312 
E COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 21, 1860. 
an outer ring of Lady Plymouth. Another circle with 
Humea, Balsams, and Brilliant Geranium, and a foot 
wide of Cerastium not trimmed, and two oblong beds 
thus:—three rows of Prince’s Feather down along the 
centre, Calceolaria amplexicaulis all round them, then a 
row of Hamlet Verbena round that, with Verbena Tommy 
nound the outside—a very good mixture. Bound the 
meeting of four waits, a circle of Fuchsias seventy-five 
feet through, another circle of dwarf and trained-down 
Boses inside the Fuchsias, and standard Boses in that 
row at equal distances ; the dwarf Boses being one half 
Geant des Bat allies, and large common China alternately, 
and when in bloom most gorgeous in contrast. 
Inside those rings and in opposite quarters, are two 
match standards six feet in the stem, and large heads 
and very large palmate leaves. But what is it ? Well, 
it is Ricinus communis, the genteel name for the castor 
oil plant; but what would the students in Edinburgh 
say to full standards of this plant ? or how many gar¬ 
deners have seen such ? In the front of the old museum 
are seven large beds of different shapes, and composed 
in a single group with the ends of some and the sides of 
others to the walk, are exceedingly well-edged and eco¬ 
nomically too, by the Cerastium and Variegated Mint, 
nine inches -wide and three inches high, and as if out of 
the same mould that morning. Verily, a good .bold 
edging in contrast is the grand secret of setting off beds 
to the best advantage. The first bed is full of Phlox 
Brummondi, over white Petunias; the second, Lord 
Raglan Verbena ; the third, of mixed kinds of variegated 
Geraniums ; the fourth, of mixed Verbenas ; the fifth, of 
Calceolaria amvlexicaulis ; sixth, Brillante de Vaise Ver¬ 
bena ; and seventh, mixed Verbenas. Near this is a 
large bed of Linum grandiflorum, as good as ever was 
seen in this world, and edged with a mixture of white 
and purple Virginian Stock. In a hot season this Linum 
is soon over. In the same part is abed of Erisymum Pe~ 
roffshianum not trained or touched, and is as good as 
can be. 
Over the arboretum are huge specimens of Scarlet 
Geraniums, planted out on the grass ; also, large Fuchsias 
and Humeas, and there is an out-door aquarium all above 
ground, built of brick and cement, in three divisions. It 
is twenty feet wide and forty-five feet long. The two 
end divisions are in square tanks, having brick divisions 
across and along the centre, with a side-shelf all round, 
having only six inches of water over it, like the brick 
divisions, the tanks being thirty inches deep, or the full 
depth of the aquarium. All the Nymphteas are out here, 
and the red one was in bloom with three feet of stalk to 
the leaves. Menyanthus trifoliatus, one of our best water- 
plants, the flowering Bush, and ever so many more of 
such like; and the West Indian Water Soldiers were 
swimming about all over the surface, and there was a long 
bed of Cannas, of which discolor and glauca were the 
more conspicuous. But of exotic fancies more another 
day. 
There is little cause to grudge or grumble at the want 
of flowers, seeing the immense good the wet, cold season 
has done, both here and at Hampton Court, to all the 
hardy and half-hardy woody plants, after the singe 
they had last October, and the scorching of the three 
previous summers. All that must be lost this season, in 
the way of flowers, is the opportunity of proving all new 
things out of doors. Nine-tenths of the old Geraniums 
must be kept over the winter, as nothing like a crop of 
cuttings can be secured this autumn. How stand the 
pits, frames, pipes, and flues ? H. Beaton. 
THE MASSING SYSTEM AND ITS OBIGIN. 
Whenever an individual supposes that he has discovered a 
something new, and takes credit to himself for so doing, there 
are always some ready to assert that the same was known long 
ago; and others, following in the same track, carry their ideas 
backward, and, by some mysterious chain of circumstantial 
evidence, affirm that the thing was known to the Greeks and 
Egyptians—or, if that description of cavilling be not available, 
some natural cause is put forth as an exact counterpart of the 
thing claimed as an invention. Nature certainly contains our 
best models, and more especially in the department here treated 
of—flower gardening; for where is the parterre that contains 
such beauty and massive proportions as our wild wastes do, and 
the colouring sun equally inapproachable in the wild condition. 
Whoever has looked at an expanse of Furze or Broom when in 
bloom, and has not confessed it far exceeded the most gaudy bed 
of Calceolarias he ever beheld ? Again : Let us look at the Heath 
when in full bloom—say August, and where is the flower-bed 
that contains so numerous an assemblage of florets all expanded 
at one time ? And if we look upon a piece of indifferent light 
land that has been in tillage, and see the gorgeous display of Com 
Poppies, where is the crimson Geranium or Verbena that can 
approach them for colour ? And the past season was very prolific 
i in the large Ox-eye Daisy, which whitened our meadows the same 
1 as the small Daisy does the pastures. Buttercups are also always 
in masses, and dry chalky districts abound in wild Thyme; and 
at a certain period 1 have seen a piece of marsh ground covered 
j over with a blue Scabious. And many other examples might be 
pointed out where Nature performs her flower-gardening in 
masses ; while, on the other hand, the mixed system is also exem¬ 
plified in like manner. Our coppices abound with mixed colours 
after the Primroses of early spring are over, which ought to be 
mentioned amongst the most important of our natural bedders. 
All these things point out that our artificial system, perfect as it 
may seem to be, is merely a copy of Nature. A flower-bed ten 
feet wide is but nothing to a mass of a thousand acres or more of 
Heath or Furze. So that, whatever merit the individual thought 
himself entitled to who introduced the massing system of planting 
flower-beds with plants having flowers all of one colour, he only 
took a lesson from Nature; and the mixed borders are equally 
copies from the same supreme authority. 
I have made these introductory remarks by way of explaining 
how the originators of massing flowers all of one colour in our 
parterres obtained their first hints; but it would be difficult to 
ascertain who availed themselves first of such splendid examples. 
Most likely it was introduced by degrees, the same as most other 
useful things have reached us. The late talented Mr. Loudon, 
than whom no one had better ideas of gardening matters in 
general, advocated it in the early numbers of his “ Gardeners’ 
Magazineand the design of the geometrical garden at Drop- 
more, with the mode of planting; it appeared in one of the numbers 
of that periodical some time, 1 think, about 1829, but I have not 
the number by me now. The configuration of this set of beds 
has subsequently been often called the “ Dropmore design,” and, I 
believe, is still in existence. The varieties of plants, however, 
: have been much increased since then, and it would be worth 
while for those having the number of the “ Gardeners’ Magazine ” 
in question reporting the masses of the plants then used. It is 
possible the plan might have been adopted at other places before 
it was at Dropmore; and I know Scarlet Geraniums were planted 
in single beds before 1829 ; but I am not aware of any place 
where a regular set of beds were planted with distinct colours in 
such a way as to form an harmonious design before that time, 
and certainly its adoption has very much changed the features of 
out-door ornamental gardening; and some go the length to 
regret its adoption. Be that as it may, its almost-universal 
adoption gives but little chance of its being abandoned yet 
awhile, and the great inquiry is for “ something new ” to fill it 
with. And though for individual purposes, beds mixed, divided, 
or formed of series of rings, may at certain times be admissible, 
in a general way they will be found to look best all of one colour ; 
and more than that, a flower garden composed of a very few 
really good and distinct colours will often tell better than one 
boasting of a good collection. But this having been so often 
expressed before, it is needless pursuing the question further ; at 
another time I will explain other old-fashioned modes revived.— 
CEOSS BETWEEN THE CABNATION AND 
PINK. 
The pretty Dianthus you mention was sent to you by me, and 
was one of many seedlings from purple and scarlet-lake Carna¬ 
tions by the pollen of a handsome, dark, Indian Pink. I again 
made the same cross about two years afterwards, and sent an 
