Decembor 30, 1875. J 



JOUfiNAIi OP aORTIOULTOBE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



58i 



have witnaased, what shelter they have afforded, what benefits 

 they have conferred ! Some are rich in historical associations, 

 others do duty as territorial landmarks ; some are memorials 

 of stirring events, others are monuments of some famed ances- 

 tor. Let us, then, cherish them as old friends, and render to 

 thom that honour which is their due. 



Old trees have been honoured in all ages, but the gnarled 

 Oaks, the scraggy Thorns, and the ancestral fruit trees are 

 now more cherished than they were. Thoy are banded and 

 propped, supported and sustained. The good they have done 

 is appreciated, and their usefulness even now in suggesting 

 wholesome thoughts and healthy contemplations is recognised. 



It is pleasant to see these old trees — old friends — regarded, 

 as old friends should be, with respect. There is something in 

 an old friend that one clings to with a confidence which wo 

 feel will not be misplaced. We like to nurture the young, and 

 we admiro the vigour of perfected manhood, or treehood ; but 

 in both tree and man we learn to lean on the stabihty of those 

 which have proved their stableness. I am not yet old, but old 

 enough to have experienced the flatterings of new friends who 

 have failed me, and new trees from which I had hoped for 

 more than I have obtained. I have destroyed the old for the 

 sake of the new and have regretted it. I have changed and 

 " changed back again," and found old friends which had 

 " changed not ;" but the old trees I have destroyed I can never 

 restore. 



But I have new friends also and new trees, generous and 

 genuine friends, who would rather sacrifice my friendship than 

 deprive me of that which I had enjoyed prior to theirs. That 

 is noble friendship, and I prize it as I do my new trees which 

 flourish by the sido of their foster parents. I have other 

 " friends," who have forced their friendship on me and sought 

 to alienate me from the old, and thus have shown the cloven 

 foot of selfishness, and have won — my pity; as I have other 

 trees which have been fair to look upon, which have been full 

 of promise — trees which have put forth a great show of bloom 

 and vigour, but on testing their fruit — proving them — I have 

 found them " not true to name." Thus by experience and 

 disappointment I have been taught a lesson which others may 

 with advantage learn also, and that is not to presumptuously 

 abandon old friends or lightly sacrifice old trees. 



I am not a kid-gloved sentimentalist, but am one of " the 

 craft," plain and practical — one who can work hard and speak 

 plain ; of which I may give as an instance that I have wheeled 

 muck until my hands became as hard as the barrow handles, 

 pruned until my fingers were frozen into chilblains, and up- 

 rooted trees until my shirt was wet on my back. 



Having presented my credentials I will now be practical and 

 state my reasons for saying a word on behalf of old trees : my 

 other old friends can take care of themselves. When I was 

 a very young gardener I made a mistake. Many young gar- 

 deners do ; they think they are making improvements, but in 

 reality they ought to be written " mistakes." They have 

 either planted the wrong sorts of trees or planted them in the 

 wrong places, or, what is quite as likely, have (or would if 

 power had been given) taken away trees which ought not to 

 have been removed. 



It should never be forgotten that in the removal of trees it 

 is possible to undo thn work of a hundred years in as many 

 minutes. Much consideration should therefore be given before 

 the work of uprooting commences. The destruction should 

 not be decided in a day— hardly in a season, and that season 

 winter ; but the trees and their surroundings should especially 

 be examined in the summer months, and the verdict con- 

 demning them be given when the trees are in their fullest 

 beauty. By that practice errors in removal are greatly reduced. 



It is dangerous to decide quickly on destroying trees at a 

 season when the trees are divested of their beauty. The cast- 

 ing of their foliage, and the consequent untidiness following, 

 must have no weight and voice in the decision ; yet it is to be 

 feared that it is often the most powerful argument — the casting 

 vote— in the question of their removal. 



It is more than twenty years since I was first installed 

 (perhaps prematurely) in the position of head gardener. I 

 had wearily longed for that time — the prospective " grassy 

 Lumou " — of impatient journeymen, who seldom find it, how- 

 ever, to be the bed of Eoses of their anticipations. I was full 

 of energy, and possessed, at least in my own estimation, taste 

 and competency. I must make a mark, and was ever ringing 

 the changes on " alterations and improvements." It was 

 autumn, and the seasonable deshahillc of falling leaves inter- 

 fered with my sense of trimnesa and propriety. I envied those 



who had as garden ornaments none but evergreens, and I 

 urged the removal of the old deciduous trees. My employer 

 urged the mistake, but the lady voted with me, and of course 

 we conquered. The trees were removed — what a blank ! Bat 

 it would never do to own that it was not the exact effect fore- 

 seen and desired. 



The evergreens were planted, and everything done to ensure 

 their suooess. They did succeed, and are fine now. 



After ten years of the best labour I could give, and a farther 

 absence of a like term, I visited the " old place." My " old 

 master" gave me an unusual welcome by compelling me to 

 dine at his family table in words that I am not likely to forget 

 in consequence of their pleasantness and also their bitter 

 sting. "You served me well," said he, "and successfully, 

 and I treat you as I treat all good servants. The shrubs which 

 you planted are all that I can desire of them, but I would give 

 you a thousand pounds to bring me back my old trees." 



It is quite clear now that my youthful improvement was in 

 reality a mistake. I have reason therefore by that as well aa 

 other instances which I can adduce to say, Do not lightly 

 sacrifice old trees or lightly value old friends. 



I have also made mistakes when essaying improvements in 

 dealing with old fruit trees, and seen similar mistakes made 

 by others. These I will quote on a future occasion as a warn- 

 ing to those of advanced proclivities — a check to high-pressure 

 energies. 



I never now hastily destroy a tree. My first thought is 

 renovation, my last destruction. There is a wonderful store 

 of energy in an old tree as there is a fund of information and 

 refreshing pleasantry in an old friend. Let us use them, and 

 they will yet yield us profit. 



But are we never to destroy '! Yes, but destroy only to 

 replace. — E.u)iciL Conservative. 



THE OLD MARKET GARDENS akd NURSERIES 

 OF LONDON.— No. 7. 



It may be as well to remind the reader of the peculiar posi- 

 tion which some of the market gardens of London occupied 

 (I do not mean topographically, but with regard to the vending 

 of the vegetables and fruit they produced) say a century and a 

 half or two centuries ago. Greengrocers as we know them now 

 did not then exist, London citizens procured their vegetables 

 in one or two markets, or else from chance dealers in the 

 streets, the early costermongers. Sometimes they chose to 

 obtain garden produce for themselves direct from the grounds, 

 and also to eat it on the spot ; so that sundry of the market 

 gardens were also at first pleasure gardens, until by degrees 

 most of the land given to the culture of vegetables was devoted 

 to recreative purposes, and the market gardens removed farther 

 a-field, where there was more space at command and an atmo- 

 sphere less defiled with smoke. That part of Surrey skirting 

 the Thames which we call the district of Lambeth proper is 

 not at present a particularly attractive spot ; there is this con- 

 nection, however, between the past and the present, that the 

 place is stiU humid, and having a soil of pale clay it is likely 

 to remain so. Etymologists, indeed, hint that the name itself 

 is expressive of dirt or mire, coming from lam, and lujd or 

 hytlie, equivalent, therefore, to the " Dirt Haven," though Dr. 

 Ducarel, the friend of Tradeseant the gardener of Stuart times 

 and a resident in Lambeth, will not have it, and insists that 

 the lam should be lamb. But no good explanation of that 

 name can be given, for it does not appear to have been pasture 

 ground. 



If we look back to Lambeth in the days when the early 

 botanists found such plants as Anchusa sempervirena and 

 Epilobium roseum growing there we see it intersected by many 

 little paths, which are shaded with Willows, and along which 

 stroll parties of Londoners on summer evenings ; while on 

 several patches of ground, which are slightly elevated (since 

 much of Lambeth is so marshy that it is overflowed by a tide 

 rather higher than usual), vegetables are cultivated for the 

 market. The cost of carriage is not an important item, the 

 produce being boated across the Thames, and usually landed 

 at what was called " Strand Bridge," properly a pier, above 

 which there was swung a bridge crossing the lane leading from 

 the landing-place into the Strand. The " 'Sparagus Garden " 

 at Lambeth forms a subject of comment in an old play, thus 

 letting us know incidentally that this plant was cultivated 

 there with success, and it would seem the Londoners were par- 

 ' ticularly fond of this vegetable. 



