170 



JODKNAIi OF HOETICULTUBB AND COTTAGE GAEDENER. 



[ September S, 1868. 



as in ordinary plant bonses, is upon wheels like a railway 

 truck running on these rails. The trees in pots are standing 

 on this stage or truck — indeed, plunged into large metal pans 

 £Iled with soil. One end of the house is, of course, made to 

 open sufficiently, and thus the whole stage, trees and all, can 

 be moved by rail to breathe the fresh and open air. Granted 

 that it is beneficial to the trees to have the fresh air, they 



can easily be carried ontjif necessary, and that at one-twentieth 

 part of the expense. It just resolves itself into this, whether 

 a tree is to cost 5s. a-year, or 50$. as by this plan. This is not 

 an invention of Mr. Bivers, neither is it adopted by him, it 

 is simply there on trial through Mr. Kivers's kindness. — 

 Archambaud. 



(To be continued.) 



A FRAGMENT 

 The inhabitants of each county have some ludicrous desig- 

 nation assigned to them, yet I never could discern that Essex 

 men are more calvish, nor Hampshire men more swinish, nor 

 Wiltshire men more simple than those who have their locations 

 elsewhere ; yet the natives of the first-named county are called 

 " Calves," of the second " Hogs," and of the third " Moon- 

 rakers." The legend attached to the last is that some townsmen 

 of Chippenham, seeing the full moon reflected in a certain 

 pond, endeavoured to rake it out, believing it to be a cheese. 



Now, I have known that town of Chippenham for about four 

 lustrums of years, and never could discern that any of its 

 denizens were probably descendants of " moonrakers." Let 

 any one of your readers visit it ; let him establish himself in 

 that old-fashioned •' hospitium" improved, " The Angel Hotel ;" 

 let him see with his own eyes the town's substantial bright 



OF WILTSHIRE. 



structures, and among them that bit of the old shambles, with 

 its round Anglo-Saxon pillars, which may have been there when 

 Alfred and Guthram signed their treaty of peace within the 

 town's precincts ; let him associate with the inhabitants, and, 

 especially if he be of conservatives a conservative superlative, 

 he will agree with me that there are no symptoms of moon- 

 raking, nor, so far as I have sought, are symptoms of such 

 lunacy to be discerned in the vicinity. Nowa-days the visitor 

 can journey round the town without being way-foundered, 

 though Wilts was formerly famous for " feeble bridges and 

 foul ways," but they are now quite reformed, and were partly 

 so centuries since. Walter, Lord Hungerford, early in the 

 fifteenth century, made a nen-foundering road across Stander- 

 wick Marsh, between Beckington and Warminster, and, like a 

 good husband, he recorded that it was "for the health of the 



soul of Lady Katherine his wife ;" and somewhat later estates 

 were left for the repair of " causeys " and highways about 

 Cricklade and Devizes. 



Lastly, but first in merit, was Maud Heath, for she gave all 

 her store of hard-earned savings to make and repair the 

 " causey " extending four miles and a half from Bremhill Wick 

 Hill to Chippenham ; and on a stone, truthful though not 

 homerical, is this record — 



" From this Wick Hill begins the praise 

 Of Maud Heath's gift to these highways." 



Midway at the bridge over the Avon is another inscription — 



''To the memory of the worthy Maud Heath, of Lnnpley Bnrrell, 

 spinBter, who in the year of grace 1474, for the good of travellers, did in 

 charity bestow in land and houses about £S a-year for ever (now yielding 

 £110 annuallv), to be laid out on the highwa'y and causev leading from 

 Wick Hill to Chippenham Clift." 



She did this during her lifetime — sensible woman, for thus 

 not only trotted she along the " causey " dry-shod herself, but 

 saw and appreciated the good she had secured for others. 



The local tradition is, that " worthy Maud Heath " brought 

 eggs and butter to Chippenham, as the women-folk of farmers' 

 families all did in her days, and that the hindering and suffer- 

 ing during inclement weather which she endured in passing 

 over the swampj- and often overflown parts of the road, induced 

 her to bestow the enfeoffment. 



A century before — namely, in 1376, Edward III. granted to 

 the inhabitants of Chippenham permission to levy pontage — 

 that is, a toll for the repair of their bridges ; but Maud Heath's 

 gift is sufficient evidence that the pontage failed iu efficiency. 



Let the visitor, over a road needing no aid from that gift, 

 take a stroll in a north-westerly direction until he reaches the 

 lodge of Harnage ; let him pass through its gate and into tha 

 avenue beyond — notice the splendid Elms — pass by the man- 

 sion's front — if he knows the pages of Britton, let him call to 

 memory from them who have been the owners and the guests 

 at Harnage. They were not " the simple ones of the earth." 



Hereafter I will tell of another of those guests, but at pre- 

 sent will pause over so other than Christopher Anstey, author 



