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DRINKSTONE PARK.

Drinkstone has long been distinguished on account of the successful cultivation of remarkable plants.  It lies some eight miles southeast from Bury St. Edmund’s, and is the seat of T.H.  Powell, Esq.  The mansion or hall is a large old-fashioned edifice, a large portion of its south front being covered by a magnificent specimen of the Magnolia grandiflora, not less than 40 feet in height, while other portions of its walls are covered with the finest varieties of climbing roses and other suitable plants.  The surrounding country, although somewhat flat, is well wooded, and the soil is a rich loam upon a substratum of gravel, and is consequently admirably suited to the development of the finer kinds of coniferous and other ornamental trees and shrubs, so that the park and grounds contain a fine and well selected assortment of such plants.

[Illustration:  THE SNOWFLAKE, LEUCOJUM VERNUM, AT DRINKSTONE PARK.]

Coniferous trees are sometimes considered as out of place in park scenery; this, however, does not hold good at Drinkstone, where Mr. Powell has been displayed excellent taste in the way of improving the landscape and creating a really charming effect by so skillfully blending the dressed grounds with the rich greensward of the park that it is not easy to tell where the one terminates or the other commences.

The park, which covers some 200 acres, including a fine lake over eight acres in extent, contains also various large groups or clumps of such species as the Sequoia gigantea, Taxodium sempervirens, Cedres deodora, Picea douglasii, Pinsapo, etc., interspersed with groups of ornamental deciduous trees, producing a warm and very pleasing effect at all seasons of the year.  Among species which are conspicuous in the grounds are fine, well-grown examples of Araucaria imbricata, some 30 feet high; Cedrus deodara, 60 feet in height; Abies pinsapo, 40 feet; and fine specimens of Abies grandis, A. nobilis, and A. nordmanniana, etc., together with Abies albertiana or mertensiana, a fine, free-growing species; also Libocedrus gigantea, Thuiopsis borealis, Thuia lobbii, Juniperus recurva, Taxas adpressa, fine plants; with fine golden yews and equally fine examples of the various kinds of variegated hollies, etc.

[Illustration:  ODONTOGLOSSUM ROSSI MAJOR VAR.  RUBESCENS, AT DRINKSTONE PARK.]

Particular attention is here paid to early spring flowers.  Drinkstone is also celebrated as a fruit growing establishment, more particularly as regards the grape vine; the weight and quality of the crops of grapes which are annually produced here are very remarkable.—­The Gardeners’ Chronicle.

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ON THE CHANGES WHICH TAKE PLACE IN THE CONVERSION OF HAY INTO ENSILAGE.