THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
Aptul 21 
34 
There is one use for which T want particularly to recom¬ 
mend this plant—first, as an experiment; and, secondly, if it 
proves to he what I anticipate, to he used in future along 
with Candida, ylanduligera, and all such, in filling up, for the 
first two or three seasons, the open spaces in newly made 
j shrubberies. You never saw a new piece of ground planted 
! with shrubs or ornamental trees that was not too thickly 
! planted at once, or not half thick enough; and I never yet 
> saw a shrubbery ten years old that was not ten times too 
thick, no matter how it was planted at first. The right way 
to plant shrubberies is to make choice, first of so many 
good kinds of evergreens, so many deciduous shrubs, and 
so many half-tall ti’ees; to plant them all on one general 
plan—that is, in a regular mixture, or in groups, to allow 
them room enough for the first twelve or fifteen years’ 
growth, without hurting one another, and then to fill in 
between them with a very common mixture of the cheapest 
things that one can buy in the nearest nursery, and to weed 
out these common tilings from time to time, as the speci¬ 
men plants grow on. Now, instead of buying so many of 
these common things for this purpose, it is ten times 
The progress of The Crystal Palace, at Sydenham, 
continues rapidly and satisfactorily towards completion ; 
and although, for various reasons, it will not be thrown 
open for public admission this summer, yet it will be 
visitable by those who obtain tickets under regulations 
hereafter to be determined. The following extracts from 
the last report of the Directors, and from Mr. Laing, 
the Chairman’s speech, are full of interest — 
“After the purchase of the building, the first step taken 
was to secure an appropriate site. For this purpose it was 
found expedient to purchase a much larger extent of land 
than was actually required for the park, in order to secure 
the assent of adjoining landowners, and to effect diversions 
of public roads. 
“ The principal purchase was that of Mr. Schuster’s park, 
consisting of 171 acres, which that gentleman most liberally 
allowed the Company to take at its then existing market 
price, as determined by a valuation. The price was referred 
to Mr. Daniel Smith and Mr. Norton as Referees, with Sir 
John Musgrove as Umpire, and settled by them at £86,66 1 
12s. 8d. The other purchases comprised 178 acres, at a 
total cost of 481,000, so that the Company on the whole 
became proprietors of 349 acres, at a cost of .£167,001. 
The policy of securing sufficient land before its value had 
been enhanced by the construction of the palace soon 
became apparent, as a portion of the surplus on the outside 
of the park lias been already disposed of at a large profit. 
An offer made by Mr. Wythes, of Reigate, of £400,000 for i 
149 acres of this land, lias been accepted, which, with some 
oilier small portions sold, will show a profit of £‘01,000, 
which has been realised in the course of a few months by 
the re-sale of land. The Company still retain 200 acres, 
within a ring fence, of land of the most valuable character. 
“ The necessary space being secured, the determination 
of the position of the palace thereon became a matter of 
anxious consideration, and the summit of the hill above 
Sydenham was finally selected. This site, owing to the 
I nature of the ground, involved an increase of expense, but 
j the advantages of occupying one of the most commanding 
situations in the world, overlooking London, the valley of 
the Thames, and the plain of Kent, were so apparent, that 
the Directors did not hesitate to adopt it.” 
Mr. Laing said—“ I do not wish to enter into details of 
what our plans are, and I will merely say, as a general 
result, that the outdoor portion of the undertaking, the 
! park, with its terraces and gardens, and cascades and water- 
j works, will be quite as wonderful, as magnificent, and as 
! striking, in their way, as the Crystal Palace itself; and, 
j therefore, that we should be able to promise you that we 
| are in a position to carry the whole out on such as scale is, 
I think, a circumstance very satisfactory. T think the result 
of the Exhibition of 1851 tends to show us, that the prin¬ 
ciple of the Fair, the collection of a great concourse of 
better to sow all over the ground lots of the seeds of such 
things as these— Balsams, Double Poppies, and Foxgloves, for 
the back parts; and Larkspurs, Selines, Lupines, and similar 
hardy things in the front parts. It is true enough, such 
things will rob the soil to a certain degree, but then the 
closeness, and finished looks, the flowers, and the shade for 
the newly-planted things, are surely worth a deal more than 
the robbing, which can be mado good next winter, with a 
few barrowloads of dung. When a gardener talks to me 
about one plant robbing another, the great difficulty, and 
the bother of this or that move which did not riso in his 
own mind, I begin to think that his grandmother had to 
bring him up by the spoon, and that the man ought to be 
pitied rather than be found fault with, until by experience 
ho learned to know better. At all events, it is not yet too 
late to sow the seeds of all these things, as I have just said, 
in every open space you can seo between the things that 
have been newly planted this spring. A large patch here 
and there will do, but recollect to leave space to get along 
to do the watering. 
D. Beaton. 
people in a place where a great number of things may be 
seen to great advantage, is not entirely superseded. I think 
every one of us must feel its advantages. To take the 
simplest illustration,—in the purchase of many articles of 
daily use, what a convenience and advantage it would be to 
have a permanent exhibition, like that of 1851, at our doors, 
whore we could go and select the articles we wanted at 
once. I dare say it may have happened to some of you to 
have to accompany a wife, or daughter, or some female 
relative, to choose a piano, and in that case you must know 
what a troublesome undertaking it is. You have to go from 
one warehouse to another, and to try one piano after another, 
and when at last you get to Collard’s, you forget what you 
have seen and heard at Broadwood's ; but suppose this exhi¬ 
bition exists, we shall then have the choicest productions of 
all the best firms placed side by side, and, I would ask, is 
there anybody who would make a circuit-of all the London 
warehouses to choose a piano, when he might run down 
with his wife and daughter to the Crystal Palace, and try 
them all, and make up their minds and decide satisfactorily 
on the spot. That is only, of course, one illustration. I 
do not mean to say the Crystal Palace will become a place 
of retail trade, where tapes and ribbons will be sold across 
the counter; but I do think that, wherever expensive pur¬ 
chases of articles of an ornamental character are to be 
made, it is extremely likely that the Crystal Palace will be 
resorted to to a very great extent. Mr. Belshaw, who is 
well known as having had the charge of the whole depart¬ 
ment of British manufactures in 1851, has been in commu¬ 
nication with a wide circle of manufacturers and others 
throughout the country. He tells us that even at the 
present moment the applications for space are such, that if 
you take the lowest figure, the present applications would 
realise a rental of some £40,000 a year. Mind, that is, taking, 
as the average of the whole, the lowest figure that has been 
offered by any one. If we take the highest that has been 
suggested, our £40,000 might swell to £100,000, or £‘120,000. 
Now, I never like to be too sanguine in these things; but 1 
do say that it seems to me that there is a fair prospect, if 
wo manage the thing properly, if we open the building at 
the right time of the year, and with proper eclat, of realising 
a permanent income of from £50,000 to £100,000 a year 
from that source alone. You will see that our undertaking 
now is not a solitary one. Wo are to havo Crystal Palaces 
all over the world. There is one at Dublin, one at New 
York, and another at Paris; and as regards their bearing 
on our undertaking, I may say that I believe we shall all ! 
mutually aid and assist one another. We do not feel the : 
slightest jealousy towards any of these undertakings; we do 
not believe they do towards us. On the contrary, there is 
every disposition towards mutual aid and co-operation. And 
more especially as regards that great undertaking at Paris, 
which is more nearly parallel with ours, as that is also to be 
a permanent construction, I may express a feeling which 1 
am sure will be heartily responded to, that I would very 
much rather see Franco and England engaged in a friendly 
rivalry as to which shall produce the best Crystal Palace, 
