298 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
of beech, horse chestnut and linden (called lime in England) 
as are to be found in the world. The English take a pride 
in these noble trees, too. They are not carved or sculptured 
by ambitious and ignorant persons as one often finds to be 
the case in America. No doubt it has taken long years of 
training to develop this point of view but it is bound to 
come in the new country as it has in the old. 
The Englishman informs the American that the English 
elm is a much finer tree than the American form. This 
sounds absurd to western ears; nevertheless it is perfectly 
true from the English standpoint. When the position is 
reversed and the two trees are compared in the United 
States or Canada the same principle holds. The native tree 
is best in its own locality. American elm is comparatively 
short lived in England while English elm is unsatisfactory 
as compared 
with Ulmus 
Americana in 
the Northern 
United States. 
So the lesson of 
native trees for 
permanent 
planting is im¬ 
pressed at home 
and abroad, a 
few foreign trees 
however have 
found agreeable 
surroundings in 
English parks. 
One of these is 
the Horse chest¬ 
nut which hails 
from Spain. In 
Bushy Park, 
near Hampton 
Court there is 
a triple avenue 
of these trees perhaps a century and a half old and a 
mile long made up of the largest trees of this species 
I have ever seen. Many are to be found with the stem four 
to five feet in diameter and proportionately high. The 
flowering time of these trees is a subject of comment by the 
London papers. In like manner the great beeches of Rich¬ 
mond Park (over 2000 acres in extent) are noble examples 
of their type. The cedar of Lebanon was evidently intro¬ 
duced very early along the valley of the Thames for, here are 
to be found wonderfully imposing individuals of this 
picturesque tree. As an example I photographed one tree 
near the archbishop’s palace at Abington which had a 
spread of branch of over 100 feet. The great horizontal 
base branches were supported by uprights thus forming an 
arbor of wonderful beauty as the tips swept the ground. 
While the parks are modeled after the natural style of 
landscape gardening many of the private gardens follow the 
formal. Nearly all flower and kitchen gardens are formal in 
outline but their boundaries are so well marked by hedges 
and shrubbery that they fit into the whole scheme very 
harmoniously. English parks and gardens are justly 
admired and loved by owner and visitor alike. 
Covent Garden Market, London, England. 
One of the most interesting places in London to the 
Horticulturist is the great center of fruit exchange, Covent 
Garden. Here the business of selling fruit in all quantities 
from the needs of the small consumer to those of the whole¬ 
sale handler goes on from four o’clock in the morning 
until sundown. The retailer has his innings early in the 
morning while the commission agent and the dealer operate 
when most convenient. 
The -market buildings are made up of a number of semi¬ 
glass roofed, depot-like buildings occupying a larger area in 
the heart of London a short distance from the Thames em¬ 
bankment, close 
to the Strand 
and not far from 
Waterloo.bridge. 
The scene at the 
market in early 
m o rrn i n"g i s 
ll i- 
almost inde- 
a 
scribable. For 
the casual vis¬ 
itor the whole 
thing seems to 
be a babel of 
confusion, but 
to the frequent¬ 
ers of the mar¬ 
ket, order and 
system prevail 
and everything 
moves as is in 
the natural order 
of things. 
The great 
produce wagons 
of the truckers from Surrey and the fruit growers 
from the same region are jammed in so tightly that 
extrication seems impossible. The passageways are 
so narrow that push carts move with difficulty. If 
you would hear the cockney accent mixed with the 
brogue of the shires. Covent garden is the place. The Ameri¬ 
can must use his imagination as well as lend a sharp ear if he 
would catch everything that is passing. The Italian and 
German talk with hands and body as well as tongue while 
the cockney accompanies his remarks with emphatic winks 
and expressive grimaces. The interest of the visitor be¬ 
comes divided between the products and the handlers; 
both are mighty interesting. 
The early market is practically over by nine o’clock. 
After this sales go on by commission houses and by auction. 
Much of the fruit is sold by auction. To the onlooker it 
strikes him as a hit or miss method, but there is a good deal 
of method in it after all. The purchaser of large lots 
knows what he is buying as well as the auctioneer what he is 
selling. There is a tremendous amount of desk pounding 
General view of Haarlem, Holland, showing canals and shipping. 
