402 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— September 2, 1850. 
Ficus elastica and young Musas from eight to sixteen feet 
high. 
One of the most effective objects in the house is a Conjpha 
umbraculifera , fully twenty feet high. Then come three or 
four stately and somewhat graceful trees of Bambusa 
arundinacea, nearly thirty feet high. Of the broad-leaved 
Astraprea. Wallichii there is an example about twenty feet 
through. Near this is the Eugenia unijiora, called, in French, 
Ccrisier de Cayenne. 
Among the other more noticeable objects are some good 
specimens of Bonapartea gracilis, Cycas revoluta, together 
with several scores of large Orange-trees in tubs. The 
latter, however, are kept in the open air at present. 
The Jardin d'Hiver , as will be seen, has very little or 
nothing at all in the way of flowering plants or shrubs to 
make a show, and relieve the sombre monotony of the dark 
green; and all 1 could see in flower were one or two 
straggling bushes of Lantana and Habrothamnus. There 
is, however, no lack of ornaments in the way of vases and 
statues. There is also a neatly-formed rockwork, which is, 
for the most part, filled with Ferns. 
In reference to the late Exhibition at Chelmsford, M. 
Borie, who, as it appears, was among the foreigners present, 
has a few notes in the Revue Horticolc , from which I shall 
extract one or two items, to show the terms iu which he 
speaks of English horticulture. “It is well known,” says M. 
Borie, “ that our neighbours are great amateurs of floriculture. 
The sun refuses to ripen their fruits, but they console them¬ 
selves in cultivating, either in their magnificent conserva¬ 
tories or in the open ground, all the rarest and most beau¬ 
tiful flowers in the world. Chelmsford much resembles a 
large bourg or chef lieu de canton. Suppose, then, that in one 
of the chefs lieux de canton in our lovely France a Horticultural 
Exhibition is got up, I ask you what could be got together ? 
If by chance there were found iu the neighbourhood a rich 
amateur, having a good gardener, he would have, to be at 
the expense of the whole Exhibition.* If there were no 
such amateur, the Exhibition would be made up of a few 
poor Roses and some modest Resedas. Save in some very 
particular and highly-privileged counties, in order to get up 
just a passable Show, it would be necessary to have the con¬ 
tributions of several arrondissements. 
“It is not so in England. The little town of Chelmsford 
and the Squires of the neighbourhood got up one of the 
most beautiful Horticultural Exhibitions which I have ever 
seen.’’ As it is the fashion to print catalogues here, M. 
Borie seems to have expected something of the kind at 
Chelmsford. He is, however, highly pleased with the Show 
in point of richness and profusion, and, naturally enough, 
he hailed the tricolours, beside the flag of England, with 
emotions of pride and satisfaction ; but all he could do in 
the midst of so much was to make a cursory survey. 
With respect to our mode of placing the plants so as to 
give them effect, his opinion is not so favourable. He 
thinks there was very little arrangement, but a good deal of 
rustic disorder. After noticing some of the more striking 
among the plants, he says, the vegetables were very fine; 
but that is nothing surprising in England, where the 
humidity of the temperature much favours the culture of all 
sorts of kitchen vegetables. 
But what especially excited the surprise and the admira¬ 
tion of all the French who visited the Exhibition tvas the 
fruit. There were White Muscat Grapes, beautifully ripened 
and bloomed, and which might have been supposed to have 
ripened under the burning sun of Roussillon; + enor¬ 
mous Peaches and Apricots, rich and downy; and all these 
fruits in such large quantities that you might have thought 
it was an Exhibition in the South of France. But is the 
flavour of these fruits equal to their brilliant colours and 
their fair proportions? We may be allowed to doubt it, at 
least, to avoid a humiliating reproach to the sun, which they 
seem to have been able to dispense with. 
Probably, as one of the results of M. Bone’s trip to 
England, there is in the last number of the Revue an 
article with engravings from The Cottage Gardener. 
* H. Boric in this instance makes use of the English word, which, in 
general, has a different application in French. Exposition is the French 
for what we call Exhibition, as Lord Brougham once reminded his noble 
peers in correcting them of a vain desire to give Prince Albert’s grand 
scheme of 1851 a fine foreign name. 
f A Province in the South of France. 
The subject is the arrangement of the Orchid-house at 
Penllergare. 
After having for at least six weeks intensely hot and 
dry weather, we have now a considerable abatement, at least 
10° Falir. A great deal of rain has also fallen during the 
last few days.—P. F. K. 
WELLINGTON IA GIGANTEA. 
We have already furnished our readers with abrief account 
of this magnificent giant, and the testimony is ample in proof 
of its vast dimensions; but the following extract from Dr. 
Winslow’s communication, at the same time that it is graphic 
and precise, gives the height rather greater than other ac¬ 
counts that we have met with :— 
“ The Great Tree (thus he distinguishes the Wellingtonia 
giyantea ), is peculiar to the Sierra Nevada, and grows no¬ 
where else on the globe. I may even add, as far as my in¬ 
formation extends, that it is entirely confined to a narrow 
basin of 200 acres at most, of which the soil is silieious and 
strewn with blocks of Lignite. This basin is very damp, 
and retains here and there pools of water; some of the 
largest of the trees extend their roots directly into the stag¬ 
nant water, or into the brooks. There are more than a hun¬ 
dred which may be considered as having reached the extreme 
limits of growth which the species can attain. One of our 
countrymen, Mr. Blake, measured one, of which the trunk, 
immediately above the root, was 94 feet in circumference. 
Another, which had fallen from old age, or had been up¬ 
rooted by a tempest, was lying near it, of which the length 
from the roots to the top of the branches was 450 feet. A 
great portion of this monster still exists, and, according to Mr. 
Lapham, the proprietor of the locality (and who has undoubt¬ 
edly appropriated to himself all trees by right of occupation), 
at 350 feet from the roots the trunk measured 10 feet in 
diameter. By its fall, this tree has overthrown another not 
less colossal, since at the origin of the roots it is 40 
feet in diameter. This one, which appeared to me one 
of the greatest wonders of the forest, and compared 
with which man is but an imperceptible pigmy, has 
been hollowed, by means of fire, throughout a con¬ 
siderable portion of its length, so as to form an immense 
wooden tube of a single piece. Its size may be imagined 
when it is known that one of my companions, two years ago, 
rode on horseback in the interior of this tree for a distance 
of 200 feet, without any inconvenience. My companions 
and myself have frequently entered this tunnel and pro¬ 
gressed some sixty paces, but have been arrested before 
reaching the end by masses of wood which have fallen from 
the ceiling. Near these overthrown giants others still are 
standing, not inferior to them in size, and of which the height 
astonishes the beholder. I can mention three particularly, 
which, entirely isolated, grow near each other so systema¬ 
tically as to appear to have been planted purposely to pro¬ 
duce the effect. A fourth is remarkable in having, between 
50 and 100 feet from the ground, its trunk divided into 
three enormous branches of the same size, and nearly 
parallel, extending to a distance of more than 300 feet. 
Others are distinguished by the straightness of their trunk, 
comparatively as delicate and erect as that of a Pine-tree, 
and which are not less than 350 feet in height. At some 
distance may be seen a species of knoll rising from the 
surface of the ground, and which is merely a half-developed 
knot, the last remains of one of these monsters, which have 
fallen centuries ago and are now buried under the soil. 
“ I am informed by Mr. Lapham that the wood of one of 
these trees is remarkable for its very slow decomposition. 
When freshly cut the fibre ig white; but it soon becomes 
reddish, and by long exposure to the air acquires a colour 
nearly as dark as mahogany. Its consistence is rather 
feeble, nearly resembling the Pine or Cedar, but the bark 
covering it differs materially from the latter. It is exces¬ 
sively thick near the foot of the tree, sensibly elastic on 
pressure, and is readily divided into a mass of fibres closely 
resembling those constituting the husk of a cocoa-nut, but 
much finer. About this portion of the trunk it is split in 
every direction by deep cracks, but at the elevation of 100 
or 180 feet, it is almost smooth, and not more than two 
inches in thickness. At this point the bark is removed 
from the living tree for exportation. [How can such a 
