408 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



t November 28, 1867. 



have had many instances in which a rat will not cross a band 

 of tar outside of a frame, pit, or house, but we have also met 

 with instances in which they have commenced operations a 

 foot behind the line of tar and burrowed an entrance beneath 

 it ; but they will rarely come out at that entrance if you leave 

 the taint of your presence near it. 



We may say in addition, with respect to young Colewort 

 Cabbages planted in beds thickly— that is to say, from 9 to 

 12 inches apart, and which are now beginning to show their 

 iittle broad bonnet-heads, that instead of taking them up, as 

 stated above, we have found it a good plan to draw a little long 

 Htter on the ground between the plants, and to those who have 

 not tried it, it is astonishing how httle of this litter-coveriug 

 of the ground tends to arrest the radiation of heat and thus 

 preserve things, even when the top is exposed to a severe frost, 

 and that, too, may be counteracted by having a heap of litter 

 or fern ready to shake thinly over the bed when severe frost 

 comes. Without such cnre we have had a bed of these Cab- 

 bages, every half dozen of which would have made a rich, 

 tender dish, httle better than a mass of rottenness ; whilst 

 ■with such attention a neighbouring bed that had the litter re- 

 moved a couple of days after the frost was gone, looked as fresh 

 and green as a piece of lawn that had been covered with 2 or 

 3 inches of snow before the severe frost came. 



Broccoli.—TaU plants that have been at all drawn should 

 have the heads inclined towards the north or the east, so as to 

 bring them near the ground, and the slope given to the leaves 

 will also act as a great protection to the centre, or the head 

 formed or forming. The best way to do this is to begin at one 

 end of the row, take out an opening beyond the plant, press 

 down the stem into the opening, and then cover the stem with 

 earth to keep it down. Success will depend on doing this 

 without injuring the roots. In the case of dwarf BroccoU this 

 might also be done, though with but little bending of the stem ; 

 but in their case if we had the means, besides stirring the sur- 

 face soil and banking it against the stems, we would cover the 

 soil near the stems with litter, and have some of the driest and 

 cleanest, or old musty hay, fern, pea-straw, &c., to put a hand- 

 ful over the centre of each plant. By such means large pieces 

 have been preserved, whilst others left to themselves have 

 been destroyed. Besides the Walchereu, Grange's Cauliflower 

 Broccoli, and Snow's Winter Broccoli, valuable through mild 

 winters,^ the late sorts are worthy of this attention, as furnish- 

 ing a rich supply in spring before the earhest Cauliflowers 

 come in. 



With all this care private gardens in the north can hardly ' 

 be expected to equal the supply of Covent Garden, which has 

 its stores of these vegetables brought from the southern counties 

 and the Channel Islands, where anything like the severe frosts 

 of the north are unknown. In climates where the Myrtle, { 

 the Fuchsia, the Hydrangea, &c., are almost as uninjured as : 

 our Oaks and our Beeches, the whole practice of protection ! 

 out of doors must be next to unknown to the fortunate gar- ' 

 deners. In colder and less propitious climates, however, there 

 must be an outlay for labour and protection, if the country 

 gardener in the north is to approach the metropolitan supply. 

 The gardener may not know it, but many employers regularly 

 look at the supplies in Covent Garden, and compare and con- 

 trast with their own, altogether forgetting the dissimilarity of 

 natural circumstances from which the supplies come ; and they 

 are apt to grudge the labour and expense involved in producing 

 early vegetables, when these must be protected or grown under 

 glass and on hotbeds, while Loudon is supplied from the free 

 open air, somewhere hundreds of miles farther south. 



But for the superior quality of vegetables, and even fruit, 

 fresh gathered, there is no doubt that early productions could 

 be carried from south to north, and sold much cheaper than 

 they could be raised in the north, and were gentlemen and 

 ladies satisfied with them and content to purchase, much labour 

 and care would he saved. By such means the market towns 

 south of London, for instance, are often liberally supplied with 

 early Potatoes before the people in such places have finished 

 planting them in their gardens and fields. Of the quahty of 

 such tubers after their long journey we say nothing, but even 

 that quahty might be improved. The Pine Apples brought 

 at first from the West India Islands, were but poor at the best, 

 but now they come in very good condition, and though not 

 equal to those of English growth, still they are Pine Apples, 

 and many of them handsome enough to look at — the chief use 

 towhich Pine Apples are devoted, even at the tables of our 

 aristocracy. Be this as it may, the bringing of Pine Apples 

 from their natural climates did much to arrest Pine-growing in 



this country, and if it is now beginning to be more general, it 

 is from the desire to have them to decorate the dessert-table 

 when foreign ones cannot be obtained. 



It is " a long cry " from Broccoli to Pine Apples, but the 

 principle involved is the same. Everything will in time come 

 to its natural level. The Pine grower here cannot compete 

 in price with the foreigner ; he must try to have his supply 

 where he has not to contend with importations. Winter Cauli- 

 fli)wers and early Broccoli cannot in general be had so cheaply 

 in the north as in the south, but our later supplies will come 

 in when it would not pay our competitors to send them to us. 

 As to quality, be the i)Iace where it may, nothing brought from 

 a distance will equal that taken and cooked at once from the 

 home garden. We tasted some new Potatoes in the end of 

 April, bought on the stands of one of our market towns, and 

 though they looked well, they were not to be compared for an 

 instant with those raised under protection, and not to be 

 mentioned in the same day with a good old Potato. Still they 

 were new, and as such would be esteemed by many whatever 

 their quality. We have alluded more prominently to this 

 matter, as we have not seldom been informed lately that the 

 Covent Garden supplies are scanned very attentively by em- 

 ployers, and whilst nothing is said of extra earliness, some- 

 thing like chagrin is manifested when certain productions come 

 in later than they are to be found there. We would wish it to 

 be clearly understood, though taking that market as a guide, 

 that no private garden, without a great outlay to insure pro- 

 tection and acceleration, can be expected to equal the regular 

 and early and late supplies of the metropolitan market. 



Earth Pita atid Protecting Material. — We have frequently 

 alluded to these, but as a " Gkateful Eeadee," who has plenty 

 of room, litter, and mats, wishes to have one, and so as to be 

 permanent, to save dwarf Cauliflowers, Lettuces, Endive, &c., 

 and to forward Potatoes, put out bedding plants, &c., in spring, 

 we would advise him to carry out his proposals ; but in his 

 stiff ground, above all to avoid making any sort of a trench, as 

 for a Celery-bed, as dampness will then be a greater enemy to 

 him than the frost would be. The first point, then, is to have 

 the bottom of your pit as high as the natural ground, if a few 

 inches higher all the better. The second is to have the width 

 of the open space less by from 4 to 6 inches than the width of 

 the proposed covering. The third is to prevent water accumu- 

 lating in the pit, if you do not use waterproofed covering, 

 such as putting a small drain a foot below the surface in front, 

 with small pipe outlets from that beyond the front earth wall, 

 hut with the open mouth of these protected by wire to prevent 

 mice, &c., entering. The fourth point is to have the back wall 

 about double the height of the front one, the height to be pro- 

 portioned to the width, and to the height of the plants to be 

 grown in them, From 4J to 5J feet in width is a very service- 

 able pit, and even for rather dwarf plants of Caulillower, in- 

 clined a little to one side, 15 inches at back and 8 inches in 

 front will do, and be quite deep enough for the other purposes 

 mentioned. Now, for such a pit mark out a space G inches 

 narrower than you intend the top to be, as you cannot build 

 the walls quite perpendicularly, lay out a space 2 feet in width at 

 back and 18 inches in front, and make that the foundation for 

 your wall. Take earth from the neighbourhood, so as to raise 

 the wall, in layers, well trodden and beaten, until it is a foot wide 

 at the desired height at the back and 9 inches in front, in both 

 cases sloping to the natural level outside. This secures the 

 walls of the pit. Eun a turf along the top and the sloping 

 sides, which will not only do much to keep out frost, but to 

 send off rain, as very little moisture will pass through such 

 sloping turf. If turf cannot be obtained the walls aud a space 

 beyond them may easily be made waterproof by beating the 

 outside smooth, spreading over it a very thin layer of tar, 

 and on that a thin layer of fine gravel, coal ashes, sawdust, or 

 anything most handy, and for the first winter, at least, covering 

 over with a little litter to keep the frost out. In both of these 

 modes we have had useful dry pits that have lasted many years, 

 aud been as useful as more costly conveniences. Some time 

 ago, after drenching rains, we had occasion to break one of 

 these earth walls, merely covered outside by turf, and found 

 the earth beyond the exposed surface as dry as if baked in an 

 oven. 



Now for protection. Such pits, beyond breaking the force 

 of the wind, are little better than laying in plants in the open 

 air thickly and protecting them with litter, as everything is 

 liable to become wet with snow and rain. Their chief value 

 depends on having protection, more or less, that will keep 

 out wet. The best material and the cheapest in the end for 



