r32 



FARMERS' REGISTER— GARDENING AND AGRICULTURE, &c. 



as a manure, on so barren a soil : and their principal 

 early use, when thus applied together with putrescent 

 matters, will be to preserve the latter to the soil. This 

 fixing or preserving power of calcareous manure, is 

 higlily important: but its effects are not such as can 

 be properly estimated in the first, or perhaps in the 

 second crop. Calcareous manures economise and accu- 

 mulate fertility — putrescent manures spend all they 

 possess — unless, there is calcareous matter already in 

 the soil, to prevent the entire waste.] 



IMPROA'ED PRODUCTS OF GARDEXIJVG AND 

 AGRICULTURE. 



From British Hiisbandnj, (in the Library of Useful Knowledge.) 



The principles of gardening and of agriculture 

 (confining the latter to tillage only, instead of the 

 more extensive sense in which it is commonly un- 

 derstood) are nearly similar; both are directed to 

 the cultivation of vegetable productions, and the 

 only material distinction is, that the former embra- 

 ces a larger range, extending indeed, through the 

 aid of artificial heat, to the whole vegetable crea- 

 tion, and demanding more minute and scientific 

 arrangement, with closer attention — while the lat- 

 ter is conducted on a broader scale, and is necessa- 

 rily limited to those plants which flourish in the 

 open air. 



Through these arts, many herbs that were for 

 ages regarded as weeds and others that were exotic, 

 are now cultivated among tlie most valued, as well 

 as the most common, of our esculent vegelaldcs; 

 Avhile several of those now grown in the fields 

 were, at no very distant period, either little known 

 or considered as garden delicacies, and exclusively 

 confined to the tables of the rich. There is still 

 extant an ancient manual of cookery, entitled, 

 " The Forme of Ciiry," supposed to have been 

 compiled about the year 1390, by the master cooks 

 of King Richard II., in which, although elaborate 

 directions are given for the preparation of " ca- 

 baches," no mention is made of any other vegeta- 

 bles, except peas and beans, onions, leeks, and 

 rapes; which latter were probably a species of 

 turnip. Hume, indeed, tells us, that, " it was not 

 until the end of the reign of Henry VIII. that any 

 sallads, turnips, or other edible roots, were produ- 

 ced in England; the little of these vegetables that 

 was used being imported from Holland and Flan- 

 ders, so that Queen Catherine, when she wanted a 

 sallad, was obliged to despatch a messenger thither 

 on purpose."* Still later, we learn from an entry, 

 dated in 1595, in the household book of the Cliffords, 

 ke})t at Skipton Castle, in Yorkshire, that eleven 

 shillings (a large sum in those days) were paid 

 "for vi cabishes and some caret-roots, bought at 

 Hull" — a seaport at the distance of full eighty 

 miles ; from which we may presume that they were 

 imported, and purchased for some very particular 

 occasion. In the commencement of the seventeenth 

 century, one of the commonest of our present escu- 

 lents, the potato, was regarded as so great a rarity, 

 that it was only served in small quantities, and at 

 the price of two shillings the pound, at the Queen's 

 table; it was for a long time treated as a fruit, 

 baked in pies with spices and wine, or eaten with 

 sugar ; and nearly two hundred years elapsed, from 

 its introduction into thiscountry,beforeit was cul- 

 tivated as a field crop. 



* History of England, chap, xxiii. 



Since that lime, through the progress of botani- 

 cal science, and the efforts made for the improve- 

 ment of horticulture, many productions of the 

 south have been naturalized in this country, and 

 tiie introduction of the hot-house has made us fami- 

 liar wi!h the rarest exotics. Still, various foreign 

 vegetables remain strangers toour culture, though 

 adapted to our climate, and even some, which are 

 indigenous to our soil, have not yet been brought 

 into use, or are only slowly obtaining attention. It 

 is not, indeed, to foreign nations alone that we are 

 to look for new species of plants. Those which 

 we already possess become so improved by culti- 

 vation, that new varieties of the same race are con- 

 stantly produced, until, at length, by continued 

 melioration, the parent stock is either lost, or 

 neglected, and a new generation is created. Thus 

 it has been supjiosed that not one of the numerous 

 kinds and varieties of fruit, now found in our gar- 

 dens and orchards, are what the}' were in their 

 aboriginal state, and several appear to be absolutely 

 new formations, the offspring of accident, or skill, 

 rather than the spontaneous productions of nature. 

 We are even ignorant of the native country, and 

 existence in a wild stale, of some of the most im- 

 portant of our plants; but we know that improved 

 flowers and fruits are the necessary production of 

 im])roved culture, and that the offspring, in a 

 greater or less degree, inherits the cluiracter of its 

 parent ; the austere crab of our woods has been 

 converted into the golden pippin, and the nume- 

 rous varieties of the plum can boast no other parent 

 than our native sloe* Thus also, notwithstanding 

 the attention bestowed by the ancients on the pro- 

 ducts of their gardens, and the probability that 

 they were acquainted with a great proportion of 

 the vegetables still in use, yet botanists find it diffi- 

 cult to reconcile the generic qualities of many 

 plants, as they are described by the Greek and 

 Roman authors, with the properties of those of the 

 same species witii which we are acquainted; we 

 may, therefore, confidently infer, that an ample and 

 unexplored field for future discovery lies before us, 

 in which nature does not seem to liave placed any 

 limits to the success of our labors, if properly ap- 

 plied.! 



BIACHIKE FOR EXCAVATIXG EARTH, 



From the Manchester [Eng.] Courier. 



jMr. G. V. Palmer, of Worcester, has been ten 

 years and upwards engaged in constructing an ex- 

 traordinary engine to excavate earth, &c. fOr which 

 he has taken out a patent. 'I'his cni;ine works by 

 steam, and is particularly adapted for cutting ca- 

 nals, levelling hills for railways, and removing 

 large masses of earth. The engine cuts, at a sin- 

 gle blow, six feet in width and three feet in depth — 

 delivering on either side, or into carts, one ton and 

 ujjwards per minute: it also cuts and sifts gravel 

 in the same proj)ortion for road-inaking. We un- 

 derstand it is of great simplicity of construction, 

 and the weight of the engine does not exceed three 

 tons. 



* Introduction to the Transactions of the Horticultu- 

 ral Society, and Journal of Science and the Arts, N,S., 

 vol. i, p. 265, 



f Beckman's History of Inventions, art. " Kitchen 

 Gardent;" and Transactions of the Hort. Soc, Introd. 



