Junk 1. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
157 
desire, Mr. Baxter lias introduced beds and groups 
for bedding-plants, by the sides of the principal walks; 
and though it would be next to impossible to do more 
in this direction without curtailing and disturbing the 
very nice botanical arrangements, there can be no 
question, that a combination of interest and beauty, 
that speaks at once to the eye and the understanding, 
will be much more gratifying to ninety-nine out of 
every hundred visitors, than one which spoke chiefly to 
the intellect alone. I know nothing of the average 
number of botanical students at Oxford; I know no¬ 
thing of the incorporation of the garden ; nor whether it 
be designed to add to the pleasure and improvement of a 
more extended class than those connected with the 
colleges; but I strongly feel that this combination ol 
beautiful masses of gay flowers with the more dry 
details of a scientific arrangement, will not only add 
greatly to the interest of the place in summer, but 
prompt many to study the science of botany that other¬ 
wise would never have thought of it; and I ground this 
belief on two opposite facts that have come several times 
under my observation. The first is, that several who 
were forced to go through a course of scientific botany, 
have not only forgotten all about botany in their future 
career, but have actually been destitute of the slightest 
taste for floral beauty—looking with interest, it is true, 
on a Goliath of a turnip, or a thumping cow cabbage, 
but finding no better appellation for our most cherished 
flowors, than “ weedy things,” of no use whatever;_ 
while, on the other hand, several, in whom the love of 
the beautiful was next to a passion, who almost idolized 
their flowers, instead of being satisfied with contem¬ 
plating their beauties, were led on, step by step, in ad¬ 
miring and investigating their forms and the functions 
of the various parts, until they became successful 
students in vegetable physiology and systematic botany. 
Turning back to pages 117 and 118, I engross all 
that Mr. Appleby has said of Nuneham. There are two 
reasons why I should not grumble that he has taken the 
matter out of my hands. The first is, the old proverb, 
“ that what a friend gets is no loss;” the second is, the 
: escaping from a gentle hint from our captain, that 
these pages were not intended for poetry, even though 
shrouded in the lines of prose. In such an afternoon 
as the 5th of May, amid such glimpses of scenery and 
gleams of sunshine, I envy not the man whose feelings 
and aspirations did not soar and bound, even in associa¬ 
tion, far beyond the ground on which he trod. On the 
formation of the railroad, a large tract of laud was pur¬ 
chased between the entrance-gates and Abingdon-road 
Station. On entering the gates, the signs of good keep¬ 
ing were at once apparent; at first sight, it looked as if 
hay making had commenced. A number of men and 
i women were collecting the dry tufts of grass that had 
previously been cut, so that the park had all the green¬ 
ness of a lawn. I had adopted a similar plan in winter 
with a grazed park for adding to leaves, and thus in- 
\ creasing, with fine effect, my fermenting manure-heap ; 
but though mowers liked the affair, and said that there 
was a heavier and easier-managed crop in consequence, 
the parties chiefly interested thought differently, and 1 
was thus deprived of a fine addition for the litter and 
manure heaps, as such material came in admirably for 
all kinds of protection. 
Though possessing abundance of fine timber, the park 
is not so much distinguished for that as lor the excel¬ 
lent manner in which the trees are grouped ; the repose, 
as it were, with which you contemplate them from the 
fine open breadths, throwing the whole into a delightful 
picture of light and shade. I have already stated that 
the position of Nuneham is elevated, standing on what 
southerns would call a hill, and what northerns would 
term a mound. The pleasure-grounds, stocked well with 
the finer kinds of timber and evergreous, are, therefore. 
exceedingly varied, and the walks that traverse them are 
beautifully undulated, not merely with graceful, sweeping j 
lines, but in an easy, up-hill-and-down-hill direction, j 
and sometimes rather abrupt. 
The difficulty of managing such walks during torrents I 
of rain has been obviated by a thorough and complete ! 
system of drainage. From numerous points of these 
walks, as well as from the parts more particularly indi- | 
cated by Mr. Appleby, the most beautiful peeps of 
scenery are to be seen. Though I got no information 
on this point, I could not but observe that many of : 
these vistas had been opened up, by the removal of a 
tree in one place, or the mere shortening-in of part of 
the head in another, directed by the eye of one who has 
a keen relish for the beauties of scenery. The views of ; 
the classic Oxford, with its spires and turrets, are end- ] 
less. Now Abingdon, with its spire and town, are before 
you; now the Isis shines beneath you like a polished 
mirror; anon, horses and cattle in the meadows enliven 
the foreground; now the roofs of thatched cottages burst 
into the view, conjuring up poetical ideas of innocence 
and peace—alas! that over they should be broken by 
that knowledge of society that tells us that vice and its 
concomitant ills are confined to no exclusive section of 
humanity ; aud there, again,near the steward's mansion, 
you have all the charms of the romantic tangled dell, 
with just the appearance of a house, high on the oppo¬ 
site bank, which you are told is the parsonage, but 
which, untold, you would take to be a castellated keep 
of ancient times; or, if the romantic, as well as the 
picturesque, obtains a footing in your composition, you 
could easily, from the little you see of it, conjure up 
into such a ruin as that in which the benighted Brown, 
in “Guy Mannering,” forgathered with the queen gipsy, 
Meg Merrilles. 
But leaving these tempting walks and pleasure grounds, 
I will proceed at once to the terraces and flower-gardens. 
In these I own I was agreeably disappointed. The rage 
for bedding-plants is threatening, ere long, to be a very 
bore to every gardener. I bad heard glowing accounts 
of the extent of the flower-beds at Nuneham. I did not 
find them nearly so large nor so numerous as I expected, 
though, perhaps, they arc even more numerous than I 
recollect, from being scattered in several places. 1 have 
no doubt that Mr. Baillie thinks he has enough of them, 
and the fine quantity of plants that were hardening ofi, 
showed that they would all be planted in first-rate style 
—that is, not a plant here and there, telling of poverty 
and starvation until the autumn has waned—but buds 
that would be well-filled in June and onwards. 
In one of these open spaces stands the ivy-treed 
arbour that rivetted Mr. Appleby's attention. I know 
he will excuse me alluding to it again, as in my bumble 
opinion he has not noticed its distinguishing character¬ 
istic beauty. Turn back to his accurate description, and 
add to it the fact, that over the deep green of the ivy, in 
many places the more sombre tinted branches of the 
Scotch Fir hang in a graceful pendent position. The 
man who would remove one of those pendent branches 
I would hold guilty of little less than sacrilege. With 
that peculiarly bright sunshine we so otten have between 
showers, these pendent branches of the main pillar, the 
Scotch Fir-tree, lent to the whole an iudescribable charm. 
Did I want to find something like a palpable idea of 
what I meaut by this indescribablo charm, I would say 
to a northern, like Mr. Beaton, thatit was something akin 
to a cloud resting on Ben Nevis, which led a stranger to 
suppose the mountain was higher thau it really was, or 
seemed when standing out clear in the open atmosphere. 
Did 1 wish to convey the same idea to a lady, then 
I would resemble it to a veil ot the finest hue thrown 
over a young woman distinguished for beauty and 
gracefulness. 
The terrace gardens are laid out in beds, with box 
