143 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 6, 1859. 
Calyx divided into five ovate-lanceolate segments, closing over 
the fruit in maturity. Corolla large, bright rosy purple. Staminal 
column and pistil included. 
This beautiful plant weathers our winters with difficulty. It 
has a trailing habit like the Strawberry, and, like it, sends roots 
out at every joint, from which a plentiful supply of stock may 
be had, and which will be safe with the protection of a cold frame 
in winter. It succeeds well in a light garden soil, out of doors 
in summer, and is also an excellent pot plant. 
Scjsyola microcarpa. Cav. Nat. ord., Goodeniacece. Native 
of New South Wales.—A dwarf, suffruticose, smooth plant. 
Leaves alternate, on very short petioles, oval, deeply serrated, 
and furnished with a small, bluntish mucro. Flowers sessile, 
axillary, and solitary. Bracts two, linear, or linear-lanceolate, 
about the same length as the corolla. Calyx composed of five 
minute, ovate teeth. Corolla monopetalous, the lower part 
tubular, but split on the upper side, expanding into a flat, 
spreading limb, with five, deep, linear segments, pale lilac or 
violet. Stamens five, with slightly flattened filaments and oblong 
anthers. Pistil one, about the same length as the tubular part of 
the corolla; stigma round and cup-shaped, fringed curiously 
around the margin with very delicate hairs. The cup-sliaped 
stigma collapses and becomes quite flat in maturity. 
Though very pretty, this cannot be considered a showy plant. 
It blooms continuously from July till the end of October. It is 
not fastidious as to the kind of material of which its compost 
may be formed, provided it be sufficiently open and well-drained; 
but, perhaps, good open peat with a little light loam is the most 
suitable soil it can have. A cold frame or an airy place in the 
greenhouse is a suitable place in which to winter it; and in 
summer it is better out of doors, where, screened from the strong 
rays of the sun, it may have a free exposure to light and air. 
Cuttings root moderately freely; and the plant may also be 
increased by division of the root.—S. G. W. 
PRUNING- VARIEGATED HYDRANGEA. 
I have a fine plant which flowered freely last summer, and 
made very strong wood; the plant is two feet high, is in a 
seven-inch-diameter pot, and has branches with many fine buds 
on them. I shall be obliged for instructions how to prune for 
next year’s flowering. Also, close on the top of the soil in the 
pot there is a cluster of suckers. I wish to know if they should 
all be broken off. The pot is full of roots, and I wish to know 
what size pot I should shift it into for future flowering.—M. F. 
[Your plant wants no pruning just yet; but after it blooms 
you had better cut back three or four of the longest and barest 
shoots to two or three eyes, to keep it bushy, and so continue 
from year to year. It is well to keep the variegated Hydrangeas 
cramped at the roots—that makes them whiter in the leaves ; 
and giving them more water when they show for bloom and all 
the time they are in flower will make up the difference. Pot 
yoiu’s in March into a pot one size larger, and then make cuttings 
of the bottom suckers.] 
THE VINES AT STOCKWOOD. 
I have no wish to prevent Mr. Rattray expressing his opinion 
as confidently and as frequently as he chooses, that, without fear 
of contradiction, the Grapes in the vinery alluded to by Mr. 
Fish at p. 21 could not be excelled, if equalled, in any part of 
Great Britain previously to my connection with them; but he 
must allow me to state that that was not exactly my opinion 
after having seen merely a small portion of the Vines in Great 
Britain. 
I am not aware that I ever expressed an opinion as to the way 
in which the Vines were 'planted; but I satisfied myself that 
the roots had got too deep to admit of the Vines continuing as 
productive and as well as luxuriant as I wished. I therefore 
raised them ; and certainly I imagined that, with the sanction of 
niv employ er, I might do all this, and disturb other roots too, if 
I saw reason for so doing, without either consulting Mr. Rattray 
as to the propriety of such operations, or admitting his right to 
infer that such operations, when performed, were either unfair or 
unjust to the character of my predecessor. 
I think the men who assisted in digging the roots out of the 
clay are more competent judges of the condition the roots were in 
than Mr. Rattray, who has not seen the Vines for the last five or 
six years that I am aware of; and I am well informed that the 
Vines were planted five or six years previously to his coming to 
the place at all.—J. Peacock, StocJcwood. 
PAMPAS GRASS. 
I HAVE a plant of the Pampas Grass planted in November, 
1858, which has done very well. There have been twelve spikes 
of flower on it this season, each spike six feet long, with two feet 
and a half of flower. The plant was very small when planted, 
and never got any water. When planted, I put to the soil a 
good barrow-load of manure from an old Melon-frame. My soil 
is very light. A.t the present time (November 22nd), the plant 
is in beautiful flower.—R. M. D., Scotland. 
LINTON PARK. 
The elegant and commodious mansion of this beautiful 
demesne of Lady Julia Cornwallis is situated about the middle 
of a sloping bank four miles Bouth of Maidstone, and command¬ 
ing from its south, or terrace front, a splendid view of the Weald 
of Kent, with its rich Hop-grounds and next-to-unrivalled plan¬ 
tations of all kinds of hardy fruits, requiring only a few churches 
and turrets, more conspicuous in the extended landscape, to 
enable it to contrast and compare with the panoramic view seen 
from the terrace front of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. 
A great disadvantage, however, has been the result, especially 
under present arrangements, from placing the mansion on the 
slope of the hill instead of nearer to its crest. There may have 
been good reasons for the course adopted, though these might 
not readily strike the attention of a visitor. It is our provinco 
merely to allude to matters as we find them, and because we 
think that even in this respect Linton Park furnishes valuable 
lessons. 
Let a stranger enter by the lodge placed in the valley part of 
the pretty village of Linton ; and as he sweeps round graceful 
curves, and gradually ascends to the mansion, every glimpse he 
obtains of it through the park scenery conveys ideas of grandeur 
and dignity. But on entering by the Maidstone or principal 
lodge, and ultimately approaching the house through a straight, 
noble, wide avenue of Elms, the roadway being opposite the 
centre of the house, so steep does the slope become, that it looks 
as if you were to be landed in at the second or third-floor windows 
Though one story on the north side i3 sunk underground, and 
that is surrounded with an elegant open balustrading concealing 
outside passages and windows in that story, unless you are inqui¬ 
sitive enough to pry and look for them—and though a large, 
open, level space of gravel and grass for carriages is placed in 
front of the mansion—yet so steep is the slope, that, instead of 
venturing to take carriages down it, the roadway turns abruptly 
to the east, and winds round by a somewhat easier incline, until 
it gains the entrance level. Thus the distinctive elegance of the 
straight avenue approach is lost by the mode in which it ter¬ 
minates. The mode itself is not only unpleasant but dangerous 
to a stranger; and looking upon the house so near and yet so 
much below you, does away with that dignity which we cannot 
help feeling as we approach from the Linton lodge. 
What ought to be done with it ? That is not so easily decided. 
From the time that the mansion appears straight before you 
from the avenue, any deviation from the straight line is not only 
unpleasant, but conveys the idea that you are to be taken by 
some roundabout way merely to increase the distance. As the 
avenue is so wide, the roadway might be lowered to a great dis¬ 
tance without injuring the trees—-a sloping green bank reaching 
from near the boles of the trees to the roadway, so as to permit 
an easy decline to the large space of gravel in front of the 
mansion. Provided the avenue is continued as the approach, 
this would be the only satisfactory mode; but the labour and 
expense would be enormous. The mansion might be blocked out 
by planting, and a turning made to the east as now, but farther 
back, or to the west, between the avenue and the village of Linton ; 
but in the latter case, a beautiful narrow avenue of Elms leading 
along the brow of the hill to the church and village would be 
interfered with, in order to cut the bank obliquely before joining 
the present approach from Linton, and, in either case, the 
grandeur of the avenue would be gone, from a termination being 
visible. Rather than the present termination, some would prefer 
driving along the highway to the Linton lodge, or having another 
lodge at the bottom of the hill; but by the former, the house 
