348 
THE GARDENING WORLD 
January 27, 1900. 
sisting of five classes instituted for the purpose of 
demonstrating the value of Sweet Peas in all forms 
of decoration known to the florist's art. The total 
amount offered in prizes in the preliminary schedule 
exceeds £90, and this comparatively large sum 
should ensure a display of the most beautiful and 
instructive character. 
Special prizes are invited, but they must, in 
accordance with the resolution passed at the Edin¬ 
burgh meeting, be free from any trade conditions. 
Already several firms have intimated their intention 
of providing the prizes in certain classes, and at this 
meeting it was decided to accept Mr. Henry Eck- 
ford’s generous offer of £15, the sum offered in 
class one for forty-eight bunches of Sweet Peas in 
not less than thirty-s ; x varieties, an offer made by 
the Wem veteran to commemorate the fact that this 
is the twenty-first year of his work in selecting and 
cross-fertilising Sweet Peas. Mr. H. J. Jones' offer 
to supply the prizes in class twenty-five, for an 
epergne of Sweet Peas, £2 17s. ; and Mr. R. Syden¬ 
ham’s offer to supply the prizes in two of the 
amateur classes, amounting to upwards of £5, were 
accepted and acknowledged. With reference to the 
rules and regulations for competitors it is worth while 
noting that from subscribers of 10s. 6d. and upwards 
no entrance fees will be demanded, but non-sub¬ 
scribers must pay an entrance fee of 5s. to entitle 
them to compete in any six classes (subject to 
divisional schedule regulations), but a further 
entrance fee of 5s. must be paid if this number is 
exceeded. 
Conference proceedings, subscribers’ tickets, publi¬ 
cation of report, and other matters were referred 
to, but reserved for final discussion and settlement 
at the committee meeting to be held on Friday, 
February 23, by which date the complete schedule, 
regulations, &c., &c., will be ready for acceptance 
and immediate publication. 
Meanwhile the committee desires the sympathy 
and financial assistance of all horticulturists, so that 
the forthcoming celebration may be made the un¬ 
qualified success its interest and importance 
demands. Any surplus funds remaining after the 
payment of prizes and necessary expenses will be 
given to the gardening charities. 
Further particulars can be obtained from the Hon. 
Secretary, Mr. R. Dean, V.M.H., Ranelagh Road, 
EallDg. 
CUT FLOWERS. 
To keep up a supply of these, from Christmas till 
April, when bulbs have chiefly to be relied upon, is 
a matter of some consideration. Undoubtedly the 
greatest strain is felt between the Roman Hyacinths 
going off and the large flowering varieties coming 
in. But if a good selection is made from a reliable 
source, some of the later sorts force more readily 
than is supposed. They include such as Lady Clin¬ 
ton, La Grandesse, White General Pelissier, Baron 
Von Tuyll (red), Grand Maitre, Marie (blue), Charles 
Dickens (blush with pink stripes), and Ida (yellow). 
The latter colour no doubt is the most difficult to 
obtain; therefore Daffodils will mostly have to be 
relied upon. In my opinion the best of the doubles 
is the old Van Sion for forcing, as two or three 
flowers can mostly be relied upon from one bulb. In 
singles I must vote for Princess. 
White of course will be kept up for a long period 
with Narcissus Paper White, and Lily of the Valley. 
Those of the latter that are forced now will have 
better spikes than those forced earlier. When 
putting the latter into heat a good plan is to cover 
the crowns with damp moss ; it helps to plump up 
the crowns, assisting them to burst more readily. 
For pink the beautiful Begonia Gloire de Lorraine 
has and is still playing a great part where it can be 
well grown. To succeed this, Dielytra spectabilis 
might now be brought on. Red I have not mentioned ; 
but a visit to Covent Garden, or even from the 
hawker at this time of the year will furnish a lesson 
concerning this. — W. Waite, Butterhnowle, South- 
fields. 
--— 
PRUNING. 
Your correspondent, j. H. D., in his notes on the 
“ Hardy Fruit Garden," January nth, p. 311, gives 
some very useful hints on the training of young trees, 
but, as I think, omitted one important point in con¬ 
nection therewith, viz., pruning. Now I am sure, 
judging from my own experience in the matter when 
a young man, that a great many are given a knife 
and sent out to prune without any thought being 
given as to whether they know anything about the 
work or not, with the result that they go round a tree 
of bush " like a cooper round a barrel." There are 
one or two points that ought to be kept clearly in 
mind when one goes to prune, and the first I think is 
caution. Take a look at the tree or bush before you 
put the knife to it—if you take out a shoot you 
cannot put it back again. Having settled what is 
required to be done, go to work with a will, and as a 
general rule finish shortening in the terminal shoots 
in bush or standard trees by leaving the bud nearest 
the point looking outward. A little observation will 
show anyone the sense of this point. Keep all trees, 
&c., free and open, and then there will be no neces¬ 
sity for the carving away of so much fruit-bearing 
wood as used to obtain formerly. In training trees 
on walls, and especially with Plums, take great care 
not to lay in too long shoots, as one may be tempted 
to do on account of the great growths they usually 
make, the outcome I am strongly inclined to believe 
being long blind leaders which become useless. In 
nailing in young wood, those engaged on such work 
should make it a point to place the first nail on the 
inside of the shoot, or in such a way that it will draw 
it in to the branch from which it springs, otherwise 
you are apt to split it away from the parent branch. 
It would entail a too lengthy article to go fully into 
every point in connection with pruning and nailing, 
but the above hints with a little consideration will 
suggest to any practical person what ought to be 
done.— Wm. Richards, Rosehall, Midlothian. 
THE HISTORY OF GARDENS. 
(Concluded from p. 330.) 
We wound up last week’s report of Mr. Sieveking's 
lecture by a reference to the Elizabethan gardens. 
We may now step across to France and view her 
gardens of a slightly later period. In doing 
so we cope with one of the very greatest names 
in gardening, that of Andre Le Notre, who 
planned the famous garden at Versailles. Despite 
his endeavours to keep down expenses in 
the planning of these magnificent gardens, 
they yet cost /8 000,000 to complete. On one 
occasion the fountains cost £3,000 to set going for 
one half hour! Le Notre was educated as an 
architect. But the Versailles gardens of to-day are 
not the great creations they originally were. The 
original design has been entirely altered by well- 
meaning " reformers " The old-time gardens were 
necessarily architectural, and contained open air 
diawing-rooms and dining-rooms. They were very 
fond of giving theatrical names to the various por¬ 
tions of their gardens, such as Theatres d’Eau for 
fountains ; Salons and Salles de Bal for groves, &c., 
a symmetry, not for solitude. 
A representation of the gardens was shown by 
means of the lantern. The lantern illustration but 
proved the description previously given, that the gar¬ 
dens were areas of architectural magnificence rather 
than gardens in the strict sense. Everything was 
laid out on the square, or in long parallel lines 
Alleys opened off in fan-shape from " curtains ” of 
trained trees forming loDg perspectives bordered 
with Yews. At the end of the alleys were statues 
of Jupiter, Mars, and Pluto, and fountains of extra¬ 
ordinarily massive dimensions and designs were cen¬ 
tred everywhere. Alleys, consisting of groups of 
children in bronze, carrjing vases, and from which 
water fell into marble basins, were other features. 
Toward the eighteenth century the English ideas 
of gardening began to pervade the gay Frangais, and 
it was at that time that the great Versaillian gardens 
were stripped of so much of their glory. Before 
leaving Versailles, one fuitber distinctive feature 
should be mentioned. This was the Salle de Bal or 
Dance Room, though it was not really a room. It 
took the iorm of an arena, around which arose cir¬ 
cular tiers of seats. Audiences rested on these cir¬ 
cumambient, terrace like seated positions, and 
witnessed the performances in the centre. The de¬ 
sign of the Versailles gardens " was the supreme 
formula of a complete art, and the expression at its 
highest power of a civilisation arrived at its full 
expansion.” Le Notre is said to have had a hand 
in designing St. James' Park, London. While Le 
Notre’s creations were being spread throughout all 
the Continent of Europe, John Reid, gardener to 
Sir George Mackenzie, was advocating another and 
thriftier style of gardening in his book " The Scots 
Gardener.” His plans for a pleasure garden were 
quite on a likeness with many of ours of the 
present time. 
The Dutch style of gardens, almost akin to the 
French, was introduced to England by William III. 
and Mary. In detail the Dutch style is, or was, too 
minute, however, and was altogether on a smaller 
scale than that of the elaborate French. Slopes, 
mounds, and canals are the leading characteristics of 
the Dutch gardens. Hampton Court was mentioned 
as the finest sample in England of the Dutch style. 
A splendid illustration of Hampton Court gardens, as 
they appeared in their original form during Queen 
Anne’s reign, was shown at this juncture. Queen 
Anne rooted up many of the Box plants in these 
gardens, because she disliked the smell. The archi¬ 
tects, or rather designers, of the Hampton Court 
Gardens were Beaumont, one of Le Notre’s pupils, 
and the English landscapists, London and Wise. 
The latter two combined the best features of the 
French and Dutch styles. Kent had a hand in 
modifying some of its parts at a later period. 
Sir William Temple, of Moor Park, Farnham, 
wrote a book in which he gives what he considers 
the most perfect position for a garden. It should be 
on the slope of a hill, with two terraces, one above 
the other and reached by a flight of steps. Stowe, 
in Buckingham, was also portrayed. This was laid 
out about 1744 by Bridgman who was one of the 
earliest to adopt “ gentle disorder in the planting of 
his shrubberies." Then Mr. Sieveking gave a notice 
to the poet Pope, referring to him as undoubtedly 
one of the pioneers of the modern garden. Pope 
derided the absurdities of the cut-box system and of 
verdant sculpture, writing an epistle to Lord 
Burlington on the “ Aesthetics of Gardening ” and 
demonstrating by practical example his own views in 
his villa garden at Twickenham. The Hextable 
audience had the privilege of seeing Pope’s garden 
from a plan left by John Serle, his gardener, in 1744, 
a garden cf five acres, and which did so much 
toward the advancement of modern garden design¬ 
ing. Mounts, vineyards, obelisks, orangeries, &c. 
were all to be seen there, and magnificent grottos, 
the features of the garden. 
The reaction which now set in, favouring the 
natural st>le of garden design, was largely due to 
letters from Jesuit fathers who wrote describing the 
Chinese Emperor's gardens at Pekin. The Chinese 
trace back their gardens to a period 2600 b.c. Artifi¬ 
ciality was certainly the rule, yet it was a natural-look¬ 
ing artificiality. Hills of from 20 ft. to 60 ft. high, 
with rough, rocky dells, valleys, plains, &c., were con¬ 
trived, and lakes, pleasure-houses and so on were 
introduced in the composition. An interesting cita¬ 
tion as to how Kew Gardens came to have their 
Chinese pagodas, was that which awarded the honour 
to Sir William Chambers, the king's architect, who 
was afterwards appointed to their superintendence. 
While a boy he had lived in China, thus the idea. 
One writer on gardens about the middle of last 
century argued that all gardens should be so designed 
that their parts inspired all the different emotions of 
the human heart. A garden was even planned on 
this principle, somewhere in Shropshire. It con¬ 
tained Vines, Weeping Willows, urns, trophies, 
garlands, columns and mottos and inscriptions 
which sought to " raise emotions" befitting the 
character of the ground, whether grand, savage, 
melancholy, beautiful or horrid. 
Kent was the originator of modern park scenery. 
Bridgman, by inventing the "Ha Ha" or sunk 
fence, succeeded in uniting park and garden. Kent 
went too far, however. He followed Nature in her 
ugly, as well as finer aspects. In Kensington Gar¬ 
dens he went so far as to plant dead trees ! Esher, 
which was shown, is one of Kent's productions. 
Blenheim was another of his successes. Brown's 
idea of design was that of spaciousness, converting 
old English gardens into ample, flowing parks. 
Toward the end of last century when English 
gardens (Jardins Anglais) were being laid out in 
France, the French landscapists had the assistance 
of one Thomas Blaikie, a Scotsman, who did good 
service in some of their chief gardens. A number 
of illustrations of famous gardens weie shown and 
referred to in success : on, but Mr. Sieveking had to 
curtail what was already a long lecture Votes of 
thanks were passed to him and the chairman, on the 
motion of the Principal of the Swanley Horticul¬ 
tural College. The meeting thereupon dispersed,— • 
Harrison, D. 
