It is to be regretted that the palace is not nearer the garden; however, its effect amidst the vineyards is wonderful, and the views in the various meadows are so exceedingly fine, that it may be called the heaven of Germany.

I give you my best thanks for your goodness, in recommending me to all gardeners in my tour in England, to whom I am sincerely obliged for the kind reception which I every where met with. I remain, Sir, &c.

Ball's Pond, May 14. 1829.

JACOB RINZ.

ART. VI. Design and Description of a Gardener's House built in the Gardens at Worksop Manor, the Seat of the Right Honourable the Earl of Surrey, with some Remarks on these Gardens. By ROBERT ABRAHAM, Esq., Architect.

Dear Sir,

HAVING been repeatedly solicited by some of your horticultural friends to send you a sketch of the gardener's cottage, erected from my designs, in the garden of the Earl of Surrey, at Worksop Manor, I have now determined to do so.

As this

cottage is allowed to be one of the most convenient and elegant of its kind (fig. 9.), and has excited the admiration of the company who have visited that place, perhaps a sketch of it inserted in the Magazine may be of some interest to your readers.

9

In rearing such respectable habitations for the comfort of meritorious servants, the Earl of Surrey is not only deserving present encomiums, but he will be likewise entitled to the gratitude of posterity, because his example may influence the benevolence of others, and thus secure comfort from family to family through successive generations. This cottage comprises a lobby, an entrance-hall, a sitting-room, an office, a kitchen, a wash-house, and three bed-rooms, besides several other useful appendages. It is placed at the northern extremity of the garden, partly within and partly without the boundary wall, and so situated that the gardener, from his office (fig. 10. e), will have a command of the principal entrance. There is also a back approach and yard (p), by which all persons connected with the house can pass unob

served. An arrangement, in my opinion, particularly necessary, as no individual of the family but the superintendant himself will be seen within the enclosed area. This completely obviates the inconvenience which induces many gentlemen to prefer single to married men.

The garden at this place,. in the time of the late Duke of Norfolk, was suffered to go to decay; but is now celebrated for its fine forcing-houses, which have lately been reconstructed and fitted up in a most superior manner. To procure fruit in perfection in these houses is now evidently reduced to a mechanical certainty. Besides the improved state of the houses, the whole place has been remodelled. The fruit walls have been new stocked with the modern and most approved varieties of fruits; these trees have now filled their spaces, and, from the scientific manner in which they have been pruned and trained, are as handsome specimens as the most refined gardener or amateur could possibly wish to see. From the systematic arrangement of the kitchen-garden crops, the neat state of the walks and flower-borders, and the uniform appearance of the whole place, this may be classed amongst the bestconducted gardens in the kingdom; and in this opinion I am supported by the concurrence of many others, amongst whom are some of the most distinguished members of the Horticultural Society of London.

In perfecting such establishments as these, much must depend at all times on the taste and spirit of the proprietor. When I last visited Worksop Manor, Mr. Acon assured me that Lord Surrey, on entering any garden, could immediately distinguish between the scientific and mere practical To such discernment may be attributed the improved state of his own residence. I am, dear Sir, &c.

man.

ROBERT ABRAHAM.

Torrington Street, Russel Square, April, 1829.

ART. VII.

On a System of pruning, or rather on a Preventive System of pruning, Forest Trees. By Mr. W. BILLINGTON, M.C.H.S., Author of Facts and Experiments on Oaks, &c. &c.

Sir,

MAY I beg the favour of you to give publicity to the following observations and remarks on the most important part of arboriculture, viz. the art of pruning forest trees, or rather, what should be termed a preventive system of pruning, in your Magazine.

Having had considerable experience in the raising of young plantations of oaks for future navies, in some of the royal forests, and having often seen the ill effects of the erroneous methods generally adopted in pruning forest trees, or, what is as bad, of its too frequent neglect, I incidentally recommended the shortening or cutting in of from one third to two thirds off the extremities of the branches of some larch trees, to give light and room to the young oaks which were nearly destroyed by the larches and other overgrowing and shading stuff. On this account I was accused, by a superior officer, and others of supposed superior skill and knowledge, of having spoiled the larches by such cutting (mind, reader, when they were in full leaf), they asserting that it would bleed them to death at the end of the season; and when it was found that they had not bled to death, but had improved greatly in health and vigour, to prove me wrong, it was as confidently asserted by the same knowing ones, that it had injured them, by drawing the sap out of the stem into the branches. Such was the knowledge or motives of a superior officer and others. Not thinking it worth while to contradict such knowing ones by stating what others said or thought about it, being convinced of its absurdity, and of their motives for opposition; and although the cutting of the side branches from the stems of trees at an early age had been recommended by a writer (Pontey) who was considered good authority, as tending to increase the timber in the trunk or stem; I set to work immediately to prove by experiments whether it tended to increase or retard the growth of the stem, and soon found the wonderful advantage it gave to the trees of whatever kind, as to vigour and increasing the bulk and handsomeness of the stem. I drew up a table of my experiments under the different modes that I tried, which clearly shows the superiority of my system, and the extremely injurious tendency of the other; this I published*, for the information of the public, in a

* Entitled A Series of Facts, Hints, Observations, and Experiments on the different Modes of raising young Plantations of Oaks for future Navies. By W. Billington, M.C.H.S., Superintendant of planting 11,000 Acres in the Forest of Dean. London, 1825. [To be reviewed in our next Number.]

book, in which the process and results are amply and clearly detailed, with a view, if possible, of stopping or checking that widely extended pernicious system of divesting young trees of their side branches.

Since the publication of that work, the public attention has been considerably excited on the mode adopted for planting the royal forests, regarding which blame has attached where it ought not, but on that subject I intend to explain at a future time; and likewise upon the after-management and pruning of the young trees, which is, above all others, of more paramount and lasting consequence, than the mere planting of the trees by any system. Having discovered and proved it by my own experiments, I disclosed to the British public the gross error of that system of pruning, by cutting off the side branches from young trees, and the vast superiority of my system of shortening, or cutting in, the branches, whereby the number of branches are increased, and their tendency to increase in thickness greatly diminished, with the quicker increase of the stem as it respects thickness, length, regular tapering, and superior quality of the timber, as I have clearly pointed out in my publication. Yet I have seen in some later publications a good deal said about my system of pruning, and an endeavour to keep what I have found out by my own actual observations and experience, and communicated to the public, and to represent what I have said and published on that subject, as being the opinions and practice of others, who are to be brought forward by and by as the first who invented, practised, and published the system, when it is probable they might have read my book, which may have strengthened and confirmed their ideas on the subject. Thus keeping me in the background, without ever mentioning what I have said on the subject, though the system, as far as it is understood, has been much extolled. Now it is clear I was the first to publish it, and give instructions to gentlemen and others how it should be performed; but more of this at some future time.

As my ideas are now more mature and confirmed on that most important part of the art termed pruning, but which I think would be better termed a preventive from pruning, I beg to offer a few more remarks on it, hoping to call the attention of every lover of woods and planter of trees to the subject; for, without that after-management, they will generally find themselves sorely disappointed in various points of view. My method I shall take the liberty, in imitation of a recent writer on planting, who appears fond of introducing new terms, to call the Billingtonian System of pruning, training, &c., a name which has been applied to it by a great lover of trees,

planting, and rural life, who much admires and appreciates the system.

The advantages to be derived from it, if properly understood and practised, being incalculable, I will not attempt to describe them, but endeavour, in as concise and clear a manner as possible, to explain the mode by which such advantages may be derived, and refer those who wish to be more minutely informed on the subject to my work, where every process to obtain such great results are clearly detailed, and at greater length than the present paper will allow.

First, then, we must begin with the plants in the nursery at an early age, when they have made a few shoots; some of them will be stronger than others, and two often of nearly an equal size. After the shoots have grown a foot or two, more or less, according to the kind of tree and other circumstances, break out the central or terminal bud; pinch off part of the last or present year's terminal shoot, or cut it off if it is too old or tough to pinch off with the finger and thumb; the strongest horizontal side shoots must be shortened, and prevented from extending too far, by the above method; and the more upright strong shoots, that are competing with the leader, must be cut in rather shorter, to cause them to throw out more smaller branches, as the strongest and most upright shoot must always be left uncut for the leader to form the stem of the future tree. This work must be followed up through every summer while in the nursery, and after they have been planted out and begun to make vigorous shoots; for summer is the best time to do it and twice through the summer would be much better, as some kinds of plants make too vigorous shoots in the growing season; first time about June, second time in August or September. These are the properest seasons for shortening the branches; and as it is such easy and delightful employment, and the seasons so pleasant, I do earnestly hope the fair sex will be induced to study and learn the art, when they may spend many a pleasant hour in healthful and really profitable employment, either alone, or with their spouses or brothers, in imitation of our first parents, when in their state of innocence in the plantations and gardens of Eden; how worthy to be imitated! but I beg pardon, I am digressing from the main subject.

By following up this system with the plants, from their infancy, we procure numerous small branches with buds and leaves, whereby the trees are supplied with nutriment for their support, and the increase of the stem; the quality of the timber is improved by the more numerous elongations from the buds of the young shoots and branches that descend longitudinally