377 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 3, L857. 
valve, and elbow, and turn in this nursery with my own 
hands. I could make every joint in five different ways, 
and I say candidly that I never saw a more simple, a 
more efficient, or a more economical plan than this. 
The two ranges of pits through which the flow and 
return pipes pass at right angles are full of Vines in 
, pots, one being filled entirely with Muscat Vines, just 
i breaking the bottom eyes to which they were cut, and 
j the other pit is full of the Victoria Hamburgh and 
Wilmot’s Black Hamburgh; and there is a large stock of 
j all the leading Vines—beautifully-grown canes—in other 
I parts of the grounds. 
The next building is a span-roofed house in three 
; divisions. Here are large plants of well-grown Roses, 
of all the sections of pot Roses—some on their own 
' roots, and some on the Manetti stock. Close to this is 
another span-house, full of young Heaths in store pots, 
and beginning to be potted off. They consist of the 
best leading kinds, as tricolor, Hartnelli, triumphans, 
Massoni, retorta, and others less difficult to propagate. 
The next is a propagating house for hard-wooded and 
stove plants, the shelves being filled with early Glox¬ 
inias, Gesneras, and Acliimenes, and such things just 
“ on the start.” Next to this was a large stock of a new 
or newish old Ageratum, with white flowers, which hold 
on all the winter till the turn of the new year— 
a very useful plant, which is as easy to have as the 
bedding Ageratum, and nearly as cheap; also many 
more of the best old plants which are almost forgotten, 
and which are re-introduced here from continental 
gardens. The old Aarons Beard is among them. 
Dozens of Saxifraga sarmentosa for hanging baskets. 
The next house is filled with forcing and forced Gera¬ 
niums, Alba multiflora and Gauntlet being yet the 
two which stand most forcing; and the next house 
is devoted to a general collection of Pelargoniums 
from the host raisers here and abroad; and after 
them a house full of Cinerarias, seedlings and named 
kinds, propagated by suckers and cuttings ; and after 
seeing so much of soft-wooded plants in such fine robust 
health, I must mention one great secret in heating, 
which seems to tell well, and pay better, and that is, 
there is nothing so good for heating plant houses as warm 
gripes, not hot pipes. Mr. Weeks uses so many of them 
that they need never be very hot. It seems a great mistake 
to go to the expense of a good boiler, and then to stint 
pipes to it. Mr. Latter and Mr. Kidd have shown the 
secret of forcing Cucumbers by steaming covered gripes ; 
but the pipes here can very safely be steamed without a 
covering, as they are never too hot for such work. 
Bedding Geraniums stand next to Cinerarias, and end 
the right hand wing and the farthest end of the hot- 
water pipes. They are particularly rich in stock of 
variegated Geraniums. 
We now turn to the west or left-hand wing, and 
begin with Camellias, Rhododendrons, Laurestinus mul- 
tiflorus, and such other “ winter-garden ” plants as we 
noticed in the conservatory; and they are here massed 
in groups in the same style, with serpentine aud straight 
walks “in and out” between the masses—an excellent 
way to see the whole, and to show them off. 
In the new grand winter-garden house I expect we 
shall have a touch of the Russian aud Prussian styles 
of winter conservatories; and, by-tlie-by, I heard such 
good news of our son-in-law, the young Prince of Prussia: 
“ He is so fond of plants.” Mr. Gruneberg knows them 
all over thereabouts, and he was nearly knowing the 
last of it at Vienna in 1848. The rebels smashed 
every pane of glass where he was, and knocked every¬ 
thing to pieces about their ears—a kind of forcing we 
are not up to in Loudon. 
The Camellias were just coming in for cut flowers, 
for which aud for furnishing they have a constant i 
demand for all kinds of early things. Then ranges | 
of pits to correspond with the right side: here are 
all the young Epacrises, Acacias, aud that style of 
New Holland plants. Also another range of Vine 
pits, aud the best plants of Muscat Grapes, almost 
in leaf; and next to them, under an east wall, is 
plunged and mulched a very large stock of one-year- 
old Grape Vines of sorts. The next house is in three 
divisions, and span-roofed. One division is for flower 
forcing for sale and forcing for cuttings: the first batch 
of cuttings of flower-garden plants was just ready for 
potting off by the 1st of February. Lobelia speciosa in 
hundreds ; Verbenas ditto; and I saw a dried spe¬ 
cimen of a perfectly blue Verbena, with a white eye, from 
the Continent, and if it is as blue when it is fresh as it 
was in the dried state it is a true blue at last. Mr. 
Gruneberg told me he bespoke plants of it to come over 
this spring. The rest of this house was filled with 
Geraniums, Heliotropes, Hydrangeas, and all that style 
of furnishing plants, with Camellias, Azaleas, and Rho¬ 
dodendrons. But I ought to mention that in this 
winter propagation they never use w r ater in the tanks 
for bottom heat, that being too damp at that season— 
merely the dry pipes lying in the empty troughs; no 
bell-glass for any of the cuttiug pots, and no big pots 
for cuttings in winter. A person ought to be well up to 
the practice before venturing on large pots for cuttings 
at any time. Here are Germans and Frenchmen, 
Londoners and all, and the whole lot cannot muster 
courage enough to use larger pots for cuttings than 
small 48’s and 60’s in winter—just what The 
Cottage Gardener has been preaching up for years. 
Next is the New Holland house—the House of 
Commons in gardening; and if you take the heads of 
families and the genealogies in both houses it is 
singularly curious how nearly parallel the analogies 
run in both—Fpacris, Chorozema, Acacia, Dillwynias, 
Eriostemons, Everlastings, endless Pea-flowering tribes, 
prickly or sharp-pointed-leaved plants, soft and downy- 
leaved, silvery grey, green, and almost blue—like blue 
Gum trees; and there is not a useful section in parlia¬ 
ment, or hardly a family name which you could not 
point to, even in its politics, in a New Holland house 
such as this is ; still it is rare to meet or see a new 
member in a New Holland house. A largo lot of 
Magnolia macrophylla is wintered “ below the bar ” in 
this house, and a host of standard Pomegranates took up 
their quarters in it also last autumn on their arrival 
from the Continent. Then follow some hundreds of 
lights in cold pits, or ranges from which frost is merely 
excluded, filled with a fine stock of bedding plants— 
scarlet and variegated Geraniums, Cupheas, Calceo¬ 
larias, Verbenas, Petunias, Senecios, Lobelias—all of the 
best kinds; and also a very fine stock of Hollyhocks in 
pots, and Dahlias, which were being then removed into 
heat for cuttings. 
The nursery outside the houses may be from five to 
six acres, and is well filled with such things as .bear 
the London smoke best; but all the Pinus tribe they 
are compelled to keep under glass in a cold house by 
themselves. Roses and climbing Roses seem to do well 
enough here; also common evergreens and the usual 
shrubs and hardy climbers, as Clematis, Honeysuckles, 
Bignonias, Aristolochias, Ivies, all in good looks for 
the time of year. Also a collection of Strawberries, 
some being in pots and frames with Lilies, so as to get 
at for forcing, be the weather what it may. The florist 
departments are on either side of the principal walks, 
and no doubt will be very gay in summer with Holly¬ 
hocks, Pinks, Carnations, China and German Asters, 
aud, best of all, with bedding plants. But all this is 
mere surmise, and we must see such things in summer 
before we can decide how far it is likely to pay. But 
for the rest I think these cursory remarks will cover 
the extent of this new establishment, or rather, the pre- 
