370 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Maectt, 22, 1859. 
means, in the face of an eager competition, by dint of 
steady perseverance and good management; and whether 
it is in the execution of their plans, or in the economy of 
the execution, or in their varied stocks-in-trade, and their 
different ways of raising them and showing them off, or in 
the fact that some of the best heads and hands in the craft 
are met with there, and that a larger portion of the public 
opinion on gardening is just taken in, and then retailed 
out of, the nurseries at prime cost—I say, whether it bo 
so or not, there is no question that the best and wisest 
among us will find something to learn in any one nursery 
about London. Therefore, the London nurseries and 
their ways have always been a source of the greatest 
interest to country readers in my time. Loudon’s calls at 
the Vauxhall, and other nurseries, often made my mouth 
water before I left off deer-stalking in the Highlands, or 
thought about-it. But my reports go over more ground, 
which imposes a greater responsibility than could happen 
in Loudon’s early reporting days. 
The most curious thing about Camellias is this, that no 
nurseryman, or amateur, has yet attempted to give them 
in sections of good, better, and best. Which are the best 
score, or the second-best three dozen, or the third-best 
fifty Camellias, are questions as plain as D. Beaton to 
men like the Messrs. Milne, Arnott, and Co., but are as 
“ all Greek” to ninety-nine out of a hundred of all gar¬ 
dening people besides. I knew the best sorts in every 
section of the family. Twenty years back I had charge 
of one of the largest private collections of them then 
in England ; but, just at that time, the seedlings of other 
breeders began to pour in from the continent, and from 
America, and I went a flower-gardening, and lost the 
chance of selections of Camellias —a loss which I felt deeply 
for the last few years, and which loss no author, or con¬ 
tributor. seemed altogether to supply. I cannot supply 
it myself to-day ; but I shall make a beginning ; aud if I 
live long enough, the next generation will benefit by the 
research. 
Lest I should forget it at the end of the tale, let me 
explain the difference of Chandler’s elegans, which is all 
blotched, while the Elegans published in “ Chandler and 
Booth’s Illustrations, &c.,” of the Camellias, is the same 
plain one that is in common use. It is not said, in that 
splendid work, whether elegans is a cross-bred plant, only 
that it was a seedling from the Waratah, which partook of 
the habit between the Waratah and Peeoniaflora. It was 
extensively propagated before it came of age; and all the 
plants from that propagation retain the stamp of the 
original, and are perfectly plain, to this day. When the 
same plant came of age, it turned blotched with white in 
the flowers; and the plants from that state of Elegans 
retain the variegation, unless they get too highly fed, or 
too much room at the roots. In the choicest selection of 
kinds, both states of Eleqans —the plain ro3e-eolourod 
Elegans, and the large, variegated Elegans —should be 
included. They have the largest flowers of all the kinds 
of Camellia Japonica yet known to us. Reticulata is of 
a different blood from Japonica. But, as if it were to 
puzzle and confound the learned in such things, Nature 
took just the opposite turn with Camellia Chandleri (No. 
16 in the “ Illustrations ”). Being assisted by the same 
hand, Nature gave another seedling from the Waratah, 
which was blotched from its birth till it came of age, then 
turned plain—that is, Chandleri from Waratah, crossed 
with the double-striped. And from this, one might pre¬ 
sume that Eleqans, by the same mother as Chandleri, had 
a dash of the blood of the double-striped, but not sufficient 
to give blotches, till assisted by age and its infirmities. 
The best Camellias, at the time of the first Reform in 
1832, were from China— QieRouble-ichiie, Fimbriata (same 
as the Rouble-white fringed), Imbrieala, Incurnata, alias 
lady Hume’s Flush, Speciosa, and Varicgata. From 
English seedlings, chiefly raised in this nursery— Chand- 
Icri, Carolina, Elegans, Eximia, Concinna, Rosa Sinc-nsis, 
and T Poods!; also, perhaps, ARhceu flora; but very few 
people had it true then, and still fewer have it now; 
Pceonicejlora, in one of its forms, having usurped that 
name. Every one of these is among the best at this day. 
The best that I could make out at the Vauxhall Nursery 
the other day are the following ; but there are a few more 
which did not happen to be open that day ■. — Teutonia, in 
the way of Saccoi, or Saccoi nova, one of the best rosy pink; 
Phtc de Bretagne, a splendid deep rose, and new ; Reine des 
Fleurs, a fine, imbricated, orange scarlet; Archduchess 
Augusta, a most beautiful new colour—a shade of purple 
over a deep-rose ground, as in some roses, with white tips 
to the petals ; Matholiana, nearly as large as Flegans, 
dark-red, and the very best flower of that class ; Carlotti 
Grisi, a fine, deep rose, with white tips, and imbricated; 
Americana, a blush-white Picotee ; Benncy de Boul, \n\- 
bricated, red, flaked and tipped; Traversi, fine rosy crim¬ 
son ; Marchioness of Fxeter, one of the largest size, and 
a bright rosy red; Henri Havre, like the last, a well- 
known sort; Zevonia, a very fine bright marbled crimson; 
Papaveracca, perfectly single, and in shape like the tree- 
Poeony; Insubria, orange-scarlet, of a beautiful shape; 
Albertus, the best of the Carnation or Picotee kinds ; 
Ruchesse d’Orleans, Landrecltii, Beall, Alexina (Low), 
all well known ; Jubilee (Low), a beautiful black ; Mag¬ 
dalena, scarlet, with white tips ; Emilio Campioni, a most 
lovely light flower; Magnifca rubra, large red ; Yandesii 
rosea, very large flower ; Fordii, also large ; Saccoi, one 
of the best-shaped Camellias, a bright rose; Countess of 
Orkney, a beautifully blotched flower; Ruchesse de Berry, 
a blush with a purple tinge over it, a beautiful thing ; Jef- 
fersonii, splendid bright scarlet; Formosa, dark velvety 
red ; Pulcslcii, a first-rate, light, blush, imbricated flower; 
Rampieri, scarlet; Raviesii, the truest and best scarlet 
colour ; Re la Reine, light blush ; Storii, a lightish flower 
of great beauty ; Rosea perfecta nova and alba superba 
explain themselves ; Targioni, white-striped ; Faltevercdo, 
a most splendid rose; and Rante, a pure ivory white, 
with rose stripes in it. • 
Just put down all these names, from the old Rouble- 
white to Rante , alphabetically in your memorandum-book ; 
for I booked them as we came to them, and I never took 
more pains with so few—but then, look at the hundreds 
to choose from ! To make sure of my point I sent for 
the foreman, who has been in this nursery during, the 
last thirty years, to ask him if such and such kinds were 
constant, or always so good as they then appeared. He 
was a most intelligent guide to me, and I regret I did 
j not take his name. He mentioned several others; but. 
i as they were not in bloom, I said I would rather call 
J again. I have been in and out of London, like a bee in a 
bonnet, since 1851, without having the least idea of the 
I extraordinary richness of the new Camellias ; but there 
I they are. and anyone may see them with this list in his 
hand. Some of the kinds must be sold out by this time ; 
and some, equally good, which were not open then, will 
make up for them. 
The next start was to see Chandler’s scarlet Rhodo¬ 
dendrons,—the only kinds, I was told, which bloom 
freely in pots, or set their bloom-buds in pots ; and they 
seemed to do better that way than in the free bods. But 
see the difference between real practical men and those 
who would make believe, without understanding the 
thing themselves. In this very family we saw a fine, 
large, white seedling Rhododendron, in full bloom, in 
the open beds, next to a bed of Atrovircns, and some 
scarlet seedlings were ready to open. Instead of running 
down early spring-flowering Rhododendrons, and putting 
most stress on those of them which bloom after the frost 
is over, this firm have taken the practical-gardener view 
of that subject, and they are going to put all these early 
kinds into one class, and under one system, and then 
recommend them, instead of forced Rhododendrons. 
When you come to think of it, there is not the slightest 
reason why a Rhododendron should be forced at all in 
tliis country. There are plenty of all colours to bloom 
