13 



ESPALIER WIEES. 



I WANT to get rid of the oak stakes and | vermin will harbom-, as they do in wood, 

 rails ill a length of espaUer trees, and snb- and which wiU be almost imperishable, 

 stitute somethuig neater and less perish- and scarcely at all visible. Mr. Gidney, 

 able. Can I get any ready-made uffa.ir I of East Dereham, Norfolk, makes a capital 



that will answer the purpose, and combine 

 durability with neatness. B. B. 



[You cannot do better than have a set 

 of strained galvanized wires, in which no 



strained wire fence, as represented here, 

 and if you want " a ready-made affaii-," he 

 will provide it to your own measurements 

 ready to be fixed at once. — Ed.] 



THE EADISH AND ITS USES. 



The late Mr. Knight very justly re- 

 marked that in spring, about May, the 

 old turnips were gone, and the new ones 

 not come, and he proposed forcing turnips 

 to supply this deficiency. Here the radish 

 steps iu to supply, and from year's end to 

 year's end the veriest clown of a gardener 

 may have an excellent succession of ra- 

 dishes. I have had some cooked in tlie 

 plainest manner possible, with only a little 

 salt in the water, and they are delicious to 

 eat, and very beautiful to look at upon the 

 dish. To say anything to gardeners on 

 the culture of radishes would be superflu- 

 ous ; but, for the sake of cottagers, let me 

 add, that those I ate were as thick as my 

 finger, and were only about thirty days 

 old from the day of sowing. The potato 

 ground will yield millions of radishes, both 

 before the potato-tops cover the ground 

 in spring and after the potatoes are har- 

 vested in autumn. I have long tried to 

 get cottagers into the way of growing 

 salad, being convinced of the comfort and 

 importance of it in every family, not to 

 speak of its economy ; and when I see poor 

 people with large spaces of ground in their 

 gardens lying idle in summer for two or 

 three months, I cannot help thinking that 

 their poverty is a good deal to be attributed 

 to their own fault ; if " ignorance of the 

 law excuses no man," surely the ignorance 

 of culture is equally inexcusable in those 

 who pay rent for the use of land for a cer- 

 tain number of growing days, and then 

 give a number of the best of these days to 

 the growth of weeds. If, therefore, thirty 

 days of growing weather can be got, good 



cultivation will secure a crop of radishes 

 in that time ; but as I do not like to leave 

 things vaguely, I will just weigh the crop, 

 and measure the land, and thus count the 

 cost of this crop and its capabilities. 



" It is but a small root," the lazy man 

 will say. True, friend ; but its top is 

 small too, and it will stand the closer on 

 the ground, and its time is but short in 

 coming to perfection, as compared with 

 other crops. Three crops of radishes may 

 be raised in the time necessary to grow one 

 crop of potatoes ; perhaps six in the time 

 of one crop of corn. " Six crops for one 

 year's rent!" Ay, friend, and here lies 

 the rub ; and every bit, both top and tail, 

 of the radish, is good pig food when boiled, 

 for both have been eaten raw by Christians. 

 The average weight of each radish is one 

 ounce and a-half, and about half an ounce 

 of this is top or leaves, thus leaving one 

 ounce of root ; and the average of the 

 space occupied by each plant is sixteen 

 square inches, or nine plants in a square 

 foot. Now this gives five pounds of roots 

 per square yard, one hundred and fifty 

 pounds to the perch, or about five tons 

 fourteen cwt. per acre of roots ; and if we 

 add two tons seventeen cwt. of tops, we 

 have eight and a-half tons per acre in 

 thirty days, and even four crops a year of 

 this weight gives twenty-two tons of roots 

 and eleven tons of tops per acre. 



Perhaps the only way to bring this 

 valuable root into vise among cottagers (I 

 had almost said among gardeners and 

 farmers, for they will all have it), is to 

 give it a fai:; trial, on a small scale, after 



