September 1. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
423 
places where such a method might be followed, if it 
was thought proper by the manager. 
Another point of good management here is worthy 
of mention, and that is the extreme cleanliness main- 
j tained in the houses, especially in the fruit department. 
| All the walls and Hues, and, I believe, the hot-water 
: pipes, wore as white as snow, having been carefully 
whitewashed with the whitest of whitening. Even the 
stems of the Vines and Peach-trees had had a white 
coat put on them. This gives the houses a cheerful, 
clean appearance, and, no doubt, has a sanitory effect 
upon the trees. 1 could not detect a single insect on 
! them, and in that respect the whitewashing had, no 
doubt, been useful. 
There is hero a long, narrow house devoted to the 
growth of the Cucumber. The man who had the charge 
j of it, said the plants then in bearing were planted the 
j hth of August the year previously, and, for ought I 
could sec, they were healthy and vigorous enough to 
1 bear till the August of next year. The plan of the 
house is, first, a walk, two feet wide, down the centre, 
then a border of soil, two feet wide, on each side of the 
walk. In these borders the plants are put out at regular 
distances, singly, and are trained up the back wall on 
the one hand, and on a trellis next the glass on the 
other. The roof is a ridge-aud-furrow. The crop I saw 
growing was most enormous; but the variety grown is 
(in preference) not a very long one. 
I perceive 1 have another note on Vine-culture , which 
I had nearly overlooked. One house is devoted to the 
I variety raised at, and known as the Canon Hall Muscat. 
This sort is very apt to blister and decay in spots on 
some of the finest berries. To prevent this, the house 
j ‘ here is (as soon as the berries begin to change for 
I ripening) shaded constantly every day, so that the sun 
i never afterwards shines upon the fruit until it is per¬ 
fectly ripe. By thus shading them the blistering is 
prevented, and I am an eye-witness to the fact, for I 
could not find a single berry spotted. 
The Kitchen and Fruit Gardens at Chatsworth are on 
a low flat, a considerable distance from the palace. 
This low situation is anything but favourable to the 
growth of vegetables, but the care and ability of the 
manager prevents any ill effect, or, rather, he takes 
methods to counteract such. I was particularly struck 
with the Onions and Celery, both of which were exceed¬ 
ingly fine. The Onions were cultivated by the trans¬ 
planting system, that is, they are sown very early in a 
warm corner, and transplanted as soon as possible. 
Many of them (sown this spring and transplanted) were 
three inches diameter. 
From the Kitchen-garden I walked up to the house, 
and the first thing I saw was the Conservative wall, 
about which I have written so much previously, that 
i I need scarcely do more than just allude to it, and say 
I that the plants have grown prodigiously. I must just 
mention what I saw on it in flower:— Indigofera decora, 
several plants, very fine ; Rhododendron javanicum, very 
high coloured; several tall Cacti; two very large Fuchsia 
corymbosa, fulgens, and serratifolia, besides the common 
varieties; Brugmansias, three species; Orange and 
Lemon-trees, in fruit; and a very large, far-spreading 
specimen of the Citrus decumana, or Shaddock, with 
! many of its large fruit upon it. 
In front of this wall, but at a sufficient distance not 
to shade, is the house where the Indian-rubber Fig-tree 
{Ficus elasticus ) grew too large. It is now filled with 
healthy Camellias. On the front of this Camellia house 
is a small geometrical garden, which might be done 
away with without much regret. 
Passing from this, I came in sight of a fine row of 
Araucaria imbricata, planted on the side of a walk pa¬ 
rallel with the house. These were planted ten years ago, 
and average now fifteen feet high, all well furnished 
with branches down to the ground. Passing these, the 
visitor is brought to the front of the grand cascade, 
which is generally played to every party, at a great 
expense or waste of water. From this the walk loads 
to somo gigantic rocks, over one of which (the Welling¬ 
ton) is a fall of water constantly ilowing. Though these 
rocks were all artificially put together, they are so well 
done that it requires a quick eye to detect the art of 
construction in forming them. One is said to bo a 
fac-simile of a natural fissure in a rock at Bolton, in 
Yorkshire, named the Strul. These rocks are inter¬ 
mixed with sloping banks, which are planted with low 
shrubs in large masses. 1 was much pleased with two 
or three large masses of the Tutsan {Hypericum), com¬ 
monly called the “ Rose of Sharon.” These were in 
full flower, and cast quite a golden glow over the scene. 
I thought of Mr. Beaton, and wished he had been with 
me; I think he would have added this lovely flower to 
liis stock list of plants suitablo for bedding purposes. 
Another favourite of mine, the Cotoneaster microphylla, 
is grown on these banks very profusely, as is also the 
dwarf Rhododendrons ferrugineum and hirsutum, and 
Daphne cneorum. 
These rocks and rock-plants beguile the eye and 
engage the attention, till, wandering on a little further, 
a turning in the walk brings you in full view of the 
front entrance to the Grand Conservatory, rising to the 
; height of seventy feet, with its wavey ridge-and-furrow 
I roof. No one that has never seen this noble edifice 
' can possibly conceive the surprising effect it has upon 
i the mind on this first view of its magnificence; 1 give 
j it up, and say to all the readers of The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener —go and see it, for I cannot describe it suffi- 
j ciently to give you an adequate idea of its grandeur. 
On this occasion I was much gratified to find the plants 
j inside were nearly equal in size to the building, espe¬ 
cially the Bananas of India. Truly, it is an Indian 
forest, looking across where these Bananas grow. The 
species I mean are Musa sapientum and Musa Para- 
disiaca. At one corner of the house there is a large 
grove of the dwarf Musa Devoniana. I have seen 
this grove for the last seven years in bearing, but 
never in so fine a state as this year; and I think I 
observed the cause. In the midst of them there is a 
fountain of water springing up and overrunning the soil. 
This feeds the plants, and causes, no doubt, the great 
luxuriance in foliage, as well as in the long, extra-large 
racemes of fruits now growing on them. The Jambosa, 
or Rose-apple, was also in fruit, as was also a large 
plant of the Aloe tribe, called Furcroya gigantea. 
The fruit of this had changed, without falling off, into i 
plants, of which this single tree might produce, were 
each planted, several thousands. This transformation I 
consider one of the greatest of vegetable curiosities ever 
seen. The plants in flower in this house were not 
numerous, excepting those in pots on a platform, that 
runs round the inside of the front windows. I noted 
the following:— Musa coccinea, many blooms; Renanthera 
coccinea, growing on a branch of a tree, very fine; some j 
Hibiscuses, and several of the Melastoma family. This 
want of flowers, however, was not perceptible, for the 
beauty of the foliage of the Zamias, Aloes, Palms, and 
other plants, amply took the attention, and called forth 
the admiration of the visitors. 
In one place on the platform, I noticed a large 
collection of the exceedingly curious genus Sarracenias ; 
I am quite sure there is not such another collection in 
any other garden in the world. Formerly, there was a 
large rockery at one corner of the house visible, but now 
it is completely hid by the trailing fig ( Ficus prostrata) 
and Ferns. This rockery is intended to mask the steps 
(formal things) that lead up to the gallery, and now it 
is covered with these plants, it is most effective. 
From the gallery, we have a fine view of the plants 
