August  22,  1895. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
181 
sufficiently  in  evidence  as  to  show  what  was  iutended.  So  is  this  very 
noticeable  through  miles  and  miles  of  rural  England.  Compared  with 
home  (Irish)  experience  we  have  distinctly  the  advantage. 
From  Charing  Cross  to  Chatham  by  South-Eastern  Railway — the  end 
of  my  tether  in  “  Sunny  Kent”  this  time — I  am  on  the  qui  vive,  after 
leaving  London,  to  note  all  matters  horti — and  agri — cultural.  By  New 
Cross  and  Lewisham  the  edible  and  msthetic  seems  to  be  mainly  repre¬ 
sented  by  Scarlet  Rinners  and  Sunflowers,  both  of  which  appear  to 
thrive  amazingly,  but  as  we  approach  Bexley  the  great  fruit  grounds 
come  into  evidence.  Hop  gardens,  which  ot  late  years  have  approached 
metropolis  ward  8  as  far  as  Eltham,  look  very  promising.  Signs  of  the 
times  are  visible  at  Hartford  in  front  of  the  fine  factories  of  Messrs. 
Burroughs  &  Wellcome,  where  neat  gravel  walks  and  bright  flower 
thousands  or  hundreds  of  thousands  are  here  I  know  not,  but  am  better 
prepared  to  accept  any  statement  rather  than  verify  it  by  counting. 
Another  month  with  the  copious  rainfall  should  put  them  at  their  best 
as  it  is,  except  some  magnificent  beds  in  front  of  the  manager’s  resi¬ 
dence,  imagination,  which  cannot  here  be  a  vain  thing,  must  atone  for 
the  shortcomings  of  the  season.  He  with  the  hoe  straightens  his  back 
for  a  moment  as  I,  somewhat  fearful  of  arrest,  walk  down  the  central 
path,  and  tells  me  that  all  the  singles  are  on  one  side,  all  the  married — 
no,  doubles — are  on  the  other  ;  as  they  should  be,  of  course,  and  as 
everything  here  appears  to  be. 
In  comparing  prices  of  produce  current  in  Tomato  Land  with  Dublin 
ditto  I  do  not  fail  to  note  a  young  Bexley  heathen  with  a  basket^ 
crying,  “  Cowkimbers” — which  would  not  disgrace  an  exhibition  board 
Fig.  2G.— BENTINCKIA  NICOBARICA. 
beds  frame  the  loffy  building-!.  Lower  down  the  line,  in  the  chalk 
cuttings,  red  Valerian  brightens  the  banks  with,  here  and  there,  patches 
of  blue  Sage-like  blossoms  which  we  cannot  determine. 
A  warm  reception  is  given  on  the  first  day  at  Cbatham  by  the  burn¬ 
ing  of  some  timber  stores  in  the  centre  of  the  town,  and  multitudes 
watch  the  combat  ’twixt  fire  and  water.  Old  Rochester’s  stately  castle 
in  the  pretty  grounds  frowns  o’er  the  Medway,  and  one  is  gratified  in 
noting  the  recognition  given  by  the  men  of  Kent  to  the  claims  of 
Ampelopsis  Veitchi.  The  pretty  cemetery  of  St.  Margaret’s,  Rochester, 
is  ablaze  with  the  most  brilliant  of  bedding  plants,  but  evergreens  show 
the  severity  they  endured  from  the  past  winter. 
Returning  for  a  brief  sojourn  in  'Tomato  Land,  more  commonly  known 
as  Bexley  Heath  (and  its  environs),  the  effects  of  protracted  drought  on 
the  light  gravelly  soil  is  much  in  evidence,  “You  must  see  the  Begonia 
farm,”  I  am  told  ;  so  I  see  it,  and  a  Begonia  farmer  steadily  hoeing 
between  the  lines  as  coolly  as  other  farmers  hoe  Turnips.  How  many 
— “tuppence  a  piece,”  but  the  lowest  price  of  the  staple  product,  the 
Tomato,  is  sixpence  per  pound  ;  for  choicer  samples  “tuppence”  more, 
A  call  on  friends  at  Belvedere  finds  them  busily  engaged  converting  the 
last  Raspberries  into  jam  and  gathering  the  earliest  Apples  for  market. 
Here  the  soil  appears  to  be  rather  more  of  a  holding  nature  to  the 
benefit  of  the  Apple  crop,  of  which  some  acres  of  healthy  young  trees 
are  bearing  clean  large  fruit,  and  no  complaint  is  made  of  prices 
realised.  Another  thing  I  notice  is  that  a  running  demand  is  made  by 
local  people  on  the  home-made  jam  ;  they  believe  in  it,  and  the  Missus’s 
reputation  as  the  maker  is  duly  rewarded  by  a  dingling  stream  of  coin 
flowing  into  her  pockec. 
How  bright,  cheerful,  and  pretty  are  the  little  stations  on  the  South- 
Eastern  Railway,  with  just  a  Busp’cion  of  the  stone  age  in  the  use  of 
flints  to  label  the  stations.  Would  that  my  ctun’.rymen  in  Ireland  would 
do  a  little  more  of  this  railway  gardening.  Flints  they  cannot  have, 
flowers  they  can,  and  though  in  the  start  on  this  brief  journey  I  had  to 
