306 Review of Paxton^s Horticultural Register. 



Art. II. Paxton^s Horticultural Register. Edited by J. 

 Main, A. L. S. In Monthly 8vo Numbers. 2s. each. 

 No. XLVIII, for June, 1836. 



The cuhivation of water-cresses is now becoming very gene- 

 ral, by market gardeners, for supplying this fine vegetable. In 

 the hope that the following article may render their growth more 

 simple, we extract it entire from this work. 



" The sanatory virtues ascribed to this vegetable have long made it 

 ■valued as a salad phiiit. Being found wild in every streamlet in what is 

 often called the old world, the necessity of cultivating it in England did not 

 occur to any one, until a person residing near Rickmersworth, in Buck- 

 inghamshire (and who used to employ poor people to pick these cresses 

 from the river Colne), coidd not at last supply the demand for the Lon- 

 don market, more especially as he had no more riirht to the cresses in 

 the river than any one else in the neighborhood. But the idea of their 

 cultivation occurring to him, and having the oifer of the tenancy of a 

 large branch of the river which bounded his own vegetable garden, he 

 eagerly embraced the offer, and, in a most spirited manner, commenced 

 the culture of the plant, on what he could call his own premises, and 

 with the most successful and profitable result. 



" The great success attending this new branch of vegetable culture 

 attracted the notice of the Horticultural Society of London, and, on ap- 

 plication, he supplied the society with a detailed account of his pro- 

 ceedmgs and success ; and for which the members of the society voted 

 him a medal, or some oflier valuable mark of their approbation. Since 

 that time numerous other cress plantations have been made in different 

 parts of the kingdom, and it really appears that the demand about 

 London is fully equul to the supply, thousands getting their bread by 

 hawking cresses about the streets ; and, from the quantities daily dis- 

 posed of, a stranger to London might naturally suppose water-cresses 

 to be, in that city, a necessary of life. 



" The place chosen by the first cultivator was a very shallow and 

 wide branch, or rather a tributary from springs to the river, where the 

 water ran rapidly over a clean pebbly bed, and in dei)th from one to 

 two or three inches. It is necessary that the pebbly bed have a uniform 

 and regularly graduated fall, as this is conducive to the growth, clean- 

 liness, and facility of picking the cresses. In planting, for the first 

 time, such a part of a stream, plants are brought from where they grow 

 naturally, with a little of the mud adhering to them, and beginning at 

 the bottom of the pebbly bed, arrans^ing the plants one above another 

 in longitudinal stripes, or narrow beds, with open spaces of a foot wide 

 betw( en, to allow a free passage to the water, and patlis for the jiickers 

 to tread in. Thus jdaced, the plants soon take root in the gravel, and 

 are in no risk of being floated away. 



" If the plantation be subject to be deeply flooded by sudden thaws 

 of snow in winter, or heavy rains at other seasons, the owner should 

 have some contrivance like a dam or barrier at the top, to turn the flood 

 aside. 



" Any quick-flowing rivulet is suitable for growing water-cresses ; 

 but spring water fresh from the fountain-head is by far the best, not 

 only from the heat of spring water inducing more rapid growth, but 

 because the growth is continued throughout the winter, and is therefore 

 more profitable in that season when the produce is most valued. The 



