July 18th, 1885. 
729 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
CHISWICK GARDEN IN JULY. 
A very interesting corner of the world, but a corner 
of which very few people, comparatively speaking, 
know anything, is the garden of the Royal Horti¬ 
cultural Society at Chiswick. The great advance 
that has been made in the cultivation of fruits and 
flowers of late years has often been the subject of 
comment, and this year is especially observable both 
as regards quality and quantity. Very few people 
have anything like an adequate idea of the develop¬ 
ments and improvements that have been effected in 
the horticultural world during the past generation or 
two, and very few, indeed, have any idea of the share 
which this very unobtrusive garden at Chiswick has 
had in the business. 
including most of the aristocracy of England 1 - is 
promenading over the lawns, or slowly moving 
through the conservatories.” They were the days 
before the Society’s unfortunate advent at South 
Kensington, when their domain at Chiswick was 
three times as large as it is now, and when the 
Society was immensely popular and thriving, and 
consequently wealthy. The Chiswick estate was then 
also a model of high-class ornamental gardening, 
according to the best ideas of the day. Some years 
after they undertook, jointly with the Exhibition 
Commissioners, their unfortunate enterprise at South 
Kensington, they relinquished all but ten or eleven acres 
of their ground at Chiswick, and transferred to their 
new domain all the ornamental features of their work, 
portion of this ground, probably a third, or from that 
to a half, being covered with glass. For the carrying 
on of the whole of the work there are some four-and- 
twenty men employed, and the business of the Society 
may be described in the words of Mr. Knight, “ the 
publication of well-ascertained facts, the detection of 
errors of ignorance, and the exposing of the mis¬ 
representations of fraud.” There are three committees 
for the general direction of the work—a Scientific 
Committee, a Fruit Committee, and a Floral Committee, 
each consisting of about thirty experts. They meet 
every fortnight at South Kensington, and at Chiswick 
as often as may be necessary. The kind of subjects 
which come under the attention of these three bodies 
may be easily surmised, and the gardens here are laid 
P0LEJI0NIU1I RICHAEDSONI. 
Chiswick Garden is not a very showy or a very 
extensive one. It comprises somewhere about ten 
acres of ground, and it is laid out and managed 
strictly with a view to utility rather than show. Not 
that it is altogether wanting in a certain old-fashioned 
beauty of its own, and its well-laden fruit trees, its 
pleasant lawn, and numerous plant and fruit-houses 
render it a very interesting and attractive garden, 
though it cannot and does not pretend to compare 
with others which are not burdened by its practical 
duties. There was a time when it could be spoken of 
as “ unique in all England; ” when it was described 
by writers as a sort of paradise here below, with its 
gorgeous displays of flowers, its sheet of ornamental 
water and shady bowers, “whilst,” says one writer, 
speaking of a fete day here, “ the air is ringing with 
music, bursting forth, now in front, now behind, and 
now again far away on one side, band answering 
band ; an immense and most brilliant-looking crowd, 
leaving only the scientific and practically useful part 
of the business at Chiswick. As all the world knows, 
their partnership with the Commissioners was a 
financial fiasco. They were compelled to deliver up 
their beautiful quadrangle to popular exhibition 
purposes, and were thus thrown back entirely upon 
their Chiswick territory, crippled in their finances and 
with the land they had once made an earthly paradise 
in the maws of the brick and mortar demon, never to 
be recovered. Thus it has come about that this 
nationally important Society, to which we are all 
indebted to an extent most people are unaware of, has 
to-day a garden which in many respects is altogether 
unworthy of it, and a degree of popularity not a tithe 
of what it ought to have. 
Mr. A. F. Barron, who for many years has very ably 
superintended this garden, has, as it has been said, 
some ten or eleven acres of ground in which to carry 
on the experimental work of the Society, a large pro- 
out strictly with a view to their experiments. The 
Scientific Committee, for instance, will receive from 
some manufacturer a sample of manure for which 
special capabilities are claimed, or if a sample is not 
sent by the manufacturer, and the thing seems to be 
making its way into popular favour, a sample of it will 
be purchased and its value put to a careful experi¬ 
mental test. It will be applied to plants grown in 
competition with others under precisely identica 
conditions of light and moisture, soil and temperature, 
or it will be tried in comparison with other manures 
of known value, and the actual results will be pub¬ 
lished in the Society’s Journal. A few years ago very 
close attention was given to the subject of tree graft¬ 
ing, and with especial reference to the influence of the 
stock upon the scion. It was demonstrated beyond 
question that very much depended on a judicious 
combination of kinds, and it is now found to be 
practicable to make such selections as will effect in 
