On the Cultivation of Herbs and Salads. 105 



of the plates of the rock, (when it is thus fissile,) through the 

 swelling of the roots and stems ; and again, the penetration 

 of the rain, snow and frost. Every year throws down in- 

 creased and increasing bulk of foliage, of twigs, stems and 

 even of branches, to afford supplies of vegetable soil by their 

 decomposition, and to allow chance for smaller kinds of 

 plants to find some foothold to grow. The uses of those 

 very humble vegetables, the lichens, mosses and fungi, and 

 their allies, are perceptible in the processes ; and they all love 

 to linger around the bases of these hardy forest denizens, 

 clinging, with pertinacity of a seeming affection, to the moist 

 and shaded surfaces of the rocks, saving each little particle of 

 dust and sand of disintegration, among their velvetty leaves, 

 or, in the case of the fungi, rending asunder the decaying 

 fibres of the dead twigs and leaves, to crumble down into 

 mould, and to provide a suitable material for some other 

 species of tree or of plant, and in time to clothe and cover the 

 once sterile rock surface with a depth of nutritious earth. 

 How minute, yet admirable, these tiny ministers of nature, to 

 do her bidding, and to bring about her magnificent results ! 



The evidences of* successful planting, over once neglected 

 and sterile surfaces, by our nurserymen, horticulturists and by 

 some of our farmers, betoken that an attention to such pur- 

 suits is being awakened. Every record of such attempts is 

 valuable, because it will serve to keep alive the interest, and 

 afford proofs of the utility, of any experiment in its behalf 



February 2, 1852. 



Art. II. On the Cultivation of Herbs and Salads. By J. 

 CuTHiLL. From the Gardeners' Chronicle. 



In our last volume, we gave a series of articles by Mr. 

 Outhill, on the Market Gardening around London, and from 

 what we have learned from many of our readers they were 

 considered among the most valuable papers in that volume. 



We now have the pleasure of presenting the first of a series 



VOL. XVIII. NO. III. 14 



