310 
TEE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COENTRY GENTLEMAN, Maucj 1, 1850. 
spot by their sharp, but still, soft, musical notes— it is they that 
sow the seed under almost every tree that is near ; so that we are 
not in want of young ones, if we like to take care of them after¬ 
wards. I have seen as many as ten in one square foot of ground, 
from one to three inches in height. 
Perhaps your readers—or some of them, at least—would like 
to know where they can see some good specimens. I will tell 
them where they may be seen. Many have looked at them from 
a distance, and said they never saw such a beautiful lot of Irish 
Yews before, and ask how they are managed : it seems almost 
incredible to them after they are told they are the common Yew 
trees. 
They are at the west end of the county of Wilts ; and are about 
seven miles oast-by-south-east of that ancient resort of fashion— 
Bath, as travellers leave that noble city, and travel up that 
delightful valley where nature seems to have scattered its en¬ 
chantments for the eye in a most unlimited manner, on the Wilts, 
Weymouth, and Somerset branch of the Great Western line. 
Travellers are exactly opposite to them as they stop at that pic¬ 
turesque little village-station, Ereshford. They are about a 
quarter of a mile on the opposite side of the river Avon, which 
winds its circuitous course close in under the hill where those 
trees are now growing. There are five or six old ones, from which 
all the others sprang. The trunk of one of them is two feet 
through at the base, with a clean straight body for some feet; 
the head and foliage of which cover upwards of eighty square 
yards of land. No one in the neighbourhood seems to know 
when or by whom they were planted ; for, where they are all 
growing now, was, about thirty years ago, one of the wildest and 
most uncultivated spots in our island. 
There arc some good specimens of different shapes, showing 
what cultivation will do for them. There are, I might say, 
thousands there from three inches to twenty feet in height, and 
in the stem from the size of a wheat-straw to that of a man’s arm. 
The Irish Y ew would not have much chance against some of 
these. Fancy one of them from sixteen to twenty feet in height, 
and as straight in comparison as the barrel of a gun, not having 
the least stiffness in any one way about it. The birds have 
dropped the seeds in bygone years amongst the Fir plantations 
and pieces of coppice wood ; so that they are now trying to cope j 
with the Fir trees and coppice wood—and they seem to be doing j 
quite as well there as where they are fully exposed to sun and I 
air. They are a mass of dark-green foliage from the surface of ■ 
the ground to their tops, a3 well where they are shaded, as in ! 
exposed situations. 
I have heard ladies remark, when walking through the woods. ! 
what splendid bows they would make for their summer archery 1 
fetes. Some of them have been turned into such weapons ; and 
there might be thousands grown in woods where nothing, seem- 
mgly, but those and the Briar wall grow. If a visit were paid to 
that part of the country, they would well pay the visitor for his 
trouble, if Yew trees were the only things to be seen : but they 
are not, for there is some of the richest landscape scenery around 
there that little England affords. And that is not all; for there 
are between twenty and thirty acres of land planted with several 
kinds ol choice fruit. The kinds, and the treatment that they 
have had, I will speak of at some future time.—J. Asitatax. 
[We shall be glad to receive your notes on the Wilts fruit 
culture.— Eds.] 
CALCEOLARIA CULTURE. 
I itave hastily enumerated a few of the grievances of which I 
think the Calceolaria lias just cause to complain. 
In how many places do we find the 6tock of cuttings in 32- 
sized pots and pans crammed in the end of some pit near a flue, 
the heat of which, upon frosty nights, where they stand, ranging 
from 70 to 90° ? IIow often do we see them drooping, nay, 1 
shrivelling, for want of water? How very often are we, in our 
visits, eye witnesses of the dark spots upon the leaf of deformed 
shoots, and of sapless growth, caused by the ravages of those 
executioners,—the green fly, tlirips, &c. ? These are but a few of 
the more-readily-perceived grievances : were I to continue to 
enumerate, I should with them alone fill a column. 
The best way to strike and grow the Calceolaria which I have 
yet seen, is the following :—Fill 2 ! -sized pots with cuttings; pots 
well drained, and the soil not too rich; putting the cuttings in as 
late as possible in the autumn ; keeping them until December 
entirely in the shade, in an old frame. About the beginning of 
December placing the frame full in the sun j putting it on°fhe 
ground, with a few ashes, with slates laid over them ; and il 
frost sets in, pack the frame round the outside well with leaves, 
I If a little heat arises, it warms and dries the frame inside. 
They will do tolerably well, as before described in The Cot- 
tace Gaudexei;, by setting the cuttings in rows, in a frame with 
soil therein, alone. But the advantages of the above over that 
mode is, you can store more cuttings in less space, can pick and 
clean them easier ; and, more particularly, can give them a nict 
fresh invigorating watering occasionally. 
I believe the real requirement of the Calceolaria is to be kept 
cool, with adequate moisture and fresh air through the winter. I 
would also recommend not to strike the cuttings, neither to pot 
them off in soil much more fertile than that in which they are 
going to make their whole summer’s growth.—N. N. E., Digs- 
ivell House, 
FRUITS and FRUIT TREES of GREAT BRITAIN. 
(Continued from page 134.) 
No. XIV.—L’Ixcoxxue Peak. 
At this season of the year, even the best winter pears begin to 
assume a condition anything but inviting; and tlie more we can 
increase their number, the greater will our chances of securing a 
continued supply be increased. It is in winter pears of first- 
rate quality that our collections are most in need j for after 
Winter Nelis has passed,—which it generally is in January,—we 
have nothing of any approved merit, except Beurre dc Ranee, the 
Ne plus Meuris, and Easter Beurre; the last always uncertain. It 
is, therefore, gratifying to be able to speak of one which wc think 
should be added to the list of planters who desire a good supply 
of late winter fruit. L'Inconnue is not a new pear, as will be 
seen from Mr. Rivers’ account of it given below ; but it is one of 
which too little is known, and about which too little stir has been 
made. 
