August 23, 1863. 3 



JOUENAL OF HOKTICULTURE AJfD COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



147 



He replied, " I shall be glad to see the whole of the Chess 

 Club, and they shall eat what they like." The remark was 

 made, " You need not expect many Peaches the next day, we 

 shall eat them all." The answer to which was, " Will you ?" 

 Well, the visit was paid, and a most pleasant one it was ; 

 and though we all did oiu' duty. I question if a casual ob- 

 server would have missed the fruit eaten if he had gone into 

 the house next morning. I know, of course, what my own 

 success has been, and I have seen what my friend Mr. Elvers 

 has done, but I can tell him we are both beaten by Mr. 

 Brown. The Peaches were not only numerous but magni- 

 ficent. The house is 55 feet by 15, a lean-to. It contains 

 seventy trees, twelve of which are planted against the back 

 wall ; nine are standards planted-out in a bed in the centre 

 of the house ; fifteen are dwarf trees planted in the front 

 border, and thii-ty-foiu- are in pots. There were on the 

 wall 500 Peaches; on the standards upwards of 1100, and 

 130 Nectarines ; on the small trees 900 more — in all 2700. 

 What could a club do in such a house in one evening ? Let 

 us have the ran for a week, and we might make an impres- 

 sion. — J. E. Pearson, Chihvell. 



GKOWING PAESLEY UNDEE DIFFICULTIES. 



Amongst all the varied demands of a large establishment 

 on the resom-ces of the garden, there is scarcely any more 

 regularly made throughout the year than for Parsley. In 

 the spring months, especially after there has been a con- 

 tinuance of keen frosty weather, scarcely a handful of nice 

 Parsley can be found, except what may have been under 

 cover. In the neighbom-hood of London after a sharp 

 winter, and esiieciaUy when keen easterly winds have pre- 

 vailed throughout April, a small handful ,of Parsley is not 

 to be had for less than sixpence, and sometimes more will 

 be paid for it. 



Parsley, in the estimation of many persons, wUl gi-ow at 

 any time and in any place, and I have frequently heard 

 surprise expressed by such when told that from a com- 

 bination of causes it has been a very scarce article. It is 

 also well known to aU who have had to supply an establish- 

 ment with garden productions how fidgetty the cook wiU be 

 even about a little Parsley. 



I have had for a series of years splendid Parsley, so much 

 so that part of it had sometimes to be cut down and wheeled 

 away by barrowfuls; and again, for nearly three years in 

 the same garden, I have been unable to grow a respectable 

 row. Do what I could, it was always attacked at the roots 

 by maggots, and what is very popularly known by the name 

 of wireworm (snake millipedes). Just before sowing 1 have 

 quite saturated the soil with very strong liquid manure from 

 the stable yard, thinking that possibly they might thus 

 be killed, and hoping that they might not come fr'om the 

 adjoining ground ; but, in the course of a few months' time, 

 they would be at their work of destruction again. 



Another jjlan which I have tried was to slack a quantity 

 of lime in water, and, pouring off the water into common 

 watering-pots, to give the rows of Parsley a thorough soaking 

 with the liquid. Even after this 1 have at times scarcely 

 been able to produce it in anything like a creditable con- 

 dition. These root-destroyers of Parsley eat into the roots 

 and very often work their way into the bottom of the 

 leaves. They cut into the roots whex-e these are very small 

 — it may be not much thicker than to hold the intruder — 

 and whenever this is the case, the Parsley wUl soon assume 

 a brown and foxy appearance, and yoix may give up aU hope 

 of its ever proving useful. 



The soil of the garden where I was so annoyed with these 

 underground destructives was a light, rich, fr'ee loam, which 

 ■generally grew every kind of crop very well. Cauliflowers 

 were liable to club. In another garden of very different 

 soU, I endeavoiu-ed for some seasons to grow Parsley by 

 sowing it in the usual way — that is, in the open ground ; 

 but owing to the nature of the soil I very seldom succeeded. 

 It was a strong brick earth, abnost inclining to clay, which, 

 when dug up in winter, would remain just as it left the 

 spade. If worked while in a wet state it would soon clog 

 the instrument which was used ; and, on the other hand, if 

 allowed to remain untouched till quite dry, a fork or spade 

 woiild make little or no impression upon it, from its having 



become so very hard. When taken just between a wet and 

 a dry condition, it would break away from the five-tined 

 steel forks in beautiful order ; and if the crops only started 

 well they would generally be first-rate. I experienced very 

 great difficulty in gi-owtng Parsley in this soil, by sowing it 

 in the gTound in the usual way. First, there was the un- 

 certainty of being able to hit the proper time to sow it, when 

 the soil was in a free and well-broken-down condition. 

 Secondly, if fortimate enough to do that, there must be 

 moisture enough in the soil to cause vegetation. Thirdly, 

 fine weather must continue for some time after the seed 

 has vegetated, otherwise it was quite certain that the slugs 

 would carry off every plant, as they will quickly do whUe 

 the Parsley is in the seed-leaf, and even much later. 



However annoying slugs are to the gi-ower of Parsley, I 

 have found a means of preventing their attacks, and I can 

 have good Parsley even in such soil as I have stated above. 



I filled a quantity of small pots in which the bedding 

 plants had been, using any rough materials, even what fell 

 under the potting-bench. The Parsley was sown, and the 

 pots placed upon coal ashes in a cold pit, which was then 

 shut up. I kept them regularly watered ; and as the young 

 plants grew gave more aii'. The Parsley remained in these 

 pots until the leaves were from 4 to 6 inches long ; and it 

 was then planted out in a piece of ground while in the 

 course of digging, and the result x>roved worthy of all this 

 care and trouble. — G. Dawson. 



HISTOEY OF HEDGES. 



The earliest enclosm-es in England appear to have been 

 in Kent and Essex, these being the fh-st fields of Eoman 

 operations, and seem to have been formed of Hawthorn, 

 Sloe, Crab, Hazel, Dogwood, &.C., taken from the woods 

 where they naturally grew. The earliest published account 

 we have of enclosures is by Sfr John Fortesque, who men- 

 tions the progress that had been made in planting hedges 

 and hedgerow trees before the end of the fourteenth century ; 

 and towards the middle of the next we find the prelates and 

 great barons enclosing land around their castles, which were 

 called then- demesne lands, which they kept in their own 

 hands, and cultivated for then- own use, much as our private 

 parks are at the present time. 



In 1523 Sir A. Fitzherbert wrote " The Book of Husbau- 

 di-ie," in which he points out the great advantage of en- 

 closm-es, and recommends " quyck-settynge, dychynge, and 

 hedgying," and gives special directions about the " settes," 

 and the manner of training a hedge. Hawthorn hedges are 

 distinctly stated to have existed in the gai-dens around 

 Windsor Castle in the reign of Henry V., and are described 

 by James I., of Scotland, in his poem, " The King's Quair," 

 written by him while he was a prisoner there. Hedge plant- 

 ing, however, made slow progress in England until after 

 the introduction of the Flemish system of husbandry into 

 Norfolk about the end of the seventeenth century ; and so 

 rapidly did they increase, that by the end of the eighteenth 

 centm-y they had entirely changed the face of the whole 

 cotmtry. 



Although we now see many excellent examples of hedge 

 management in many parts of the midland coimties of Eng- 

 land, still, as a whole, such fences are inferior to most of 

 those in the best enclosed districts of Scotland, where, how- 

 ever, the use of fences of any kind is of far more recent 

 date. Major, a native of Benvick, says in " Historica Bri- 

 tanica," pubhshed in Paris in 152(), that the Scottish 

 peasants "neither enclosed nor planted, nor endeavoured 

 to amehorate the soil" in his day. Indeed, until the break- 

 ing up of the feudal system about the middle of the last 

 centm-y, and the swallowing up of numerous smaU pendicles 

 into larger holdings, the use of fences to any great extent 

 in Scotland was both useless and impracticable— at least 

 so long as the "i-un-rig" system, as a united system ot 

 protection, was in use. . j. o ii j 



The first introduction of the use of hedges into Scotland 

 was, strange enough to say, by the soldiers of Cromwell, 

 who also at the same time introduced the use of the close- 

 headed Cabbages. The first of then- hedging was exempli- 

 fied at Inch Buckling Brae, near Tranent, where so recently 

 as 1804 the remains were to be seen m a line of aged Haw- 



