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JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER, 
June  17,  1897. 
WANDERINGS  UPON  WHEELS. 
A  long  anticipated  trip  with  a  daughter,  upon  bicycles,  which 
was  originally  intended  to  include  several  places  of  horticultural 
and  especially  rosarian  interest,  had  unfortunately  to  be  postponed 
two  or  three  times,  with  the  usual  result  that  several  localities  had 
to  be  omitted  altogether.  Mr.  Lindsell  was  unable  to  receive  us  at 
Hitchin  ;  Mr.  Masvley  was  also  not  at  home  at  Berkhamsted  ;  Mr. 
George  Paul  wrote  that  he  was  receiving,  on  the  day  suggested, 
The  Scribe  and  Mrs.  Ancient  Briton  (these  are  not  exactly  the 
names  he  gave  to  his  guests),  but  that  his  son  would  welcome  us  ; 
and  yet,  entirely  through  the  writer’s  fault,  we  did  not  go  even 
there  after  all. 
We  started  soon  after  midday  from  Bedford,  on  May  31st,  our 
destination  being  some  seven  miles  south  of  Dunstable.  We  did 
not  go  the  nearest  way,  as  I  wished  to  visit  the  grand  old  rectory 
garden  of  my  childhood,  not  far  from  the  scene  of  Mr.  Empson’s 
horticultural  triumphs,  which  I  should  like  to  have  glanced  at.  The 
old  garden  was  but  little  changed  :  many  of  the  trees  looked  pretty 
nearly  the  same,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  as  they  did  fifty  years  ago. 
Even  the  Asparagus  bed,  in  the  old  place,  looked  exactly  as  it  used 
to,  with  apparently  the  same  Raspberries  growing  beside  it.  One 
tree,  a  yellow  Chestnut,  had  grown  considerably,  and  become  quite 
a  fine  specimen.  I  was  told  it  was  one  of  the  biggest  in  the  county. 
It  must  be  a  very  slow-growing  variety,  for  it  certainly  altered  very 
little,  in  my  recollection,  during  my  childhood  and  early  manhood. 
Away  again  south,  with  little  worthy  of  notice  save  our 
continued  blessings  on  the  Beds  County  Council,  or  whoever  is 
responsible  for  the  truly  magnificent  roads  of  the  county,  till 
Dunstable  is  reached.  What  a  pity  so  much  of  those  fine  downs 
is  under  plough.  Surely  that  uncanny-looking  chalk  soil  would 
bear  sweet  short  grass,  with  greater  advantage  to  the  pocket  as 
well  as  to  the  eye,  than  ordinary  farm  crops  in  these  dry  seasons. 
I  was  amused,  on  leaving  Dunstable,  where  we  had  to  ask  our  way, 
to  be  told  that  after  taking  a  certain  turn,  we  were  to  “bear  a 
little  to  the  left.”  This  was  warmly  impressed  on  us  as  a  parting 
injunction.  Somehow  or  other  this  tickled  me  much,  for  if  there 
had  been  a  turning  to  the  left  (and  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  was 
not  one)  we  must  either  take  it  or  leave  it,  and  I  could  not  think 
where  the  “little”  came  in.  The  lady  solved  the  matter  by 
persistently  keeping  on  the  left  side  of  the  road,  but  it  did  not 
seem  to  me  (we  were  now  in  Bucks)  any  better  than  the  other. 
That  night  we  admired  a  vicarage  garden  at  our  resting-place, 
reduced  from  chaos  to  admirable  order  by  the  vicar  and  his  sister 
with  the  help  of  an  occasional  boy,  and  I  told  them  of  two  or 
three  of  the  principal  faults  of  the  ordinary  groom  and  gardener. 
One  is  that  he  will  sow  everything  too  thickly,  and  not  thin  early 
enough.  Another  is  that  on  putting  out  plants,  say  Strawberries 
or  the  Cabbage  tribe,  he  will  dig  his  ground  -and  plant  as  he  digs. 
The  truth  that  such  things  like  to  be  planted  in  firm  hard  ground 
is,  I  venture  to  say,  very  generally  unknown  to  the  ordinary 
oottage  gardener. 
Another  thing  I  mentioned  is  that,  a  few  days  before,  I  found  a 
man  watering  his  trees.  It  does  not  matter  whether  they  were 
Apple  or  Rose  trees,  or  whether  it  was  water  or  liquid  manure. 
He  was  putting  it, ‘a  few  inches  wide  only,  just  round  the  stems. 
Touching  him  upon  the  shoulder  I  said,  “If  your  wife  were  going 
to  give  you  a  cup  of  tea,  is  this  the  end  of  your  arm  she  would  put 
it  to?”  “No.”  “Why  not?”  “Because  I  catch  hold  with  the 
other  end.”  “Just  so,”  I  said;  “and  yet  you  are  pushing  their 
tea  against  the  underground  shoulders  instead  of  the  hands  of  your 
trees.  You  know,  if  you  come  to  think,  that  the  trees  catch  hold 
of  nutriment  at  the  end  of  the  roots  instead  of  the  bottom  of  the 
stems.”  He  was  digging  in  &  thoughtful  manner,  with  his  head 
on  one  side,  when  I  left  him.  And  yes  !  I  do  verily  believe  he 
was  thinking. 
I  found  next  day,  when  we  started  about  one  o’clock,  that  it 
was  further  to  Hemel  Hempstead  than  I  had  anticipated  ;  more¬ 
over  the  wheels  of  my  chariot,  for  some  reason  that  was  not 
assuageable  by  oil,  ran  heavily,  and  the  road  was  steep  and  bad. 
We  went  right  through  Lord  Brownlow’s  beautiful  park  at  Ash- 
ridge,  but  the  only  thing  I  saw  they  propagated  in  quantity  was 
pheasants.  Thence  by  an  indifferent  road  to  Kernel  Hempstead, 
and  on  by  a  really  bad  one  to  St.  Albans.  Here  whatever 
mysterious  nutriment  the  iron  steed  wanted  was  found  at  a  cycle 
shop,  and  grateful  tea  refreshed  the  travellers.  A  good  road  and 
easy  going  wheels  to  Hatfield,  whence  we  skirted  the  park  for 
some  distance  without  getting  a  glimpse  of  it,  and  so  nine  long 
lonely  miles  to  Hertford.  A  short  rest,  and  on  again  ;  a  grand  < 
road  to  Ware,  and  thence,  in  the  cool  of  the  evening,  nine  more 
miles  speedily  rattled  off  northward  on  the  old  North  Road  to  our 
destination  for  the  night.  _ 
Next  morning  I  was  a  bit  tired,  the  first  seventeen  miles  on  a 
stiff  machine  of  the  day  before  accounting  for  it,  the  lady  being 
much  the  fresher  of  the  two.  We  had  passed  through  a  swarm  of 
May-flies  on  nearing  the  trout  stream  the  day  before.  And  a  day 
by  the  river  seemed  altogether  more  congenial  than  another 
journey.  Moreover,  Cheshunt  would  keep,  but  a  rise  of  May-fly 
will  not.  So  I  telegraphed  to  Mr.  Paul.  And  the  day  at  Cheshunt 
that  I  have  promised  myself  for  years  has  still  to  come  off. 
On  the  Thursday  we  started  early,  and  rode  to  Bishop’s  Stort- 
ford,  thence  by  train  to  Braintree,  and  then  rode  for  home.  A 
good,  but  very  straight  and  monotonous,  road  it  is  through 
Coggeshall  to  Colchester,  with  nothing  worthy  of  notice  but  some 
splendid  fields  of  Trifolium.  We  arrived  about  twelve  o’clock  at 
the  house  of  Mr .  Orpen,  West  Bergholt,  who  is  now  very  well  known 
and  most  justly  feared  as  a  competitor  in  any  amateur  Rose  class. 
On  entering  his  garden  one  of  the  first  things  I  saw — a  gracious 
compliment  from  my  host — was  a  man  vigorously  and  skilfully 
wielding,  with  due  appreciation,  a  Sproughton  hoe.  Mr.  Orpen 
then  showed  me  a  tool  of  his  own  devising  for  stirring  the  ground  ; 
two  prongs  or  tines  at  the  back  of  an  ordinary  field  hoe,  and  at 
right  angles  to  the  handle  for  pulling  through  the  ground,  and  thus 
“  cultivating  ”  it  after  the  manner  of  a  steam  cultivator  just  as  the 
Sproughton  hoe  is,  after  all,  only  a  modified  duplex  form  of  the 
horse  hoe. 
The  first  Rose  to  catch  my  sight  was  a  splendid  specimen  of 
Fortune’s  Yellow  on  a  south  wall.  The  plant  itself  was  just  in  its 
prime,  about  six  years  old,  covered  with  unusually  good  flowers, 
just  at  their  best,  and  yet  full  of  growth.  There  was  a  great  deal 
of  variation  in  the  colour  of  the  blooms,  and  they  were  rather 
differently  shaped  from  those  on  older  and  less  vigorous  plants, 
being  most  decorative  and  handsome  even  when  fully  expanded. 
Mr.  Cecil  Cant  tells  me  there  is  an  increasing  demand  for  this 
lovely  old  Rose,  but  that  he  still  has  a  good  many  complaints  of 
its  failing  to  bloom  in  some  seasons.  He  thinks  it  requires  a 
warm  autumn  to  ripen  the  wood,  but  Mr.  Orpen’s  certainly  did  not 
have  a  good  autumn  last  year,  and  a  plant  on  a  house  in  Sproughton 
never  fails  to  bloom  well.  It  is  a  Rose  that  everyone  who  has 
room  on  a  south  wall  should  try  ;  and  one  of  its  great  advantages 
is  that  it  is  very  early,  and  always  blooms  in  May. 
Mr.  Orpen’s  Rose  plants,  and  especially  his  Teas,  were  of 
course  of  great  interest  to  me.  They  seemed  backward,  but  so,  I 
suppose,  are  everybody’s.  The  growth  was  not  excessively  strong, 
but  I  know  that  the  relative  positions  of  growth  to  bloom  are  very 
different  at  Colchester  to  what  they  are  at  Sproughton.  There  is 
something  in  the  soil  congenial  to  grand  blooms — is  it  potash  ? 
His  Teas  were  not  so  hard  pruned  as  mine,  but  he  suffers  less 
from  frost,  having  a  valley  beneath  him  for  the  cold  to  “  fall  into.” 
The  number  of  plants  did  not  seem  to  be  great,  but  where  every 
one  is  good,  and  a  weakly  one  is  not  tolerated  but  at  once  removed, 
such  a  large  number  is  not  necessary.  That  Mr.  Orpen  is  a 
wonderful  exhibitor  I  had  known  for  some  time.  I  am  now  also 
prepared  to  say  that  I  think  he  is  a  very  good  cultivator  of  Roses. 
Poppies,  9  iaches  across  ;  Sweet  Peas  very  forward,  having  been 
raised  in  pots  or  boxes  ;  and  a  good  many  Irises  ;  besides  some 
extremely  healthy-looking  fruit  trees,  are  the  other  features  that  I 
particularly  remember.  Mrs.  Orpen  is  very  fond  of  Irises,  and 
was  disappointed  that  my  taste  has  not  yet  been  educated  up  to 
appreciating  the  “  greenery-yallery  ”  tints  of  some  of  her  favourites. 
Then  to  a  welcome  lunch,  the  rooms  decorated  with  Mrs.  Orpen’s 
well-known  skill  and  taste,  and  certain  decorations,  again  ahowing 
the  graceful  courtesy  of  my  host  and  hostess,  being  not  obtruded  on 
my  notice.  There  were  three  or  four  very  handsome  silver  cups 
and  pieces  of  plate,  two  of  which  had  graced  my  sideboard  not  very 
long  ago.  One  of  these  I  do  not  expect  to  handle  again.  We  will 
talk  about  the  other  a  few  w.eeks  hence. 
And  so  we  remounted  our  steeds,  past  Mr.  F^ank  Cant’s,  where 
there  was  no  time  to  linger,  and  on  to  the  veteran’s  at  Myland 
Lodge.  I  was  very  sorry  to  find  him  (Mr.  B.  R  Cant)  in  much 
enfeebled  health,  and  not  able  to  go  far  among  his  Roses.  Cut-back 
H  P.’s  were  beginning  to  show  colour,  and  looked  well  ;  a  few 
Teas  were  out  by  the  walls,  but  we  had  not  really  time  to  see 
anything  but  a  few  new  Roses  under  glass.  The  three  showing 
