September 25. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
463 
—The Country Gentleman. 
m t 
Indeed, there seems to be a sort of magic in all their 
attempts at propagation, so rarely arc there any failures. 
The reason of this remarkable success is their tho¬ 
rough experience and knowledge of the requisites for 
every operation, and an excellent soil, reduced to the 
best condition by subsoiling and constant tillage. A 
weed is a great rarity on their grounds. 
The cost of conducting this establishment must of 
course be very great; although we have no definite infor¬ 
mation on the subject, we should judge, from the esti¬ 
mates mentioned in an early part of this article, that 
they must amount to fifty thousand dollars annually. 
Their sales may be estimated from the same data, re¬ 
membering that none are more successful; and that 
probably no nursery is better managed for pecuniary 
success. 
There are several other nurseries at Rochester, of large 
size, which we were unable to visit; among which, those 
of H. E. Hooker and Co., Frost and Co., and S. Moul- 
son, are widely celebrated, each containing, as we have 
been informed, a hundred acres or more. 
Since writing the foregoing, Ellwanger and Barry 
have, at our request, furnished the following statement 
of the number of acres occupied by each crop on their 
grounds. 
Ornamental Department, 52 acres, viz: 
Evergreens. 20 acres 
Roses . 7 “ 
Flowering shrubs . 6 “ 
Magnolia seedlings in seed bed, thick .. “ 
Miscellaneous trees, specimens, &c .171—52 
Fruit Department, 225 acres, viz: 
Standard apples. 37 acres 
Dwarf do. 11 “ 
Pears . 64 “ 
Cherries . 27 “ 
Plums. 12 “ 
Peaches . IB “ 
Apricots . 3 “ 
Apple quinces. 4 “ 
Currants. 4 “ 
Gooseberries 4, grapes 4 ,. 8 “ 
Pear seedlings .. 2 “ 
Sundries—seedlings, rhubarb, asparagus, 
raspberries, strawberries, quince stocks, 
&c., &c.35-225 
SPECIMEN GERANIUMS. 
About this time last year we were deep iu the mys¬ 
teries of preparing Scarlet Geraniums for pyramid 
specimens. That plan was first brought into the world by 
Mr. Me Ewen, of Arundel Gardens, and I never knew 
or heard of a single individual who did not approve of 
the plan, if he or she could but carry it out on a proper 
footing; and, if I recollect rightly, we all agreed that 
seedlings would make the best pyramids, in every re¬ 
spect ; and I know the trial is going on in several good 
establishments. At the same time, that is, about this 
time last year, I tried another way of managing, so as 
to have large specimens of any of the Scarlet breed of 
Geraniums in the shortest possible time; and no matter 
whether they were to be bush plants, squat plants, or 
pyramid plants, the said plan, as I thought, might 
hasten the time when such plants would be big enough 
for anything. There is nothing that can be thought of 
about gardening, but everyone wishes to do, or see done, 
as soon as possible. To write or talk about a thing that 
will answer in three or four years, would bo enough to 
hinder such a thing from being tried at all by many 
people, therefore I shall not say how long it would take 
to get a Tom Thumb Geranium as big as possible, but 
now I can safely say that the process can be hastened 
considerably by the simplest contrivance in the world, 
without doing any harm to Tom or any of his family, 
although it may shock the prejudice of a certain class 
of thinkers, who maintain that all the virtues, or all the 
goodness, of a plant, are to be found iu its leaves. 
I have told, last year, that I had the two best grown 
specimens of Lady Middleton Geranium in England, 
and I still hold to that saying. I have, also, the oldest 
plant, in a pot, of all the bedding Geraniums, as far as 
I know; the age of it was given last year, and now it is 
a year older,*and is rather a better specimen than either 
of the two Lady Middletons. This kind is nowhere else, 
that I know of, except at Shrubland Park, and at Tren- 
tham, with Mr. Fleming, and it is one of the dwarfest 
growers of all the Scarlet breed, which are not really 
dwarfs, as Golden Chain, Baron Hugel, and Lilliputian. 
The name of it is Lady Caroline Courtenay. Her lady¬ 
ship having taken a fancy to the tint of the flower, as a 
pattern tint for a dress for young ladies, when the 
flower was a “ seedling.” These three plants are the 
only ones worth looking at in my garden ; and I risked 
the experiment on them only, but it answered my pur¬ 
pose so well, that I have a dozen kinds under a similar 
experiment at this moment, and yet I cannot afford to 
put up a specimen-house till the war is over. Therefore, 
whether you like it or no, you need not be the least 
afraid of hurting any of your plants of this kind by 
adopting it, and the largest Geranium which is now in 
any of your beds, or borders, may be as easily prepared 
to hold on as big as it is without stopping till it is as 
large as you can make it, or find room for it after it is 
made. 
As to the idea of immense specimens of these bedding 
Geraniums being used about the front doors, terraces, 
and other prominent places about the garden, every 
gardener who had heard of it made the attempt to 
imitate the fashion, as far as he could, myself among 
the rest, but my eyes were never properly opened to the 
advantages of the system, till I saw the collection of 
them in front of Fulham Palace, belonging to the 
Bishop of London. 
It was more for 
membrances, that 1 
Lady Caroline Geraniums at first; and 1 now refer to 
them, to show how much sooner I might have had good 
specimens of them if I had adopted the system which 
I am going to tell you of, and to show you, at the same 
time, the safety of the plan from my experience of it 
on my own most favourite plants. 
The three plants alluded to w'ere so full of bloom and 
beauty last September, that I could not find it in my 
heart to stop them, or cut them down, or otherwise 
prepare them for the winter, till it was too late, and too 
dangerous, without artificial heat, to prune them at all 
for the season ; and what did 1 do, but let them get dry 
till the leaves drooped, and then I stripped off every 
leaf all round, and gave no more water till the green, 
soft parts on the tops of the shoots began to shrivel, 
then I gave a little water, but not enough to wet one- 
quarter of the whole ball in the pot. It was sufficient, 
however, to restore the plumpness in the green parts. 
This might bo about the first week iu November, and I 
recollect, that after this first watering a young leaf 
burst open, here and there, all over the plants, without 
any stimulus from artificial heat. I picked these leaves 
off also. Before Christmas I had to pick them over a 
second time, but they had only two waterings from the 
end of October, and, fortunately, I gave them no water 
in January, before the long frost, and, of course, none 
after that till it was over. Indeed, it was rather late 
before they seemed to require any more water, but when 
they did move, and had water, they soon presented a 
“ Auld Lang Syne,” and kind re¬ 
took to the Lady Middleton and 
