PRIVATE IN CANTERBURY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1360, 16 February 1865, Page 5

PRIVATE IN CANTERBURY.

MK WILSON'S NCBSERT GARDENS. TlltsE ..dens date their ofigln <'»•» the fo m ai»|| t nf Pliristchurch. some 14 years ago, and extensive nursery gardens in Canterbury, and ' are correctly informed, they are the largest and U stocked gardens in New Zealand. Thev are three in number, and consist of four Ja half acres between Cashel and Lichfield streets I four and a halt acres between Barbadoes and Madras streets; whilst the third garden on the Ferry Id more recently formed and planted, is ten acres Vi extent and will shortly expand into fifty acres. At nre«ent therefore, the three gardens comprise lut nineteen acres, all in the highest state of cultivation, and upon which from ten to twenty-five workmen are engaged throughout the course of the vear The gardens contain very many thousands of fruit trees, English forest trees, evergreen and deciduous flowering shrubs and plants, and are the source whence has been derived a very large proportion of the fruit trees which now fill the gardens of the province with a profusion of fine fruit, and of the forest trees which now ornament Christchurch, and have created such a remarkably improved appearance in the features of the surrounding country.

To describe these gardens in their order, there is first the nursery garden in Casliel street, which is securely enclosed by a very lofty and well-kept gorse fence, within which there is a closely planted line of lofty Australian blue gums and poplars, whose dense foliage and branching arms, completely inter-twined, afford the most complete shelter from all winds. Immediately in front of this screen there is a broad belt of fruit trees, running round the whole of the garden, consisting mainly of apples, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, figs, filberts, medlars, quinces, and almonds, besides immense quantities of gooseberries, black, red, and white currants, raspberries, strawberries, and other small fruit. A spacious grass walk, 726 feet long, stretches from the entrance pate to the eastern end of the garden; at right angles to this walk, and at distances of 132 feet apart, the garden is intersected with lofty and well-kept Cape broom fences, thereby forming convenient nursery compartments. These consist of 6 beds, each 18 feet in width, with 4 feet intervening foot-paths. The beds in some of the compartments are all densely filled with a most luxuriant growth of from one to «ix year old fruit trees, of the kinds which we have already enumerated. Other beds are filled with forest trees, such as English and mossy cupped oaks, English ash, including some very tall-stemmed ash trees, upon the summit of which some weeping ash are growing gracefully pendent. There are also quantities of the Scotch and English elm; and, also, the weeping and American lime trees, with mountain ash, horse chestnuts, and sweet or Spanish chestnuts, besides hornbeams, common and purple-leaved beech trees, with Lombardy and black Italian poplars; the former mainly remarkable for their handsome upright habit of growth; and the latter recommending itself br its rapidity of growth and the large size to which it speedily attains, rapidly yielding timber, well suited for very many purposes of utility. Side by side wish some of these will also be found quantities of the Norway and other maples, besides the

well-known and handsome folinged English sycamore, and the noble leaved P/atanus Orientalis, or eastern plane, some four feet and the first, so far as we know, which have yet been grown in New Zealand. We also noticed some beautiful birch trees,

about seven feet in height, with quantities of English laburnum, and Cobbett's acacia or American locust trees, of all ages and sizes. The latter not only makes a very impenetrable hedge, but, when thinly planted, rapidly becomes a lofly tree, and jieldjj fine timber of an excessively hard and most enduring character, and largely used in the States of America for the purpose of ship-building.

Amongst coniferous trees Ave noticed considerable quantities of the pinaster fir tree, and still more especially of the hardy Pinus Muritima, which will yet clothe with luxuriant green the slopes and summits of our driest and ever shifting sand-hills, for which this highly ornamental tree seems to possess an especial preference. We were also astonished to notice fo many hundreds—we believe we might say thousands—of noble walnut trees, from five to twelve feet in height; these have all been raised from the well-known French walnuts grown and fruited so abundantly at Akaroa.

Of hedge plants we noticed large quantises of thorns, privets, sweet-briars, thorn acacia, English, Cape, and Portugal white brooms, each of which have their respective uses for the purposes of protection, ornament, or shelter. Leaving forest trees and hedge plants we come to ornamental evergreens and deciduous flowering plants; first amongst which we noticed quantities of the handsome English holly, besides some dozens of the still moie beautiful variegated hollies, budded or grafted upon the common green holly and presenting the well-known varieties of gold and silver-edged; the hedgehog and broad-leaved Dahoon holly, all of these beirig the much admired ornaments of all well-kept ornamental grass lawns. We were equally surprised and delighted to find some hundreds of the noblest of, all beautiful evergreens, the Rhododendron Ponticum, and other similar varieties of this handsome flowering occupant of all English shrubberies. In close proximity to these are many hundreds of fine large plants of the common Emjlieh laurel, a familiar and well-known ■evergreen, asserting its right to a place in all shrubberies and ornamental grounds by its large and handsome shining green leaves;andeqnttlly noticeable were a quantity of fine plants of the Laurustinns, esteemed not more for its handsome evergreen foliage than for its admired peculiarity of blooming profusely throughout the whole of the winter. We also noticed some plantsof the well-known Portugal Laurel, and of the equally familiar Bay Laurel, or Sweet Bay, and near to these were plants of the Aucuba Japonira, or gold Japan tree, with remarkably broad green leaves, profusely blotched with golden spots. We al*o noticed plants of the handsome climbing and delightfully fragrant Wistaria Sinensis, of the broad-leu veil Photinia Serulala, and the handsome flowering Weigelea Rosea, and of the still more handsome snow-ball guelder rose, with plants of the early spring flowering scarlet Pyrus Japonica, many hundreds of the Spirea Cory'nbosa, or handsome New South Wales May, besides many other varieties of the Spirea recently introduced from England. Among climbing plants we noticed the Toxicodendron, or poUon oak; three varieties of the English ivy; be*Hes several sortß of climbing ruses. We also observed some handsome Chinese Arboroita, and * quantity of the still more handsome evergreen cypress, besides a number of the most beautiful of all cypresses, the Cupressus Lambertiana. Our attention was attracted by handsome specimens of the beautiful Pin us hmignis, and of the equally ornamental and lofry Pinus Excelm. Amongst coniferous plants in pots we observed quantities of pinasters, Scotch and spruce firs, Pinus Muritima, stone pines, and many other varieties of handsome growing pinus, cedars, cypresses, junipers, and other similar plants and trees, precarious to transplant unless established in fi>wer-pots, as these are, whence they can be planted out at any time, with a ball of earth adhering, which ensures f their transplanted with the most perfect | certainty of growth. We further observed plants of Ithe American Ossage orange, of the evergreen and deciduous fruit-bearing Barberry, of the Pomegranate, of the handsome Rose Acacia, of the sweet

smelling Buddlea Globosa, with fine plants of the Salisburia Adianiifolia, or Maiden-hair-tree, with quantities of Box trees, and Siberian, Persian, and white lilacfe, together with broad-leaved American thorns; besides a large number of budded plants of the double scarlet, double white and single scarlet thorns, the latter, especially, from its great profusion of brilliant scarlet bloom, forming one of the most handsome flowering trees for a grass lawn. Time and space, however, would fail us to enumerate all the trees and plants in cultivation; we shall therefore at once pass from the first to the second and third gardens already referred to, and hastily describe their productions.

J The one fronting on Madras street is surrounded j with a sweet-briar fence, immediately within which a lofty row of blue gums and poplars afford excellent shelter. The border in front of these is planted al| round with some 400 of the newest and best sorts of pear and plum trees. The pears comprise over 40 j varieties of the choicest new French varieties, many of which are now in full bearing. The remainder of this nursery ground is mostly filled with young grafted or budded fruit trees, with large quantities of damson and mussel - plums, with some thousands of Lombardy and black Italian poplars, common willows, weeping willows ) and the lofty timber-growing variety known by the name of the Huntingdon willow, mainly remarkable for rapidity of growth, the lightness and whiteness of its timber, and the numerous purposes of utility to which it can be applied. Prominently noticeable, however, amongst all the productions of this garden are some 25,000 English ash trees, in remarkable health and vigour, and standing from three to ten feet high. These we hope will soon be distributed and planted over the country, to afford in after years a supply of ash timber so indispensible in all the ordinary farming operations of every community from its extreme toughness and remarkable elasticity. So necessary is it, that we are obliged to import annually from England and America many hundreds of pounds' worth of this timber, for handles of implements and other agricultural purposes. Passing over many other interesting plants in this garden, which we cannot now further wait to describe, we proceed to the more recently formed nursery garden of ten acres on the Ferry road. This also is bounded by a gorse fence, and planted with a broad border of forest trees and evergreen shrubs ; shelter in all cases being a first consideration in all Mr. Wilson's gardening. The land is also divided into compartments with Cape broom fences, and each of these compartments is filled with forest trees, comprising ash, oak, elm, beech, lime, Cobbet's acacia, maple and sycamore, besides many thousands of seedlings of Pinus Maritima, and Pinus Sylvestris, or Scotch fir. We were also glad to notice about a thousand young trees of two years' growth of the Ailanthus Glandulosa, or silk-worm tree, so much used as a handsome avenue tree on the sides of the streets of towns in America, and which, we doubt not, wiil also be largely used in Canterbury, when its merits as a hardy ornamental tree are better known. Near these, a large quantity of the Gtedistichia Triacanthos, or three-spined Acacia, were growing luxuriantly. This is a hardy tree, with a handsome small green foliage, which secures for it a position on planted lawns as an ornamental tree. Portions of this ground are also devoted to the growth of vegetable seeds, and especially to the growth of thorns for hedges ; upon one and a-half acres of ground, one hundred and seventy-five bushels of haws had been sown last spring, and these have grown into at least one hundred and fifty thousand fine thorns, which will be fit for transplanting during the ensuing winter. It is, also, upon a portion of ground alongside of this nursery, where the remarkably productive crop of Hallett'e pedigree wheat, spoken of in a recent publication of the Lyttelton Times, is now growing, and the exact yield of which we hope shortly to be able to report, We have now very briefly described Mr. Wilson's nursery grounds, which we are fairly bound to say, are the result of diligent industry, governed by a large share of intelligence; and whilst these nurseries must be admitted to have been an immense acquisition to Canterbury, their owner has been one of the most successful of all our early settlers, and has tor a period of fourteen years conducted amongst us a highly useful occupation largely beneficial to the interests of the province.