126 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, November 25, 1856. 
for them, and, no doiiht, thought himself an ill-used 
heir at the time ; hut here wo see what the effects of a 
good practical training really are when combined with 
judgment, intelligence, and public spirit. Instead of 
“ feathering his nest” at the first start, according to the 
adage, he chose rather to lay his foundation on a safer 
footing by a profuse expenditure to render the nest worthy 
of the patronage he receives. Every boiler and hot- 
water pipe on the establishment when he entered he had 
replaced with the improvements of the day; every house 
and pit had to be altered to suit the system of the times, 
and every new addition is even in advance of the current 
fashion, and yet the new broom did not take the usual 
sweep ; it did not gather up everything good, bad, and 
the rest of it, into the dust-pan. Nothing of that kind; 
and here is a sound lesson to all the rulers on the 
earth, whether they “rule the roost” in the kingdom, 
the church, the law, or the cottage garden. Every¬ 
thing under the sun can he parsed by some unerring 
standard as well as Latin. Let every change be proved 
by the parsing standard, and let nothing that will stand 
the test be changed in the new sweeping, and, my word 
for it, you will all of you find it a better bargain than 
any trust which the greatest confidence can place in a 
new broom. 
The long (157 feet) corridor, leading from the old front 
entrance of the “Exotic ” into the large-domed conserva¬ 
tory—the mansion of the magnificent tree Rhododen¬ 
drons, which would not bloom but once in seven 
years in Mr. Knight’s time—is retained, but is strangely 
altered. The roof is now “ridge and furrow” of glass 
from wall to wall, sixteen feet wide. A substantial 
raised bed for Camellias runs along each wall the whole 
length; and the trained Camellias will soon cover every 
brick of them. The beds for these Camellias are edged 
up on each side of the stone-paved six-feet walk with 
brick walls to the height of thirty inches or so, with 
broad copings to stand plants on; the surface of the 
borders is covered with a coat of Derbyshire spars 
ground down to the size of small shot. The same ma¬ 
terial is used for placing pot-plants on. The “ placing ” 
is a subject for study, as we shall see next week. In the 
meantime, let me say that the outer vestibule or lobby 
to this corridor is put within the old front, that was, in 
Mr. Knight’s time, nearly forty feet in length, but is re¬ 
newed in glass; and a new wing is added in the same 
front line to the left and right of it, which occupies the 
whole front of the grounds, except a road-way on the 
right and a pathway on the left, the whole front being 
in the Crystal Palace style of upright glass, and an 
elegant, light ridge-and-furrow roof supported by equally 
light iron pillars; and against each side of each pillar, 
not round the pillar, a wire trellis runs up to the spring¬ 
ing of the roof, and then runs east and west horizontally 
in artistic outline, for training suitable climbers against 
them. The wings are separated from the vestibule by 
glass divisions, with doors in the centre. The right- 
hand wing, on entering, is devoted to the finest and 
rarest stove plants, and as a stove-plant show-house; 
that on the left is devoted to the most fashionable con¬ 
servatory plants, and a show-house for that department; 
while the vestibule itself is occupied by such terrace- 
garden specimens as need a slight 'protection in winter. 
Thus, without entering the threshold, a visitor may see 
what is in season in all the departments; and on look¬ 
ing through the entrance-door, he sees a long vista 
through the corridor, the dome-roofed conservatory, the 
“ square ” beyond, and on between glass-houses to the 
farthest extremity of the Nursery, next to the Fulham 
or Brompton Road. 
To make a safe footing for “ carriage company ” in 
all weathers, the paths and walks are paved with flag¬ 
stone, that resists all appearance of damp, and so 
rounded in the centre that the wet runs off as fast as it 
rains or thaws. Besides the comfort and safety of this 
arrangement, there is the additional security for the vast 
traffic among the “hands” in so bustling an establish¬ 
ment, be the weather what it may. 
The hot-water boilers do prodigious work in this Nur¬ 
sery. The common pits for young stock may be set 
down at 4,000 square feet, or ten runs, including one 
double run of pits sixty feet long, and six feet wide, 
every inch of which is heated by two-inch hot-water 
pipes. The double run is a spanned cold pit, as one 
might say, which is very shallow ; and for the youngest 
of the young is mentioned to show the trick of heating 
it, which is exactly as was proposed to “ The Doctor’s 
Boy.” One end of it comes up to near an old house at 
work, the top and bottom-pipes in which were “tapped,” 
and a small gas-pipe put in as flow and return, which 
communicate with the two-inch pipes in the pit. No 
litter nor even any mats are used “ to cover up,” except 
on rare occasions, when a very hard frost indeed occurs, 
and then a single mat is sufficient to save the smallest 
Heath seedling. If you could reckon the cost of men’s 
time for covering up, the expense of breakage, which is 
inseparable from the best management for winter-cover¬ 
ings, the dirt and bad colouring of glass, to say nothing 
of your very best seedling having a chance of standing 
under a broken pane of glass until it is gone dead, you 
must come to the conclusion, that what is very costly at 
first is the cheapest in tire long run. However, you must 
be a better judge for yourself, and never have anything 
to do with any transaction that will not pay in clear 
money, in fame, or in real beauty, the three cardinal 
elements of men’s worldly affairs. 
Business arrangements at the Exotic Nursery are as 
follows:—On entering the front door into the vestibule 
you see two doors at the two opposite corners of the long 
corridor; the one on the left opens on a large room di¬ 
vided into two establishments—the one is for seeds of all 
kinds of flowers and flower “ roots,” the other for every 
description of “ garden-stuff” seeds; the right-hand door 
leads into the “ home-office,” where you see the secre¬ 
taries of state, each in his own “ department,” with his 
books and his despatches before him, and his carriers- 
in-waiting for what is “ next and next.” From this 
central-office a door opens to the right, and another to 
the left again ; that to the right communicates with the 
banking-establishment and the privy-council room, and 
that on the left into the “ governor's ” cabinet-office, 
the whole being fronted Crystal-Palace-wise, and heated 
by hot water—along with the whole front range, and 
the entire length of the corridor aforesaid—by one 
small boiler, which is heated with coke and cinders, and 
fed once in twelve, or twenty, or twenty-four hours, ac¬ 
cording as the glass tells of the weather. 
When the telegraph is fixed in the governor’s office, 
and on to India and New Zealand, we shall have a 
Christmas puzzle for the boys, which is this:—A mes¬ 
sage to New Zealand will reach there twelve hours be¬ 
fore it passes out of the Kings’s Road. How can that 
be? That is the puzzle. Another turn of the handles, 
and we shall all be Yankee-doodles—rank Red Repub¬ 
licans, every man’s son of us. The hand-writing is al¬ 
ready on the wall, and the decree has gone forth that 
we are to be “ annexed ” inevitably with the unions of 
the United States of America. When the President is in 
a fix about the decoration of a state’s dinner he will 
telegraph to the Exotic Nursery for “ Vandas , Plialce- 
nopsis, Caudatums, and Floridltibus dangleum ex suo 
roofum Orkiddy.” 
The very first step into the vestibule reveals the 
grandest secret ever yet made known about the proper 
cultivation of the loveliest plant in the South American 
flora—the Lily-like Copiqua of the western Patagonians, 
the climber and lovely-lady-like Lapageria rosea. It is 
a bog-plant after all; you have only to give a “ spring ” 
