FOR many years - half a century at least - Both well Castle has been justly celebrated for a collection of well-managed Cape Heaths. For the last decade or two this beautiful genera of plants has generally been too much neglected, and their cultivation has not extended or kept pace with that of other more ephemeral plants that are easily and rapidly grown, and more available for the tear and wear of ordinary decorative purposes. This, we think, is to be regretted. At Bothwell Castle, Heaths have been steadily adhered to; and any one who had the pleasure of seeing the collection there in bloom last August and September will, we think, agree with us in saying that it is a pity Heaths are not more extensively patronised. The Heath-house at Bothwell - an elegant span-roofed structure - was at the time we name a perfect blaze of bloom, with the most select varieties of the more difficult to manage hard-wooded Heaths in splendid specimens.

In saying this we are assuredly recording what must be regarded as one of the greatest triumphs of gardening skill. To grow and maintain in robust health for a series of years a collection of large and symmetrical hard-wooded Heaths is, in itself, one of the highest achievements a gardener can accomplish. Not only has this been done by Mr Turnbull, but almost every one of the noble specimens that he has grown for the last fifty years have been his own cuttings, - a practice not at all common among Heath growers. It is considered such slow work to grow Heaths from the rootless cuttings, that they are generally bought from the nurseries. Nor is this but a fraction of the credit that is due to Mr Turnbull. Not less than thirty-two of the finest varieties that compose this celebrated collection of Heaths are seedlings of his own raising, all being the result of the most careful and intelligent hybridising, carried on for half a century. These grand seedlings are the very cream of hundreds of seedlings which have been carefully proved, and none saved except such as were decided improvements on their progenitors.

Among them are crosses of the third and forth generations of Mr Turnbull's own seedlings.

It is about fifty years since Mr Turnbull began crossing and raising seedlings, and one cannot form any conception of the slow patient work which he has with such enthusiasm and intelligence carried on, or can fully estimate the splendid results of such a labour. We do not know in the annals of horticulture of a more meritorious achievement in connection with any family or genera of plants, and we question if there be such an one; for it must be admitted that few if any genera of plants demand such patient work and skill to so vastly improve them as do hard-wooded Heaths. These Bothwell Seedling Heaths are truly splendid varieties. Who that has ever seen a healthy well-bloomed plant of Marnockiana, to say nothing of others, needs to be told this 1 The variety named is not equalled by any other for beauty of colouring and freeness of flowering. Mr Turnbull had many grand plants of it in bloom at the time of our visit, one specimen of which we measured and found it to be 5 feet in diameter and 4 feet high - a perfect sheet of bloom. We will just refer to a few of the thirty-two seedlings retained in the collection. A plant of Turnbullii, another splendid one, was 4 feet by 3 feet.

Lady Mary Scott, a variety of the Aitoniana strain, was nearly 3 feet by 2 1/2 feet, covered with a sheet of its pure white blossoms, the tubes of which were 1 1/2 inch long, and the corolla fully an inch in diameter. This is a grand Heath. Then there are large plants of Turnbullii superba; Austiniana, a well-known and splendid Heath; Douglasii; Aitoniana Turnbullii; Lord Douglas; Lady Home, a most superb variety, the result of a cross of Turnbullii with Marnockiana, which cross could scarcely result in anything else than a superb progeny. One plant of her Ladyship we measured, and found it 3 feet by 3 feet. A very distinct and promising variety, as yet unnamed, raised by crossing Eassoniana with Lin-naeoides, has a most brilliant tube an inch long, with a pure white corolla. This is one of the few rather soft-wooded varieties Mr Turn-bull has selected, - indeed, to the best of our recollection, the only one; and as it was just coming into bloom about the middle of September, it will on that account, as well as from its real beauty, become a most useful late autumn Heath. It is of a free yet sturdy habit of growth.

Not to refer further to Jacksonii, simulata, and others, suffice it to say that the whole batch are of the very highest order of merit.

Surely if any kind of labour connected with horticulture deserves public recognition and the highest horticultural, honours, it is such work as we have briefly referred to in connection with the Heaths at Bothwell Castle. Mr Turnbull has, at the same time, not been a man of one idea, for he has not only not neglected any other branch of gardening while he has accomplished such work in Heath culture, but everything connected with his charge for which means have been provided, has been most assiduously and successfully carried on by him during his career of fifty years at Bothwell Castle. We have no recollection of ever having seen finer crops of vegetables in any garden than we saw there last September, and they were just a sample of the usual crops. For many years Mr Turnbull held a foremost place as a crosser and raiser of florist flowers, and the same may be said in reference to general plant culture.

Many a successful gardener owes much to the thorough grounding in all the important principles of culture he received under Mr Turnbull's tuition; and not a few - ourselves among the number - have felt that to follow the lines of gardening practice which he carried out, and the noble example he set in every other respect, was their surest and safest road to success and esteem. Mr Turnbull is one of those gentlemen who have made their avocation a labour of love as well as of duty; and no mind could be furtherremoved from mercenary considerations, one of the strongest proofs of which is the fact that many in his position would have made these grand seedling Heaths a lucrative success, whereas he has never looked upon or made use of his achievement in that way.