380 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 27, 1859. 
best conservatory in the world ; and, in the second place, 
there is not a larger or better garden and grounds for 
the purpose in the British empire. Does it not follow, 
then, that the private machinery by which the yearly 
faces and fashions of these gardens and grounds are 
altered and supplied, should stand on a higher level—say 
a higher principle than that of any other establishment 
whatever P Certainly ; and in the minds of the great 
body of our intellectual spirits, our first-class patrons, and 
our most practical gardeners, the propagating and nursery 
departments at the Crystal Palace are as high in their 
design, fitness, and requirements, above the run of those 
in the best private establishments, as the Palace itself is 
above all other structures of the kind. And certainly, 
also, the management has been a great mystery to this 
day ; for gardeners, generally, are not a rude class, and 
would never ask to see anything that was at ail known or 
thought to be private and free from being pryed into. 
I itched to see the propagating department of the 
Crystal Palace from the very first, not from any curiosity 
of my own, but to be able to satisfy that of thousands of 
our readers ; but I would as soon ask the clergyman of 
the parish to show me his banker’s book as request the 
Curator of these gardens to show me his ways and means 
of propagation: and my share of the modest respectability 
of gardeners was amply rewarded that day, “promis¬ 
cuously,” for I was within two or three yards of the 
“ framing-ground ” before I had the least idea of seeing 
the great mystery. 
After finishing the garden, we went to see the success 
of Sir Joseph Paxton’s new, cheap, and portable houses 
for the gardens of the million. The genius who aspired 
to excel, and reached the highest bar in the Crystal 
Palace, has also condescended to the low estate of the 
poor and ardent amateur, in his back-garden, where we 
shall leave them for the present, step on through Sir 
Joseph’s compost-yard, and plump on to the potting-shed 
in the propagating department of the Crystal Palace. 
Goodness guide us—what a sight! How can I describe it, 
or my own sensations at the time F I was wholly dumb- 
foundered. I confess I had not the slightest idea of the 
domestic nature of the place. We have had all the 
economic contrivances of propagation before us in The 
Cottage Gaedenee except one, and that one the simplest 
of them all, the one I am just now going to describe. 
Eight men and two or three lads could work together 
in the potting-shed if they were not quarrelsome; but the 
least row would endanger the fabric and their own lives. 
The loam, the peat, the sand, and the leaf mould are all 
that the heart of Adam could desire, before the fall or 
afterwards. The site i3 all but the highest point within 
miles of it-—a great advantage in November, and a greater 
loss in March and April when the wind comes terribly 
from the east. The “slip” is on a gentle slope—another 
advantage: it is not one inch wider or a foot longer than 
is necessary for the different movements, and hardly that. 
The upper half, next the potting-shed, is entirely covered 
with “ pits ” of different widths, of from four to five feet 
to ten, twelve, or fifteen feet; and if reduced to one 
standard would count six ranges of pits, each range two 
hundred feet long and eight feet wide : that is the upper 
half. In the centre are two parallel pit-houses, span- 
roofed, and standing south and north. Each house is 
eighty feet long and fourteen feet wide, with a passage 
down the centre; the sides of the passage in brickwork 
as high as the region of the kidnies, then solid on both 
sides, with ashes or sand to stand pots on. The lower 
half consists of six ranges of pits, each 120 feet long and 
nine feet in the clear. Such is the whole capacity of the 
place. Eive only of the lower ranges of pits are in brick¬ 
work. The front range is made of two runs of old 
“ wheeling planks ” which remained from the navvies’ 
working department—two planks edge on edge at the 
back, and one plank in front; and all the planks fastened 
by stakes driven down behind them. The whole of the 
top half of six ranges, in two hundred feet each, is made 
up exactly in the same way of planking. The widest of 
them have a rail running along the centre of the bed, 
supported by props ; and the long lights rest on the rail 
and on the front and back planks : then these widths have 
a Hue in front of glazed earthenware pipes, ten inches or 
a fool in diameter. The narrower pits have only a six- 
inch-wide lining of dry straw or fern between the planks, 
and another run of boards six inches from them. The 
two meridian-houses in the centre are heated with hot 
water. That is all and every inch of the machinery ; and 
the first sight of it put me in mind, as vivid as lightning, 
of that at my own command at Shrubland Pai-k all the 
time I was there. I then was quite sure and certain that 
the flower gardens at Shrubland Park were the best in 
the three kingdoms ; for the best gardeners from the best 
places came to see me and told me so. Therefore I am 
now in a position to prove that the best and most exten¬ 
sively planted out garden in the kingdom now, as then, is 
supplied and kept up with just the simplest and least 
expensive conveniences that can be adopted by the poorest 
cottager in the land. 
But the number of plants that are propagated here 
every season is immense ; and one instance will prove 
that it is so. Take, for instance, Mangle s Variegated 
Geranium, cuttings of which are struck in boxes in one 
side of one of the two houses. The boxes are all of one 
size, three feet six inches long, one foot wide, and three 
inches deep inside. They are filled with light soil and 
covered with sand ; each box holds 132 cuttings, which 
remain in the same box all the winter, to be potted off at 
the end of February or early in March. There are eighty 
of these boxes filled with Mangle’s : then 132 cuttings in 
one box multiplied by 80 boxes give 10,560 plants. From 
that to 12,000 are the annual stock of this one kind. 
All tire Scarlet kinds of Geraniums, with the exception 
of some of the Variegated kinds, are just as we recom¬ 
mend in The Cottage Gaedeneb. In those plank-pits, 
full in the sun and no glass on, some one hundred thou¬ 
sand of them were well rooted by the middle of September. 
They are put in as thick as they would stand, for saving 
room; and these were then being forked up, with a smail 
hand-fork, to save the roots and to be potted in store- 
pots, so that all the Scarlets are well rooted before they 
ever go into pots. Flower of the Fay was rooted and 
potted off into single 60-pots before that day; and in 
February and March they will get into 48-pots, from 
which they are planted out. 
It will cause some surprise to learn that Tom Thumb is 
entirely and altogether discarded from these gardens ; 
but the wonder to me was, that they fought with it so 
long. One of my own seedlings, No. 50, alias Shrubland 
Divarf, was just beginning to get known about, when 
Tom was announced, aDd at that period nothing would 
go down but Tom and Barnum; but now they have had 
their day, and my Shrubland Dwarf is in the place of 
Tom all over the Crystal Palace grounds, but under 
another name. Trentham Scarlet, some one having got 
it from Trentham, where I first sent it to, along with 
Punch, Judy, and Lady Middleton. There is a bed in 
the Experimental Garden of the true Trentham Scarlet, 
the only one that is kept out of nearly sixty kinds which 
were sent there. It is far better than my Shrubland 
Dwarf for a private garden, but not so free or so flowery 
as my seedling. Visitors to Shrubland Park in those 
days often remarked on the superiority of the Tom Thumb 
in the vases, when, in reality, they were of the Shrubland 
Dwarf. Tom had only one season in the vases with me, 
it was “ too long in the arms ” for the highest style of 
classic vases—that is, the flower-stalks were too long and 
too spreading for symmetry, and I never had more than 
two narroAV beds of it there in the “ Fountain Garden 
but there is not a vestige of it now at the Crystal Palace. 
The next best Scarlet there is a Horseshoe variety, 
called Cottage Maid, a good improvement on Shrubland 
