364 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 7, 1858. 
within the mismanaged precincts of Chiswick. The late Mr. 
\ George McEwen, then at Dretton Hall, was pointed to by all 
as combining in a very large degree the qualifications and 
energy befitting an undertaking so important. The situation 
was at last offered to him, and he accepted it at a salary of 
£250 a-year. No doubt the Council thought it wise and 
! economical to secure the services of such a man at £100 
a-year more than was originally offered ; and the appointment 
] gave entire satisfaction to all who knew Mr. McEwen, as a 
gentleman and a gardener. What Mr. McEwen effected in 
so short a time, and under circumstances the most adverse, it 
is not our present purpose to tell—the columns of the Gar¬ 
deners' Chronicle have made that public enough. 
“ The ruthless hand of death having lately taken from our 
inidst the highly-respected and now lamented gentleman to 
: whom we have referred—thereby causing a great loss to the 
gardening world at large, and leaving an important post to fill 
up at the Chiswick Gardens—as a matter of course, all who 
wish well to the progress of horticulture as a science, and who 
desire to see the Horticultural Society’s Gardens take their 
proper and professed position, have been more or less anxious 
and interested as to who was to be appointed Superintendent 
in succession to so accomplished a horticulturist and in¬ 
telligent a man as the one who had begun a new era of Horti¬ 
cultural Societies, and had done so much in one short twelve- 
month or little more. And, of course, too, the Council of the 
Horticultural Society have, or ought to have been anxious and 
interested to a still more intense degree in this matter. Eor 
ourselves, we expected an advertisement for a Superintendent 
in the columns of the Gardeners' Chronicle , always the ready 
mouthpiece of the proceedings of the Horticultural Society. 
But that journal maintained a sullen silence till the 10th of 
July; and we know for a fact that that seeming delay of 
action was being felt with a painful degree of interest and im¬ 
patience by a great number of the Fellows of the Society. The 
notice at last came, barely announcing that a Mr. Archibald 
Henderson had been appointed Superintendent of the 
Gardens; and one wonder then took the place of another. 
All that we meet with ask, Who is this Mr. A. H., and what 
are his antecedents and qualifications for such a position F 
The question is natural and proper. 
“ The public may or may not believe in the appointment of a 
man never before heard of in the field of horticulture; but if 
it were of the utmost importance eighteen months ago to 
secure the services of a horticulturist of first-rate and proved 
abilities—one in whom the country had confidence—it must 
be so still; and if it is otherwise, better let the Society’s 
Gardens cease to exist altogether. And really, after the parade 
recently made in the Gardeners' Chronicle of the absolute 
necessity of a high education for gardeners, one was led to 
expect that that feeling ran deep in the South, and that the 
person appointed to rule the destinies of gardening at Chis¬ 
wick, and set an example of cultivation, &c., to a nation, 
would have been hooted down by the journal in question if he 
were not at least up to the average range of literary accomplish¬ 
ments among the operatives of the profession. And if the 
person appointed is lacking in this elementary particular, we 
hesitate not to express again our gravest doubts as to the 
wisdom of the appointment, and the effects that it will have. 
In conclusion, we call upon all who contribute their money to 
the support of the Horticultural Society, to investigate this 
matter, and see whether the grounds of our doubts are real 
or not. 
“ [We publish the above as coming from an esteemed cor¬ 
respondent—a man of integrity and earnestness of purpose— 
who, we presume, has some knowledge of the facts to which 
he adverts. He is not a disappointed candidate, as some may 
be tempted to suppose, and he is only asking questions, most 
of which are being put through the length and breadth of the 
land.. lor ourselves, we know nothing of the appointment in 
question beyond what is patent to the world. Of course it is 
due to every young man that he should have a fair trial. 
1 robably the new gardener at the Chiswick Experimental 
Garden is not more inexperienced, or unpromising, than Sir 
.1 axton was, when he went to Chatsworth ; or as various 
other horticultural notabilities were in their first important 
step in life. Perhaps the appointment in question indicates 
another change of system in the London Horticultural Society, 
i has been v hispered that the late Mr. McEwen, with all his 
virtues, did not prove very manageable by the Council—hd 
was too spirited, and came with too high a prestige for that. , 
It will be remembered that the first head-gardener at the Hor¬ 
ticultural Society’s Garden—the late Mr. D. Monro, a very 
worthy, quiet man—was little more than a mere nominal 
official. The late Joseph Sabine, Esq., was the real gardener, 
and Dr. Lindley was his foreman. Besides that, Mr. Sabine, 
as being unpaid Secretary, and devoting most of his time to 
the work, was Viceroy over the Society, according to the old 
formula, ‘ You shall be Iving, and I shall be Viceroy over 
you.’ It was under that regime that the Society sunk into that 
abyss of debt from which it has not yet emerged, and probably 
never will. Such gardeners ‘ wear their Rue with a dif¬ 
ference ; ’ they have the blue apron trimmed with white satin ; 
and they must have their own will and way. We should 
think that the present unpaid Secretary, with his many merited 
honours, and with his manifold and important occupations, 
would be above such things. We shall see. Meanwile, sup¬ 
posing that our correspondent has some grounds for his 
animadversions, we shall be curious to observe the tone 
assumed by our horticultural contemporaries in the South. 
Will they venture to speak out ? Perhaps not.—E d. Scottish 
Gardener.'] ” 
CEANOTHUS AZUEEUS. 
This handsome flowering shrub deserves more attention 
than it often gets, as few plants can equal it for profuse 
blooming, and free and rapid growth. As a covering for a 
wall, I know of nothing more suitable, and, as a shrub, it 
flowers when flowers are scarce. But it is in a new character 
that I desire to call attention to it, and that is for the flower 
garden. As tall ornamental plants are often much wanted to 
give effect to the parterre, or to act as prominent objects in 
some straight line, the number of flowering plants suitable 
for training in an upright form is far from meeting the wants 
of the times; blue-flowering ones, especially, are scarce. I, 
therefore, advise this plant being so used, as it blooms most 
profusely in a pot, with the roots allowed to run through the 
bottom; and with the assistance of a single stake may be kept 
in an upright orderly position. I, in consequence, call the at¬ 
tention of our flower-gardening friends to it. i 
At this place it blooms beautifully against a wall in July, 
August, and September. Last year some spare plants I 
standing about flowered equally well, so that I had de¬ 
termined to plant some in the flower-beds, but had occasion 
to plant them against a wall during the winter. Another 
season I hope that others will also try it. It is proper 
here to remark, that there is a spurious variety of it got 
abroad, of a dull grey or lead colour, while the true C. azureus 
is a bright sky-blue, the florets quite shining. It is a some- , 
what curious fact, that C. papillosus flowers most abundantly 
here (Linton Park), while C. dentatus has scarcely ever a j 
bloom upon it, although it continues to grow vigorously; yet j 
its deep green foliage atones, in some respects, for the absence j 
of flowers, especially in positions not otherwise favoured.— 
J. Robson. 
HARDINESS OE SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS. 
Much has been written, at different times, on this subject’ 
by men of scientific attainments, who have studied the whole 
system of germination. And I am led to suppose nursery¬ 
men, in many instances, when forming their annual catalogues, j 
do not, from practical tests, state when such and such annuals 
are hardy or otherwise, but derive their information more 
from the statements of others, where and in what temperature 
the seed was ripened in. 
We will take, as an example, the Balsam, the seeds of which 
are generally ripened under glass, in a higher temperature 
than we are accustomed to in this country; consequently, 
we infer this is a tender annual, requiring heat and extra care 
in its earlier stages of existence, to cause a proper develop¬ 
ment of the plants in its infant progress. Now, I am doubt¬ 
ful whether, in many instances, we are not, to an extent, 
injuring the young plant, by giving it too strong a stimulus, 
in the shape of heat and tender nursing. This opinion is 
backed with facts palpably evident this season, 
