semper- 
virens. 1 cannot say so much of His Royal Highness I 
Saxe-Gotluea conspicua after this interview. But who 
can distinguish the differences, or predict the charac¬ 
teristic features of the future conifer, now planted out 
for the first time, when we see, as one may do in this 
garden, the Indian Deodar assuming the dense habit 
and well-known features of the Cedar of Lebanon ?— 
who, indeed, but the man of science? This, however, 
being Mr. Appleby’s now theme, I shall not dwell upon 
it further than to make a note or two now and then, 
and first, upon the great mistake into which some have 
fallen about Gupressus Lambertiana, of Gordon, and 
G. maerocarpa, of Hartweg. I have already explained 
how these two names for one plant got into circulation ; 
and some have said that 1 might as well suck my 
thumb as try to establish their identity, therefore, l 
made it a point, in this visit, to clear up this doubt, or 
else suck my thumb to the end of the chapter. After 
examining many full specimens of both growing in the 
same garden, and even after seeing dried specimens of 
the fruit gathered in California, I am quite sure that the 
story, as reported by Mr. Gordon himself, and given out 
in our journal, is quite correct. The reason why some 
people erred is easily accounted for thus:—There were 
no more seedlings of Mr. Lambert’s plant in the country 
at the time, except the few got by Mr. Gordon, there¬ 
fore it was necessary to increase thorn from cuttings, 
until Mr. Low, of the Clapton Nursery, got a supply 
of the seeds,—1 believe, through Fischer, from Russia,— 
and also those sent home to the Society by Hartweg, 
from California. From these sprung seedlings, which 
could not be distinguished from those got from Mr. 
Lambert’s seeds; and Mr. Hartweg’s name, maerocarpa, 
being published before, Mr. Lambert s name was held 
only as provisionally, and Maerocarpa is the true and 
legitimate name. After a while, plants reared from the 
wild seeds, and those increased hy cuttings, began to 
assume different characters; the former growing upright, 
as all seedling Conifers do, and the plants from cuttings 
taking a more spreading-out growth; and very likely 
these two forms of growth will keep constant until the 
upright ceases to grow with old age. There are original 
plants from the first seedlings, and plants got from the 
same by cuttings, growing side by side in this garden ; 
and two as distinct habits are thus established from one 
and the same seed, as if the plants were two distinct 
species, therefore, it is only charitable to allow that this 
was quite sufficient to mislead the best of us. Indeed, 
it is well worth while, for thoso who can afford space 
enough, to plant a real seedling and a cutting plant of 
G. maerocarpa, and, at the same time, not to forget C. 
Gowenianum, which comes the nearest to it in habit 
and aspect, mindiug that this latter is quite a dwarf 
plant in comparison with the other. The cutting 
plants of Maerocarpa grow much after the fashion ot 
the red Virginian cedar (< Tuniperus I irginiana), and, 
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