78 



JOURNAL OF HORTICaiiTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Jul J 81,1873. 



" I can also, at a very trifling extra expense, fit up thia apparatus Bo that 

 the houses can be kept quite cool, while tUe kiln i>j allowed to contiuue burn- 

 ing, the heat being shut off or on at pleasure, according to the necessity of 

 the time. 



*' The production of good lime is. on most noblemen's and gentlemen's 

 places, a matter of considerable importance, and it otight to be considered an 

 advantage to be able to produce it with the fuel which would otherwise be 

 lost in heating the garden structures. To nurserymen the matter ought to be 

 of still more importance, as the present rate of fuel must be a heavy tax upon 

 them. 



" I am fully of opinion that this system will prove valuable, not only where 

 limestone is plentiful, bat also where it is not near at hand. Lime must 

 always be had ; and it will be found more advautageous to pay for the carriage 

 of the raw material thau for made lime, especially by sea, as lime is a dangerous 

 cargo which few shippers are willing to undertake ; and it must be recollected 

 that lime is always more valuable in districts where neither limestone nor 

 chalk are found — so that the coat of carriage is in a great degi'ee Compensated 

 for by the local value of the lime produced." 



"We need not say much about the other exhibits. Mr. Chap- 

 man showed his well-known flower-boxes and exhibition-cases, 

 ■with boxes for the transmission of fruit, game, &c. ; Messrs. 

 Follows & Bates a selection of their Anglo-American mowing 

 machine, which, in our experience, is facile princeps of all 

 other mowing machines, and this may be saying a good deal ; 

 Mr. Pinuell, of Bath, a most absurd watering-pot, with a syphon 

 to water plants overhead. We should much like to see an old- 

 fashioned gardener's face if his master had made him a present 

 of one and told him to use it. We must not, however, pass over 

 a very beautiful collection of ornamental pottery, shown by 

 Mr. Matthews, of Weston-super-Mare ; all the work exceedingly 

 good, both the ornamental and useful, and we can confidently 

 recommend any persons in want of garden pots and vases, (fee, 

 to try some. We saw, by the way, that the same enterprising 

 firm had exhibited a collection at the Hull Sliow, and we 

 hope that, fiom the many thousand visitors who attended, there 

 was custom tnjugh to repay the venture. 



With these few remarks we will conclude. We do not think 

 the implements, as a rule, well represented, and we hope if 

 next year see the Society's Show at Sheffield that that branch 

 may be better represented than it was at Bath. 



WALES AND WELSHMEN.-No. 2. 



It is written th.it there are iu England more Smiths than of 

 any other two names added together, but in this Principality 

 Jones is the patronymic far in excess of any three patronymics 

 combined. How the thousand-and-one Joneses in a Welsh 

 town are discriminated is beyond my astuteness. It might 

 have been by leaving oat one name when, as Camden writes, 

 " in the time of King Henry the Vlllth, an ancient worship- 

 full gentleman of Wales being called at the panell of jurie by 

 the name of 'Thomas Ap William, Ap Thomas, Ap Richard, 

 Ap Hoel, Ap Evan Vaughan, Ap Jones,' was advised by 

 the Judge to abandon that old manner ; whereupon he after 

 called himself Moston, according to the name of his principal! 

 house." It may be useful to observe that " Ap " means " son 

 of." Then, in the names of places the tautology is bewilder- 

 ing ; there are 458 the names of which begin with Llan, and 

 many have the same aflix ; so when I had occasion to inquire 

 which L ill )(/<ii> was alluded to, the still more bewildering reply 

 was, " Oh ! Llaiifair pifU-y-gwnijyU." So, also, there are more 

 than fifty places the first syllable of the names of which is 

 Pen, and that invariably indicates that it is on a hill or head- 

 land. Knowing this, and wishing for a far look-out to sea, 

 as well as to see the ruins of, perhaps, the most ancient of 

 the Welsh religious foundations, I wended my way to Penmon 

 Priory ; for it was founded in the sixth century. 



I could scribble about it for " an hour by Beaumaris clock," 

 but it would be scribble not desirable for your pages, and I 

 will but note that this, like all other monastic institutions of 

 the olden time, bears testimony that the friars well knew that 

 feasting is an essential as well as fasting, and that feasting 

 needs a well-supplied treasury. There is no feasting without 

 good water, and here is as bright a spring of it as ever flowed 

 perpetually. So the friars enclosed it, built a little chapel 

 oyer it, placed stone seats around it, made little recesses in 

 its walls in which offerings might be deposited, and small 

 benefit was to be expected to him or her who did not deposit 

 in those recesses — they were the saving banks, both of the 

 friars and the patients — for the spring was named " The Holy 

 Well of Saint Seiriol," and those who drank of its water and 

 deposited {t)iat was essential) were to be cleansed of any dis- 

 order that afflicted them. That well and all its surroundings 

 remain and bear testimony that excellent water and contri- 

 butions were secured to the Priory ; for this, like all holy wells, 

 was flocked to, and was sanitary for the same reason that 

 Beaumaris is sanitary now — there is a change of scene, change 

 of occupations, and sea-breezes. 



Excellent water is but an essential in preparing the more 

 savoury contributions to a feast, but the sea is within bow- 

 shot, and its endless supplies put all safe for days of abstinence 

 from flesh ; and then Puflius Island almost joins the Priory 

 lands, and the flocks of birds which gave it its name were the 

 most acceptable produce with which friars could be endowed, 

 for they are aquatic birds, which a wise Pope, infallible in 

 this, decreed might be eaten on fish days, because, being 

 aquatic, they partake of the nature of fish. 



Next I will mention their noble Dovecote, a drawing of 

 which from a photographer* accompanies these notes. Its 



walla are very ancient, probably coeval with the Priory's re- 

 endowment in the thirteenth century, but the cupola which 

 surmounts them is not older than the fifteenth century. It 

 is quadrangular, each side being 22 feet long and 20 feet high. 

 There are eighteen rows of nest-holes on each side, and in 

 each row fourteen nest-holes, so, deducting the spaces for 

 window and doorway, there is accommodation for nearly five 

 hundred pairs of pigeons. In the centre is a circular alighting- 

 pillar, 10 feet high and 2 feet diameter, with projections to 

 ascend it. On the top of this pillar the pigeons alighted as 

 they descended from or ascended to the opening in the roof. 



There are near the Priory some of the largest and oldest 

 Whitethorn trees I ever saw ; they are many in number, about 

 30 feet high, and their stems nearly (J feet in girth. It is easy 

 to conclude where the orchard and garden were, and although 

 we can trace no remains of their tenants, we do know one of 

 the vegetables afforded abundantly to the holy fathers, though 

 they were not pottage men, for theirs was not a vegetarian age. 



The vegetable I allude to is the Alisander — Alexanders, as 

 gardeners in the olden time called it — Smyrnium Olusatrum. 

 Unblanched, it is aromatic ; blanched and cooked, it is not 

 unlike Celery. Down to a comparatively recent period sailors 

 belonging to this coast consumed it largely as an antiscorbutic, 

 and the supply was inexhaustible, for it grows wild and abun- 

 dantly on the south-west end of Puffins Island. Its Welsh 

 name is Dalys cyfredin, intimating how much h is a requisite ; 

 but it is no longer cultivated here. Sea Samphire, Crithmum 

 maritimum, was also at hand on the rocks of the same island, 

 and was known to the friars by the name of Corn Carw y mor 

 (the Stag's-horn of the Sea). The holy fathers knew how to 

 pickle it, and so they did the young puffins, but neither of 

 those relishes seem now in request. Archbishop Baldwin, 

 writing some seven centuries since, mentions Puffins Island as 

 Ynys Llenach (Isle of Erudition), and states that " it is in- 

 habited by hermits, living by manual labour and serving God. 

 If any discord arises among them all their provisions are 

 devoured and infected by small white mice, with which the 

 island abounds, but when the discord ceases they are no longer 

 molested. No woman is suffered to enter the island." No 

 doubt they were the cause of the discord and the white mice. 



In a future communication I hope to be able to write more 

 about the gardening of Anglesea; but Baron Kill, Nant, Plas 



* The photograph was taken by Mr. .T. W. Ambrose, Photographer, Beau - 

 maris, to whose intelligence as an artist aui lover of literature I am much 

 indebted. 



