THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, December 23, 18B0. 197 
root-stock like the top of the Elephant’s Foot plant, 
from winch rise immense, large-spreading leaves, on 
stalks big enough to make giants’ clubs. The leaves of 
this plant average eight feet in length, and it is, in my 
opinion, the noblest of all the Ferns. There is a 
specimen of it at Kevv with a diameter of full nineteen 
feet! It is a native of Ceylon. Next is Dicksonia 
squarrosa, a really noble Tree Fern, from New Zealand, 
with a trunk four feet high, and spreading leaves eight 
feet in length ; a fine BlecJinum Corcovadense ; Cibotium 
Barometz from China, and 0. Schiedei from Mexico; 
Hemitelia integrifolia, horrida, and Braziliensis; a fine 
new kind of Alsophila and A. senilis; a BlecJinum Bra- 
ziliense, and several imported stems of Tree Ferns, the 
largest of which is nine feet high. 
The great fault of the old collectors of Tree Ferns 
was that of pulling them about to wrench them out of 
the ground, by which the roots were so strained that 
they died sooner or later, and festered the parts so 
much that the trunks gave way at last. We lost some 
of the finest specimens of Cacti through the same rough 
treatment; but this is so well understood now that we 
seldom lose one of them, all the roots being cut off 
most carefully just below the collar. 
The borders all round, and the centre bed, are edged 
up afoot or eighteen inches high with artificial rockwork, 
and planted with dwarf Ferns and Mosses. 
The west wing is arranged in the same style, with the 
addition of climbers overhead, the principal collection 
being Palms, a few Cycads, and others, of which the 
following were the most conspicuous :—Sabal umbracu- 
lifera, Ceroxylon andicola, Cham (crops G riffithiana, very 
fine, and C. humilis oxyphylla, a remarkably curious 
new kind from some continental collection ; Cycas revo- 
luta, very fine ; and Latania Borbonica, ditto. These 
were the very best feathers in this wing, and also the 
best known, as most of them have been out at the shows. 
Then there were Attalea spectabilis, Phcenix dactylifera, 
Areca rubra, Martinezia caryotoefolia, Cocos argentea 
and flexuosa, Chamxrops Martiana, Areca lutescens, 
Dannonorops melanoclicetes, Calamus ciliaris and vents, 
with others, and climbers of Cissus and Allamanda, 
which finish this great range. 
Passing out of the conservatory into a lobby in the 
centre vista, there is a Fern-liouse for greenhouse kinds 
on the left, and another for stove Ferns on the right, 
the north wall of the large conservatory being the back 
wall for both, which have thus a north aspect. We 
enter among the greenhouse Ferns, and here we find a 
large stock of cool-house Orchids along with dwarf Ferns 
on the front stage, among which a whole row of Odon- 
toglossum grande were in bloom in pots, with different 
kinds of Barkerias and others hanging from the roof 
and in pots also, but yet on blocks let into pots, or lying 
across the mouth. In this house, which is heated to 
50° only, almost all the newly-introduced Air Plants are 
placed for a first start. It is neither moist nor dry at 
any time, but just enough to give a gentle start to long- 
dried plants from long voyages, nothing in the world 
being more damaging to Orchids on their first arriving 
than to be put into a regular Orchid-house, where the 
heat and moisture for growing luxuriant established 
plants are necessarily kept up to a great pitch. There¬ 
fore recollect that, if ever you receive a consignment 
of Orchids from beyond the seas, a quiet corner in a 
shady part of the Geranium-house, and lying on a thin 
layer of damp, green moss, is a better place to put 
them for the first three months than the best Orchid- 
house, unless it is a cool one, with not more than 50° 
except from sun heat. 
There was a large stock of the dwarf variety of Lcelia 
superbiens, another splendid discovery by Mr. Skinner. 
The bulbs are as strong as those of the original, the 
dwarf part being the flower-stem, which is no more than 
a foot, and much less sometimes. Some of these were 
ready to open flowers on stems not six inches long; but 
that must have been from the effects 1 of the journey 
from Mexico. Odontoglossum Pescatorei from New 
Granada, and two or three kinds from Peru which are 
yet undefined; Epidendrum vitellinum; Phalamopsis 
rosea, a rare kind, from Manilla; Epidendrum sceptrum 
from Peru, and also very rare ; and lots of more common 
kinds, but undergoing the first change to a civilised 
condition. A large importation of Ferns was in the 
same condition; many specimens of Woodwardia radi- 
cans and Dicksonia antarctica; the true Lastrcea villosa; 
Polystichum falcinell um, with a root-stock like a tree (this 
is one of the finest of Madeira Ferns, and not difficult 
to manage); Asplenium umbrosum, Canariense, and 
Canariense preemorsum, monanthemurn, ebeneum, and 
palmatum, all really good-looking kinds; a large stock 
of the scarce Adiantum reniforme; Nothoclmna Marantoe, 
Lomaria Chilensis or Magellanica, -Nephrodium dre- 
panum; and under bell glasses large lumps of newly- 
imported Trichomanes speciosa and the variety r a dicans. 
They were in very open, turfy soil, mixed with freestone 
chips, and kept .very damp, causing the young leaves to 
spring up from all parts of the mass. Under the same 
treatment, or in the same house, were all kinds of Sarra- 
cenias, including Drummondi, the scarcest of them. 
But what pleased me the best was a new discovery I 
made myself, which accounts for a thing which puzzled 
me in London the last two seasons. The secret was 
well kept, although many were “ in it.” It was this— 
people who I. well knew could not figure very high in 
the country for growing plants did come out first-rate 
with their Wardian cases in the London drawing-rooms; 
and first-rate hands at putting all things to rights in 
the country put everything in the “wrong box” in 
London. I could not fathom how such things could be, 
but now it is as plain as self-evident. The nurseries, at 
least this one under review, are colleagued with certain 
families, and keep the beds, rocks, and mountains, plains, 
waterfalls, and all manner of Wardian-case contrivances, 
in portable cases, to be removed off and on, as Parliament 
moves the great people up or down, to or from London. 
All under the stages and along the passages of this house 
were full of the inside of Wardian cases; some gutted 
out last autumn to be kept on purpose for next year, 
and some made up on purpose to be ready for fresh 
customers next spring; and all this going on for a long 
time without anybody being the wiser, except those who 
were in the secret, and who had it all their own way. 
For the future we must all have a share in this 
“limited” company; but, much better than all that, 
here is the right way for having Wardian cases at last. 
The old way was particularly wrong and most extrava¬ 
gant, and next to useless except in the hands of real 
professors; but now almost anybody may take up the 
subject anywhere. The origin of the grand secret is 
this—ten or twelve years ago necessity suggested seven 
large flat tin cases to be used inside seven large flat | 
Bath stone vases at Shrubland Park. The “ tin ” was 
stout zinc by-the-by, and zinc will grow plauts just as 
well as pots or boxes. All those splendid scarlet Gera* 
niums which they grow in all the marble vases at the 
Crystal Palace are now grown in metal pans, and the 
pans are let into the vases at planting-out time, and 
taken out at “ housing time; ” and very likely most of 
them are kept all the winter in these very pans, to be 
taken off and on that way. At all events, the most 
costly Wardian case may now be filled without any 
danger of hurting it with soil or watering, or of the 
inside box getting rotten. Let the inside box fit the 
case like wedding-gloves; but let the box be made of 
block tin or zinc, with a ring at each end to lift it in 
and out, and a small spout run down from one end or 
side to drain it into a china basin hard by—suck a spout 
