THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. —Octoreti 21,1S56. 
olilions, what the old wood is scarcely able to sustain?- 
Where Figs are so happily situated as to have been proved 
qualified to carry one good summer’s crop, aud to cast 
most of tlio !atc-formed Figs, my advice is, moderate 
your aims, pull off much of your second crop as soon 
as fit to handle, and just 1)9 content with those which 
arc like big Peas. These may possibly endure a smart 
winter; and although they will not yield so early a Fig 
as those which so flattered by their bouncing looks in 
October, yet they will prove truer and more satisfactory. 
That those highly-promising-looking young Figs 
which, by their bold appearance, tempt the cultivator to 
try with all possible effort to retain them for a very 
early crop, detract from tho powers of the tree, there 
can be no doubt. It is not merely the present root 
action which satisfies them; they are, doubtless, 
devouring tho “ true blood” of the tree; and if so, they 
are detracting from those precious stores which it had 
taken many weeks of summer heat and light to 
manufacture. 
I must here congratulate “ Salterton’s” friend on his 
seedling Fig. It must surely be an excellent thing, 
and, being raised from seed, claims an extra notice. 
Tho protection of the wood of Figs from frost during 
tho winter is a thing which has been, in former days, 
considered a necessary proceeding. I have myself 
several times known them either partially or totally 
destroyed. In that hard winter, the great frost of 
1SL3-4, I well remember that most of the Fig-trees about 
the metropolis were destroyed. Now, how the Devon 
or Sussex tree fared I know not; but, by accounts wo 
have heard of huge Figs, some of them must surely have 
escaped the murderous embraces of the Ice King on that 
extraordinary occasion. But I would here remark, that 
in a notice which appeared in one of the papers lately of 
a celebrated garden, it was stated, that after missing a 
crop for years, the gardener had discovered that, un¬ 
protected in winter, they produced good crops. But 
really, if gardening is to be an art that is to be learned, 
unlearned, and learned again and again, who shall under¬ 
take to affirm anything? Now, as to pruning the 
Fig, surely it does not require much Greek to ac¬ 
complish this. I remember a gentleman who had lived 
much in Sussex one day wondering at Fig-trees in tho 
north on this score: “ Why prune them at all?” he said ; 
“ they never prune them in Sussex.” To this I answered, 
that no doubt many did not prune them for a very 
simple reason—they did not produce too much wood. 
But the gentleman in question knew more about poodle 
dogs and such things than Figs. Of course, few people 
choose to prune Figs as Gooseberries are pruned, since 
the fruit is produced on the young and terminal points. 
R. Errington. 
Gigantic Gourd. — Captain Hall, Cobfield House, 
Exminstcr, Devon, has grown a (Citronncllo) gigantic 
Gourd, seven feet in circumference, weighing 150 lbs. 
It is excellent for soups, pies, &c. [This is an unusually 
largo specimen.— Ed. C. G.] 
THE GLAZED STRUCTURES AT SHRUBLAND 
PARK. 
The conservatory here is one of the best-furnished 
houses of the kind in the country, from Coxcombs and 
Balsams up to Phalsenopsis and Saccolabium. To give 
a detailed account of every sot or kind of plants which 
make up the circle here would take a ready writer, at 
our pace, just twelve months to describe, and then be 
tight enough for room. 
One of the Balsams which 1 saw Lhorc, if cut up into 
four quarters, each quarter would bo a larger and ft 
better-looking plant than most of those at the Crystal 
Palace. Campanula pj/ntmidalis as a biennial, and at 
times a three-year old subject, is (lowered here for many 
years at from seven to ten feet high, and from one centre 
spike to an eight, nine, or ten-spiked centro; and yet 
ordinary people think it is out of fashion, and run after 
novelties which arc trumpery in comparison to it. 
Lobelia fulgens, four, five, and six feet high, some with 
one spike, like the Campanula, and some with the 
ccntro spike stopped at an early age, and five of tho 
best lateral, sucker-like, secondary shoots brought up in¬ 
stead, in one mass a yard high, and above twenty inches 
.in diameter. The system is the same as with the huge 
Balsams till the five shoots are fairly started, and then 
it is fast or slow, in-doors or out, as the plants are wanted 
early or late. 'The Calceolarias, coming in for crossing 
in 1853, put a stop to a mania for hybridizing Lobelias, 
which has been a dead letter ever since. I recollect Mr. 
Francis or James Dickson, from Chester, and Mr. Low, 
from Clapton, meeting by chance at a cross-breeder’s in 
1835, and in all their travels they never saw such 
hybrid Lobelias, one of which they had measured, and 
found it nine feet high all but one inch, aud two feet 
four inches of the spike were in bloom. Both of them 
offered five guineas for the plant; but it was not for sale, 
and the breed was soon lost. Who will revive this old 
breed? Perhaps Mr. Foggo here if he had not so 
much to look after. But I only mention such things at 
all in order to undeceive many whose notions carry 
them beyond the mark in thinking that any one of 
God’s flowers is “ too common ” for really sensible 
people. Oleanders, Pyramidal Saxifrage, Stocks, Tree 
Violets and Mignonette, old Cloves, Cabbage Roses, 
Anna Boleyn Pinks, forced Double and Single Wall¬ 
flowers, Sweet-leaved Geraniums, Balm of Gilead, and 
Sweet-scented “Verbena,” or “ Lemon-plant,” and many 
more such, are among the Queen’s favourite flowers, and 
are as much prized in such large gardens as this as Air- 
plants, Ixoras, Gardenias, and all the best stove climbers, 
which did and do as v r ell in this very conservatory as in 
most of tho ordinary stoves, which brings me to the 
peculiar treatment of the house. 
In the first place, it is built over cellars, which are 
arched, the arches running like a ridge-and-furrow roof, 
being the bottom of tho borders for the climbers; the 
borders are twenty inches deep over the crown of the 
arches, and nearly threo feet deep in the valleys between 
the arches ; there is a good drainage along eacli valley, 
and none over the crown of the arches; the beds and 
borders are level with the paths, which are of stone. 
The south end of the suite of drawing-rooms projects 
twenty feet beyond the line of the main pile of the 
mansion; tlio end of the conservatory “ butts” against 
this projection, and the “ main pile” forms the back 
wall of it. In tho centre of the “ hack wall ” is an 
indent twenty feet long and six or eight feet deep. Over 
this part is a separate span-roof, which is lower than tho 
main roof, also a span, and is air-tight the whole way. 
The only “ top air ” is given from tho roof of tho indent, 
which, being lower, leaves the main roof air-tight. Here 
the Beaumontia grandijlora blooms so freely that Sir 
William sends baskets of tho cut flowers in June all 
over London as presents to his friends; Passijlora 
Loudonii and Racemosa or Princeps tho same; Ste- 
phanotis Jloribunda and Begonia venusta ditto. Ipomcea 
Learii encircles the whole roof, and the fallen flowers 
have to be swept up every afternoon to prevent foot-slips 
over them. Tacsonia mollissima, being a hardy green¬ 
house climber, is taken up to the springing of the pentr 
roof, and is there grafted with T. rnanicuta and Passi¬ 
jlora quadrungularis, which thus blooms as freely as the 
varieties of C a rule a ; and no doubt this Tacsonia would 
make a good stock for the whole family of Passion- 
Flowers. Tacsonia pinnatistipula, tho next best after 
