THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 22, 1857. 
Well, then, before 1 was hardly settled in Surbiton, 
Mr. Jackson, of Kingston, whom I had known as an 
; intimate friend for many years, suggested the experi¬ 
mental business, and this garden to me ; and that 
before I entertained the slightest idea on the subject 
myself. He proposed, and he suggested, and he ad¬ 
vised me, and said everything that a friend might be 
; supposed to advance about a great and serious and 
responsible undertaking. Forthwith he introduced me 
; to t he family ; and stated, that from his knowledge of 
both parties for so many years, he wished to see us 
I put our heads together, lie said nothing about the 
Horticultural Society, but I knew they were rapidly 
going down hill; and that something might be done 
for gardening in the meantime, till the worst came to 
the worst, when matters might mend, according to the 
j adage. 
The Horticultural bids fair now to reclaim the lost 
ground, for we added another score and one to the 
number of new Fellows on the 15th instant: and more 
j than two-thirds of the recent elections have been 
i Fellows who prefer the four pounds annual subscrip¬ 
tion, and the ivory ticket, to that of two guineas with- 
i out such privilege. There were two more nurserymen 
elected this time :—Mr. Keynes of Salisbury, the great 
Dahlia grower; and Mr. Clark, Streatham Place 
| Nursery, Brixton Hill. The next election of Fellows 
t will be on the 2nd Feb.; and we expect many more 
gardeners and nurserymen will join us in the spring. 
We cannot be too practical: but, altogether, I think 
I we shall do now. Still I should not wish the Experi- 
| mental Garden, or the British Porno!ogical Society, 
to relax one inch, until the practical bearing and for¬ 
bearing of the New Horticultural Society are put 
beyond doubt and uncertainty. 
Mr. Jackson has never since asked to see the Ex¬ 
perimental ; and all that I asked from the first was, 
' that no one should see it on my account, well knowing 
the troubles which might thus be given to a private 
family for nothing at all. There is not one family out 
! of five hundred who would allow their gardens to be 
I turned into experimental grounds, for the good of 
] the public ; much less would allow all the world to 
| break in upon their privacy: therefore, I hope no 
| more applications will have to be refused, through 
want of a proper knowledge of my connection with 
j the Experimental. The whole of the experiments, and 
all the expenses, have not cost me one farthing ; and 
whether I “ sink or swim,” will not be owing to money 
| matters, or speculations in this, to me, a mere pas¬ 
time. But, on the contrary, I have a powerful 
. auxiliary here, in determining the value of this or that 
fancy in beds and flowers, in Arboretums, and Fru- 
» ticetums, and in all new or old plants for this or that 
arrangement, and for use and ornament. Besides all 
j that, on our English side of the question, I have here 
the benefit of the ripe assertions of the French school 
on gardening, or colours, and on all kinds of arrange- 
i ments of the same, from the private friends and visitors 
of the family who were of the Court of Louis Philippe 
' in its palmy days, but who are now, like his own family, 
within the circle of our immediate neighbourhood, 
on account of the new order of things in their own 
| country. Whether I shall be able to make the best of 
these rare advantages, I shall leave for others to judge ; 
but, at all events, it would be a species of cruelty to 
drive me from the chance, to gratify a vain public 
curiosity which could not tend to any good whatever; 
and I shall just finish with a story to prove what I say. 
Last spring a large party of ladies called one after¬ 
noon, who were struck with the quantities of spring- 
flowers, the order and the high-keeping of the place, 
and the seemingly new arrangements of old, very old 
plants. This led to a conversation about The Cottage 
I/O 
Gardener ; and what it had done, within the last few 
years, in all the practical branches of gardening. 
“ By the way, you have one of the writers of The 
Cottage Gardener here in Surbiton—Mr. Beaton. 
Do you know him? He has a garden entirely for 
experiments on flowers, but no one seems clearly to ' 
know how he does it.” I was not within “ ear-shot ” 
of that conversation; but I happened to be in the 
garden at the time. 
I was giving directions about planting fringes of 
the grass-like Isolcpis gracilis round some vases in 
“Emerald Bay,” as that part is called. And I may | 
say in passing, that this Isolepis makes a most appro- ; 
priate edging anywhere ; that it stands perfectly up¬ 
right after the first growth out of doors; and from 
June to November it is in one mass of bloom, such as 
it is. I think it has ripened abundance of seeds with 
us, out in these vases ; and we are experimenting on 
it now to see if will stajid the frost, or how much 
frost. It well deserves, and must have, a place among 
the “ornamental grasses.” 
But about the party of ladies. They could hardly 
believe their own eyes when they were told they were 
in the Experimental Garden. It was a garden after 
all—a very good one certainly ; but then it was only J 
a garden “ after all.” But when they were told that 
the writer aforesaid was then in the midst of the 
garden, and that they could hear from himself any of 
the details if they wished, there was a rustling among | 
the shot silk. “ Is he not a great genius about dress P I 
How does my dress look ? I long wished to see him; j 
but I wish I was better prepared.” The short and the 
long of it were, however, that the experiments were j 
soon out of sight; that a well-kept garden may be, 
or may not be, an experimental garden, without one 
finding out which, without being told of it. 
Ccelogyne plantaginea. —A large plant of this 
Orchid was exhibited before the Horticultural Society 
on the 15th instant, from the Bishop of Winchester ; 
which was acknowledged by the Society, and by all 
the gardeners and nurserymen present, to be the most 
perfect example of the. highest style of cultivation that , 
has ever come within the knowledge of the Society. 1 
This is a strong-growing species, with long, round 
pseudo-bulbs ; each producing two leaves at the end ; 
sometimes only one leaf. The leaves look much in 1 
the way of those of a Stanhopea. There were nearly | 
sixty pseudo-bulbs. The flowering is after the manner 
of Gongora, with long, drooping spikes all round the ! 
pot. Some of these spikes carried as many as sixty 
flowers ; not very large individually, nor very striking 
in colours ; but in the mass they were very rich 
indeed. I reckoned them thus :—-thirty-five spikes, 
and thirty flowers to each; making upwards of one 
thousand flowers in the whole. D. Beaton. 
MORAL AND SOCIAL ECONOMICS. 
AN EXAMPLE. 
: 
A short time ago, and somewhat accidentally, I ! 
became acquainted with some of the practices of a 
gentleman and his family, which I deem worthy to be f 
recorded, as an example to others ; though various . 
reasons prevent me from indicating who that example i 
is, farther than that, amid his multitudinous avocations, j 
he is enthusiastically devoted to gardening. 
If the old axiom, that “ cleanliness is akin to god- ‘ 
liness,” has passed unchallenged, as current coin, it is 
but lately that the philanthropists of the age have 
acted as if they felt its importance. It has been well 
understood, that wherever moral purity was developed, 
it might be associated with great poverty; but it 
would be next to impossible, that it could exist in 
