gentlemen's gardens; and there is no doubt that many shrubs and herbaceous plants, which we never think of attempting to grow except under protection, might, with a very little care and attention, become permanent denizens of our gardens and shrubberies. Probably few are aware that the common Camellia will stand with impunity an ordinary English winter. Mr. Mongredien says that "if protected during the first two or three years after being planted out, and when once established, it proves in the climate of London quite as hardy as the common laurel, and blooms as profusely as in a conservatory. It is true that, from its habit of flowering early in the spring, the blossoms are sometimes damaged by the nipping easterly winds, but this occurs only in unfavourable seasons; and even if the tree never flowered at all, its lovely foliage would still make it one of the most beautiful evergreens of which our gardens can boast. A plant of the variety Donkelarii has stood out for twelve years in a garden at Forest Hill with a northern aspect, without the slightest protection during the severest winters, and now forms a good-sized bush, densely clothed with magnificent foliage. The Camellia ought to be planted out in every garden, and with a little attention for the first year or two, it would prove quite hardy, at least in the more southern counties, and each season it would increase in attractiveness."

The climate of the south of England is far more congenial to the introduction of foreign trees and shrubs than that of the northern counties, not from the greater severity of the winters in the north, for the minimum temperature of the year is often as low in Kent or Hampshire as in Yorkshire or Northumberland, but from the shorter and cooler summers. Many plants absolutely require a considerable period of high temperature to enable them to ripen their wood sufficiently to withstand the winter frosts, and especially to induce them to flower. In many parts of Scotland, however, the climate is as favourable to horticulturists as in any district of England. In the Duke of Sutherland's estate at Dunrobin, on the east coast of Sutherlandshire, Hydrangeas, myrtles, and other half-hardy plants, grow as freely and as unchecked out of doors as they do in Devonshire or Cornwall. The equalizing effect of the Gulf Stream on the temperature is no doubt the cause of this special immunity from frost. The proximity of the seacoast is not generally favourable to the growth of trees and shrubs, not so much from the saltness of the air as from the prevalence of high winds, which are very injurious to growing vegetation. Young and tender shoots which will bear a moderate amount of cold, will sometimes be scorched as if by fire by a tempestuous night.

Mr. Mongredien's book is intended as a repertorium of everything connected with the choosing, planting, and treatment of English and foreign trees and shrubs, and contains an immense mass

of information for any one whose tastes lie in this direction. Its defects are rather of omission than of commission. The plan promises a completely exhaustive treatment of the subject: in the first place we have an alphabetical list, with brief descriptions, of 621 trees and shrubs, selected as desirable for planting in the open air in this country; followed by a classification of them under a variety of headings, as to their height, their foliage, their time of flowering, the colour of their flowers, their fruit, their timber, and other points. It is illustrated by a number of very pretty woodcuts, of which we subjoin a specimen. The principle on which these 621 species

have been selected is not always obvious. Why, for instance, is our common Fuchsia (miscalled Fuchsia coccinea, as Dr. Hooker has shown) excluded, forming as it does the glory of every cottage-garden in the Isle of Wight and in Devonshire, the stems assuming almost

a tree-like character; or the Berberis aquifolium, which, with its glossy leaves and very early flowers, is so deservedly a favourite in every shrubbery? In the enumeration of winter-flowering plants we miss also the beautiful Forsythia, and several others which might have been mentioned. An exceedingly useful list is that of "species which thrive in the smoke of cities," in which Mr. Mongredien names the horse-chestnut, Ailantus glandulosa, Virginian creeper, almond, Artemisia abrotanum, Aucuba, Catalpa, Cydonia japonica, laburnum, fig, ivy, Cape jasmine, privet, Paulownia imperialis, Phillyrea media, plane, evergreen oak, Rhamnus Alaternus, sumach, flowering currant, Robinia pseudacacia (commonly called the acacia), Sophora japonica, and guelder rose; a very useful list to cultivators of suburban gardens, but again very incomplete. In London gardens the lilac is everywhere the companion of the laburnum; magnificent hawthorn-trees could be shown within two miles of Charing Cross; the roads in the suburbs are everywhere adorned in early spring with the beautiful light-green foliage of the lime; while the sides of the houses are gay in the summer with the gorgeous flowers of the hardy passion-flower, or the gigantic leaves of the Aristolochia Sipho; nor should the apple, the pear, and the cherry have been omitted, if it is only for the wealth of their flowers. It is worthy of remark that the smoke of an ordinary town is not nearly so destructive to vegetation as that poured forth from the chimneys of manufactories or chemical works. Flowers will be found to thrive in gardens in the very heart of London, which many a Lancashire gentleman would give almost any money to establish even in his greenhouses. Notwithstanding the deficiencies we have named, The Planter's Guide' is a book that should be in the hands of every one interested in the subject; and we hope it may be the means of attracting attention to the great value and importance of ornamental planting in improving the character of our lawns, shrubberies, and parks.

If we now turn from trees and shrubs to herbaceous plants, we enter on a still wider field, and one more within the reach of every lover of nature. Arboriculture, after all, must always be the pursuit of those only who have both money and space at their command; floriculture may be followed by every cottager, and even by every dweller in a town who has a window-sill at his disposal; and we doubt whether the latter does not derive the most pleasure from it. Although many of the favourite flowers of the last two or three generations will probably always hold a place in our gardens, and deservedly, yet the number of species that have been introduced of late years worth cultivating for their beauty, and within the reach of every one who possesses a flower-pot, is very large; and as a hand-book for this class of plants, though treating only of a section of them, plants especially adapted for rock-work, we can most

cordially recommend Mr. Robinson's 'Alpine Flowers for English Gardens.' The easy and lively style in which it is written, no less than the excellence of its matter, will commend it to every lover of plants.

says:

Mr. Robinson is no mere enthusiast in his subject when he "This book is written to dispel a very general error, that the exquisite flowers of alpine countries cannot be grown in gardens, and as one of a series of manuals having for their object the improvement of our out-door gardening, which, it appears to me, is of infinitely greater importance than anything that can ever be accomplished in enclosed structures, even if glass sheds or glass palaces were within the reach of all." His first concern is with the structure of rockeries, in the mode of building which not only is the taste still displayed, or at all events till quite recently, barbarous and inartistic in the extreme; but it would seem as if the very conditions necessary for the health of the plants were studiously neglected. The ordinary idea of the treatment of rock-plants, judging from the hideous monstrosities which may be seen in many a gentleman's garden, is that you have nothing to do but to poke them in between the chinks of perfectly bare stones or clinkers piled together in a promiscuous heap, in order to present them in their native habitats. A gardener who commits such an absurdity as this, can never have ascended a mountain with his eyes open. To quote again from Mr. Robinson:-" Mountains are often bare, and cliffs are usually devoid of soil; but we must not conclude therefrom that the choice jewellery of plant-life scattered over the ribs of the mountain, or the interstices of the crag, live upon little more than the mountain air and the melting snow! Where will you find such a depth of well-ground stony soil, and withal such perfect drainage, as on the ridges of debris flanking some great glacier, stained all over with tufts of crimson saxifrage? Can you gauge the depth of that narrow chink, from which peep tufts of the diminutive and beautiful Androsace helvetica? No; it has gathered the crumbling grit and scanty soil for ages and ages; and the roots enter so far that nothing the tourist carries with him can bring out enough of them to enable the plant to live elsewhere." Alpine plants are peculiarly exposed to sudden alternations of heat and cold, of moisture and dryness. The cold, almost frosty night will be followed, in July and August, by an unclouded day, when the rays of the sun beat on the unsheltered surface of the rock with an intensity that would scorch up many an English meadow plant. Only a very small proportion of alpine plants are annuals; and they are frequently provided with a storehouse of nourishment in the form of rosettes or tufts of thick succulent leaves; but their chief water-supply is through their roots; and thus we find that while our garden annuals have fibrous roots of insignificant dimensions, and even

our forest trees will seldom strike their roots to a greater depth than the height of their foliage, the roots of alpine plants scarcely an inch in height will be found to penetrate the chinks between the rocks full of rich earth, to the depth of sometimes more than a yard, or forty times the height that they venture into the air. The neglect of this most essential condition for the growth of alpine plants is of itself amply sufficient to account for the failure which has generally accompanied the attempts to introduce these lovely flowers to our rockeries. A good depth of soil is indeed more indispensable to these plants than the presence of rock and stone. They no doubt prefer to expand their flowers and extend their green shoots over the bare rock; and where rock-work is artistically managed, this faint attempt at a reconstruction of their native habitat adds greatly to the picturesqueness of the effect. But many of them will flourish equally well in open borders, and even when planted in pots, with a few stones about them to protect the roots from the direct action of the sun, if only the two requisites are attended to, of constant moisture and perfect drainage; and hence they are invaluable acquisitions to the cottage or window gardener. The Saxifrages, the beautiful purple Aubrietia, with respect to which Mr. Robinson says, "rock-works, ruins, stony places, sloping banks, and rootwork suit it perfectly; no plant is so easily established in such places, nor will any other alpine plant clothe them so quickly with the desired vegetation," the various species of Arabis, the alpine Primulas, all make excellent bedding plants. The ease with which a new alpine can be domesticated in our climate is shown by the rapid spread of the lovely early forget-me-not, Myosotis dissitiflora, brought not many years since from the Alps near the Vogelberg, now to be had from every nurseryman, and the treasure of many a cottage garden, with its exquisite sky-blue flowers, continuing from mid-winter till early summer.

But it is not alpine flowers only which will repay the small amount of trouble necessary for their introduction. Many plants which are never grown without the protection of a greenhouse, do not require any elevation of temperature for their successful growth, but merely an absence of great changes both of temperature and moisture. This is especially the case with not a few of the most delicate ferns, such as the elegant maidenhair, and the two fragile little filmy-ferns; and the requisite uniformity of temperature and moisture can be obtained out of doors by the erection of a partially underground grotto or ravine of rocks, through which water is perpetually trickling, the entrance being protected by a screen of foliage from the direct influence of the weather. It is astonishing how equable a climate can be obtained by a simple device of this kind. The drawing given on p. 359 is from such a rock-cave constructed in the grounds of one of our most scientific and success