March 6, 1866. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



-«9 



Naues of PRriTS iLemon—Tootin^), — Yeralam Pear. [E. H.), — TJTe- 

 dale's St. Germain Penr, 



Nahes of Plants ((\ s. G.). — Solnnum ranrffinatnm, or White-ed(?ed 

 Nightshade. It is a native of Palestine. (A. A.). — 2, Aspleniam balbi- 

 f enun ; 3, Nephrolepis ; 4, Aspleiiium daccidum ; 5, Prnnns japonica 



florepleno; 6, Deutzia fjracilis ; 7, Aspleniummarinum ; 10, Pteris oretica 

 albo-lineata ; 12, Xipbobolus lingua. (^, IT. R'iils).— SciUa peruTiana. 

 fr(i?irarfa).— You must send better specimena if,,yQV^,wi3li tio liave your 

 Fema correctly named. . • ' 



METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS in the Suburbs of London for the Week ending March ;^ril. 



POULT RY, BEE, and HOUSEHOLD CHRONICLE- 



A DAY AT LINTON PARK, KENT. 

 The Seat of the Viscount Holmesdale, M.P. 



Foe some years I have had always a stereotyped reply tn'the 

 question : " Have you been in many of the counties of Eng- 

 land ?" It was this — " I have been in all of them except Kent 

 and Cornw.all." Poultry has now led me into Kent, and, there- 

 fore, only Cornwall remains as yet utterly unseen and unknown. 

 Ever since I saw the prize birds of the Viscountess Holmesdale 

 at the Bnth and West of England Show, held at Clifton, in 1864, 

 I had felt a great wish to see her ladyship's stock in its entire- 

 ness. That wish has recently been gratified ; for a letter having 

 reached me in which Lady Holmesdale informed me that " it 

 would give her great pleasure to show me her poultry," and I 

 being desired to take an early opportunity of going into Kent, 

 as the family were about to remove to London for the season, 

 I proceeded to Ijinton Park forthwith. 



It has not been a very good season for birds, owing to the 

 great fall of rain ; in many poultry yards and walks the fowls 

 almost needed stilts in addition to legs to keep them out of the 

 water. (X.B. — Were I a fowl I would be a Malay — i.e., if it 

 were always such weather as we have had this winter.) 



I start for London the day the Queen opens Parliament, for 

 of course it will be fine (it was). As I passed through Berk- 

 shire I pitied the poor folk there, and registered this verdict 

 concerning their county — " Found di-owned." In London I 

 met with a well-known and well-knowing poultry fancier and 

 judge, who told me, after I had informed him whither I was 

 going, " You will see poultiy to perfection at Linton Park." i 

 With expectations still higher raised I get up next morning very i 

 early to proceed into Kent, as it is Lady Holmesdale's wish 

 that I should see ber fowls in the forenoon. 



The first train, then, finds me at Charing Cross Station, and 

 I look upon that very gorgeous Station and feel thankful thai I 

 own no shares in that line. Ah! what have we here? Arestored 

 Queen Eleanor's Cross in a station-yard. Poor King Edward 

 was unlucky in his site ; at any rate he did not foresee what an 

 unquiet place it would prove in after ages. But no, it is not a 

 restored cross, but a bran-new cross in front of a spick-and- 

 span gaudy station. Bad taste surely, besides a waste of money. 

 I feel no reverence as I look upon this entirely new cross, erected 

 on, perhajyx, the spot where Queen Eleanor's body rested for 

 the last time before interment, just 575 years ago. Had it 

 been a restoration I should have felt reverential ; but all new, 

 not placed, as surely it might have been, in some quiet nook, 

 but where every viilgar 'bus and cab rattles by and draws up 

 close to it, just on the spot where, in front of an inn the horse- 

 block was commonly to be found — "my gorge rises at it." 

 And yet bow one respects King Edward, tbat good husband, 

 who, not in tbe first heat of a bridegroom's passion, showed 

 such love to his spouse ; but he, an old husband, went to such 

 cost and care for his old wife, the mother of fifteen children. 

 ' Tis the newness of the cross and its position jars upon the 

 sense. How different it is when tbe new and old are brought 

 side by side, as in the case of tbe railwaj' that runs close by i 

 Fumess Abbey ; there, there is food for much reflection. There, j 

 on one side, is the crumbling ruin, the evidence and token of I 



the highest civilisation of its day; and the flashing railway 

 train type of the civilisation of the present day. There in the 

 Abbey were gathered together the few books and few readers of 

 a whole district. There were the men who could plan the rich 

 tracery, erect the pillars, and bid the arch span the space be- 

 tween. Surely the dark ages were blind in many respects ; 

 but they certainly were not sto)u blind. And in the Abbey, 

 now so "old, were the men who cultivated flowers and herba 

 with thought and care, and, mayhap, were proud and careful 

 of their breeds of fowls when others were indifferent. And 

 there close by is the nineteenth century railway station and 

 electric telegraph. But I am growiug desultory. 



Off for Harden, for two hoiu's or more of travelling. I lite, 

 in going from London, to watch how gradually, very gradually, 

 on ibis Kentish side, town melts into the country. First after 

 actual streets come, to use the happy phrase of Cowper — 



" The villas with which London stands begirt. 

 Like a swartb Indian with his bolt of beads." 



I love to think of the retired citizen, or the man of business, 

 who scarcely more than sleeps in the country air, enjoying 

 when able his rural home and his garden, perhaps his live pets. 

 Then after villas come the patches of building ground andthe 

 oue-half-finished house, the very last Unk to the town, till a 

 few miles further and it is actual country — real farm-bouses, 

 unmistakeable labourer's cottages, and yes, surely, that is an 

 old coimtry mansion. How bright green is the grass, and why, 

 the stations have creepers growing up their iron supports ; all 

 looks rural ; not the blackened look of a Lancashire, but the 

 pure look of a thoroughly agricultural county. But surely 

 those must be hop poles piled hke a number of giant's pikes 

 in tent-like patches all over the fields on both sides of me. Oh ! 

 had I been a teetotaller, how my heart would have ached. By 

 tbe way, as teetotallers are the greatest consumers of animal 

 food in the country, for he that drinks nothing but water eats 

 much more than other men, ought not the Chancellor of tl« 

 Exchequer in these cattle plague days to tax every teetotaller 

 extra ? I think so, and wonder the thought of such a tax has 

 not come into tbe fertile brain of Mr. Gladstone. 



VerUy Kent is a beautiful county, how emerald gi-een its 

 grass ; how well cultivated and garden-like its fields ; and that 

 ridge of pleasantly- swelling hills to the left of me, running on 

 and on, how agreeable to the eye. I do not wonder that " the 

 men of Kent " are proud of their county. It is such an old- 

 inhabited part of England. It was for ages the key to the 

 kingdom : it had the post of honour because it had the post of 

 danger. Shakespeare says of it — 



" Kent, in the " Commentaries " Csesar writ. 

 Is tenn'd the civil'st place in all this isle : 

 Sweet is the country, because full of riches : 

 The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy." 



Then, too, the antiquity of its families is noticed by Lord 

 Macaulay, who says of the signal fire telUng that the Spanish 

 Armada had been sighted in the Channel — 



" And eastward straieht, o'er wild Blackhcath, the warlike errand went, 

 And roused in many an ancient hall, the gallant squires of Kent." 



How, too, a common danger must have boimd together the 

 people of Kent. They could see, while other folks of other 

 counties could only hear of, the old enemy's country, France. 

 Should there have been an invasion, in days preceding steam, 

 the French would most likely have landed in Kent. Hence, 



