THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



u:: 



REVIEW. 



BKITISII WILD FLOWERS, illustrated by John E. 

 SowERUY (illustrator of "The Ferns of Great Britain," 

 "The Grasses of Great Britain," &c.), described, with 

 an lutroduction and a Key to the Natural Orders, 



By C. PiERPOiNT Johnson. 



John E. Soiverby 3, Meads-place, Lambeth. 1858. 



" The wild flowers oi Britain 1" we think we hear an old 

 farmer exclaim ; " what are they but weeds, worse than use- 

 less ! a nuisance, an incumbrance, a constant source of labour, 

 expense, and vexation? Their name is lej^ion ; and do what we 

 will, we can't get rid of them. They spriug up amongst the 

 corn. Goodness knows how ; and like the Israelites of old 

 amongst the Egyptians, the more we oppress and destroy them, 

 the more they seem to multiply. I have been trying for the 

 last thirty or forty years to extirpate them from this here very 

 farm, and there they are, springing up under my nose, mouth 

 after month, and year after year ; and the everlasting hoe is the 

 only resource to keep the varmint within any reasonable 

 bounds; drat 'em !" 



Stop, ray worthy friend ! and before you so unceremoniously 

 denounce whole families of Nature's boundless gifts to man as 

 nuisances, examine the other side of the question, and consider 

 their utility and beauty. First, go and consult honest old 

 Gerard (" his Herbal ") or Culpeper, who will teach you that 

 these nuisances, as you are pleased to call thetn, have each of 

 them a property adapted to the cure of one or other of the 

 bodily ills the " flesh is heir to ;" and then turn your eye upon 

 the work before us, and confess that you are venting your im- 

 precations upon not only some of the most useful, but the most 

 beautiful of the works of creation. If they prove nuisances to 

 you, it is because you have not used due dihgence in keeping 

 them down. Nature has made nothing in vain. If "thorns 

 and thistles " were to " curse the ground for man's sake," that 

 curse is turned into a blessing when it stimulates industrial 

 activity to neutralize it. In providing for the inultiplication 

 of these wild flowers, she consulted the welfare of the humar 

 species. It is your task to prevent them from becoming in. 

 jurious, by using the strength and reason that Providence has 

 given you, in banishing them from those fields where they are 

 not wanted. 



Is it possible that the beautiful collection of engravings in 

 this work is really a lifelike and correct representation of the 

 wild flowers of our country ? This idea struck us upon a cur- 

 sory view of the several plates as a loliole. But when we came 

 to examine the figures separately, we recognized most of them 

 as old acquaintances ; and often have we, in days long, long 

 gone by, when ranging the fields in all the buoyancy and en- 

 thusiasm of a youthful lover of nature, formed bouquets of 

 exquisite beauty, culled from the very specimens that Mr. 

 Sowerby has here so truthfully placed before us. 



In undertaking the work he does not profess to teach the 

 science of botany — an abstruse and tedious study, involving 

 extensive and protracted reading ; but to produce a volume of 

 "reference for the field botanist, the country resident, or 

 summer rambler, when works of more pretension are not at 

 hand." Such readers and observers of nature will find Mr. 

 Sowerby's book a valuable auxiliary in their researches after 

 the rural flora; whilst as a collection of exquisitely beautiful 

 engravings, it will form an interesting addition to the embel- 

 lishments of the drawing-room table. 



HIGH FARMING IN NORTH NORTHAMP- 

 TONSHIRE, ON THE MARQUIS OF 

 EXETER'S ESTATE. 



SiK, — A short time back I saw some of the best farming 

 I had ever witnessed upon Eaaton Heath, near Stamford, on 

 a farm of about 400 acres, occupied by Mr. William Dainty. 

 It was cultivated upon the four-course, alias the Lincoln 

 Heath system. Half the land was sown with turnips and 

 clover, and the other half with wheat, barley, &c., &c.. For 

 many years Mr. Dainty had heavily boned his laud for turnips, 

 besides using the best artificial manures suitable to the 

 soil. When he entered, it was in a wretched condition, a 

 large portion of it growing nothing better than furze. Many 

 farmers considered it to be worthless and unprofitable. When 

 I saw it, I found it producing large crops of corn, great and 

 good roots and green crops, which are the mainstay of all good 

 farming. To add to this, Mr. Dainty converts a great deal of 

 corn into meat, by giving sheep corn vfith turnips, &c. Al- 

 though a yearly tenant, he lays his money out in improvements 

 as if the farm were his own. He observes the noble Marquis 

 never tvliips the/ree liorse, and that if good and high farming 

 will not pay, bad cannot; that if men are so shortsighted as 

 to half plough, half manure, and half clean their land from 

 weeds, how can they expect to have whole or large crops ? A 

 niggard in libour is never a good farmer. Nothing ought to 

 grow upon the land but what the tenant puts into it — clean 

 seed. Mr. Dainty states, that if a tenant under his landlord 

 dies, and has no family, the farm is then offered to the nearest 

 of kin; and if none are to be found with property sufficient to 

 stock and manage the farm, it is then only let to a stranger, 

 which is doing as you would be done by. Tois is as it ought 

 to be, justice between landlord and tenant. To keep pace 

 with the times, every young farmer ought to read the Farmer's 

 Macjazine, if he means to be a farmer of the first magnitude or 

 class, and for profit, which all men ought to aim at, and not 

 for ornament. Theory combined with practice has and will do 

 wonders. Samuel Arnsby. 



Millfield, Peterborough, Sept. 7. 



SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S TASTE FOR FARMING.— 

 When Newton had reached his fifteenth year, he was recalled 

 from the school at Grantham to take charge of his mother's 

 farm. He was thus frequently sent to Grantham market, to 

 dispose of grain and other agricultural produce, which, how- 

 ever, he generally left to an old farm servant who accompanied 

 him, and Newton made his way to the garret of the house 

 where he had lived, to amuse himself with a parcel of old books 

 left there ; and afterwards he would entrench himself on the 

 wayside between Woolsthorpe and Grantham, devouring some 

 favourite author till his companion's return from market. And 

 when his mother sent him into the fields to watch the sheep 

 and cattle, he would perch himself under a tree with a book 

 in his hand, or shape models with his knife, or watch the 

 movements of an undershot water-wheel. One of the earliest 

 scientific experiments which Newton made was in 1658, on the 

 day of the great storm, when Cromwell died, and when he him- 

 self had just entered his sixteenth year. Newton's mother was 

 now convinced that her son was not destined to be a farmer ; 

 and this, with his uncle finding him under a hedge, occupied 

 in the solution of a mathematical problem, led to his being 

 again sent to Grantham School, and then to Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, which tl^pnce became the real birthplace of New- 

 ton's genius. — Timbs'' " School Vai/s of Eminent Men," 



