eee SO 
1843.} 
THE GARDENERS’ CHRONICLE. 19 
RCHITECTURE.—LECTURES at the ROYAL 
ACA 
enerally 
insure a full and accurate Report of cach of the Si: 
about to be delivered. The first will appear in The Atheneum of 
Saturday, January the 14th. 
fhe Gardeners’ Chronicte, 
SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 1843. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
Horticultural 
» Jtinnean 
UPloricultural) 
Seological 
‘Tuesday, Jan.17 «7. 
Wednesday, Jan. 18. + 
Friday, Jan. 20, , + + + 
Tuesday, Jan. 24 
Wednesday, Jan. 25 . . . Medico-Botanical. . . 8 p.m. 
Saturday, Jan. 28 + Royal Botanic. - + . 83 rm, 
We are ded by a correspondent that the 
is land, which we advocated last week, has already 
occupied the attention of Mr. Pusey, to whom the 
country is already so much indebted for his exertions 
in the important work of drainage. In fact, notice of 
a committee was given by that gentleman last session, 
and evidence on the subject was prepared; but the 
discussion on the Tariff frustrated his intentions. We 
have reason to believe that Mr. Pusey intends to re- 
new his notice in the ensuing session, with a view to 
some general legislative enactment 5 and we most sin- 
cerely trust he will receive the support of the whole 
landed interest. ‘The two chief difficulties are—Ist, 
the existence of old corporations of sewers, and of 
local acts; and 2ndly, the want of a competent 
board to which appeal might be made. The latter 
would have to be provided: and we cannot but sup- 
pose that where measures of such paramount import- 
ance are concerned, the former difficulty would be 
easily removed. 
Po of giving every landowner an outfall from 
Srnow the cultivation of the Cucumber has become 
a matter of such general interest, that societies have 
been established for the sole purpose of testing its 
merits, it is desirable that there should be laid down 
some reasonable and fixed rules from which an univer- 
sal standard may be formed for judging of the quali- 
ties of this vegetable. This is the more necessary, 
since the standard of almost every society at present 
formed differs in some respect from that of its neigh- 
jour. 
In all these, the superiority of the fruit is made to 
depend upon its length, combined with certain other 
qualities, some of which indeed are of importance 
while others, in our opinion, are of little or no Bate 
quence; and one, which requires a fruit to be 
ribbed, is most absurd. Why a ribbed Cucumber 
should be preferred to one with an even surface, we 
cannot imagine. In peeling such a fruit, the portion 
of it beneath the rind must necessarily be cut away ; 
and consequently great waste, as well as a loss of the 
best part of the fruit, is occasioned. It is equally in- 
comprehensible why a black-spined Cucumber should 
be peremptorily declared to be superior to one with 
white spines. “Qualities such as these are perfectly 
arbitrary, add nothing to the appearance of a Cucum- 
er on the dinner-table, and haye no relation to its 
Sood quality as a salad. 
en we must have Cucumbers grown to an enor- 
mous length; everybody wants to have his fruit longer 
than his neighbour's ; and if itis so long that no dish 
can be found to hold it, so much the better. But is 
there any common sense in this? Of what earthly 
use are these long fruits, except to make people stare ? 
Are they better flavoured—better bearers—better 
Poe 2 Quite the contrary: they are simply longer. 
i hey are too long to be placed on a dinner-table, too 
as ae ae by a small party, too coarse to suit a 
ea palate, and are, in fact, fit for nothing, ex- 
a Se the admiration of the servants’ hall. If 
the Paes must be had to stare at, why not cultivate 
meee ieee Cucumber, or the Snake Gourd, at 
long oe e fact is, that a Cucumber 10 or 12 inches 
uch better in all respects, only it is not so 
e' 
thickness 
it moreoy. 
be 
ee you have nearly all that itis possible to de- 
. of the old prickly race, bloom—natural, not 
uld be insisted on; because it ensures 
ite bart of Be grower, and the fruit 
Tarki 3 as Cucumbers of the Smyrna and 
een Pe have no bloom, and they are among 
ifn arena b table, to require bloom as a sine qua 
Bibarlasan to exclude some of the most useful sorts 
Fe hela ert Finally, no Cucumber-show should 
Rd arieds 4 rt oh June. In proportion as the season 
Mendinn es the difficulty of growing this vegetable 
3 and it must be some very extraordinary 
circumstance indeed that can render any Cucumber 
worth a prize after June, in a society especially insti- 
tuted for its cultivation. 
We have been led to make these remarks by having 
received from Mr. James Reid, gardener at Bretton 
Hall, near Wakefield, some very handsome Cucum- 
bers, of the Sion House kind, accompanied by a brace 
of seedlings from the same sort, with a request that we 
would give oyr opinion respecting them. The latter 
were certainly more uniform in size, and superior in 
outward appearance to the former ; but, allowing for 
the extra care which most persons bestow upon sorts of 
their own raising, we do not think that the seedlings 
are preferable to the old variety. 
We understand it to be the intention’ of Mr. 
Crawshay to exhibit specimens of his Grapes on 
Tuesday next, at the meeting of the Horticultural 
Society in Regent-street. This will give our readers 
an opportunity of judging for themselves as to their 
quality. 
Somn time since we recommended the members of 
the Hammersmith Mutual Instruction Gardeners’ 
Society to alter their rules, by substituting, for fines, 
expulsion in case of drunkenness ; whereupon our good 
friend Peter Mackenzie, himself a gardener, and well 
acquainted with the brethren of the gentle craft, made 
some general observations, directed at nobody in par- 
ticular, which we thought very proper ; but which, it 
seems, people have been wise enough to apply to 
themselves : at least, so we gather from a. letter ad- 
dressed to us by Mr. W. L., of Hammersmith, who 
seems to have taken Mr. Peter’s letter in dudgeon, 
calling it scurrilous, and so forth. 
We are not sorry that Mr. L. has addressed him- 
self to us, because it gives us an opportunity of speak- 
ing our mind about certain things, concerning which 
we might otherwise have been silent. On the other 
hand, we do regret that it should be necessary to ani- 
madvert upon the letter of a man who seems to be 
well-intentioned, and, in some respects, right minded. 
It is evident that the great offence that we aud Mr. 
Peter have been so unfortunaté as to give to the 
Hammersmith Gardeners’ Mutual Instruction Society 
consists in our recommending the expulsion of mem- 
bers who get drunk ; and it is the more surprising that 
these good people should have proved so sensitive, 
because other Societies of the same kind have thanked 
us for the advice. How is it then that the members 
of this Hammersmith Society are so tender upon this 
point? Is it because it touched them home? We hope 
not. Mr. L. says, ‘It does not follow because you meet 
with a drunken man in company that you are to become 
a drunkard,also ; a man that would suffer himself to be 
led away must be a person of very weak intellect—of 
very little self-command. I would rather allow him to 
remain, that by seeing the actions of the good man, and 
the success that attends his exertions, the drunkard may 
be induced to amend his former errors, and for the 
future walk in the paths of industry and sobriety.” 
This is all very fine ; but, good Mr. L., “ fine words 
butter no parsneps.” If, indeed, these drunkards 
were likely to be amended by your plan, we would 
have it tried—not by sitting night after night with 
your sot, but by expelling him, and putting him on 
his good behaviour. If he mends, it is easy to re- 
admit him ; if he remains in your society, it is not so 
easy for raw young men to avoid imitating his exam- 
ple. The truth is, that tippling is the bane of gar- 
deners, as it is of so many other classes ; and no mea- 
sures short of the most stringent are at all likely to 
cure it, 
We say nothing of the members of the Hammer- 
smith Gardeners’ Mutual Instruction Society, and we 
are bound to believe all that is good of them, for we 
know nothing to the contrary. It is, in fact, because 
we wished them to remain respectable that we gave 
them that advice, at which Mr. L. has taken hutl. 
But he knows quite as well as we do, that there 
exists among gardeners a set of low fellows, who 
spend their evenings in pothouses, and their days 
in cheating their employers. These persons, the 
dregs of the craft, may be known by a swaggering 
demeanour, which the simple mistake for know- 
ledge. They are men of assertions, talking down the 
really well-informed gardener with loud words, slang 
and braggadocio. In the morning you will see them 
dirty and unshaven ; by noon they are muddled, and 
may be found at the nearest public-house, laying down 
the law to the sots around them: in the evening they 
are drunk, At the meetings of gardeners, they ap- 
pear in greasy clothes, foul linen, hats and shoes, like 
their hair, unacquainted with the luxury of a brush ; 
and they strut about, the very Parias of Horticulture. 
On such occasions you may observe them in clusters, 
perplexing their scanty brains by foolish arguments 
about nothing. By way of showing their importance, 
they jostle the ladies who may have the misfortune to 
be near them at Horticultural Shows, and eventually 
are consigned to the police, or are threatened with it, 
when their insolence is quieted, and they sneak away 
to their more congenial tap-rooms. Would our Ham= 
mersmith correspondent keep these in his Society ? 
Experience has brought us acquainted with many 
of this sort. They are at once a nuisance and a dis- 
grace to gardeners, and should be unceremoniously 
expelled from all decent associations; for gardeners, 
as a body, are the reverse of this description ; and for 
their own sake they should not allow their credit to be 
compromised, or their society to be contaminated, by 
the admission of such people. No one knowsbetter thai 
we do the excellence of character which is found in 
the great body of gardeners; their painful efforts to 
improve themselves with most inadequate means, their 
self-denial, their struggles against difficulties, and the 
patience with which they bear the sad reverses to 
which they are too often exposed ; and, let us add, the 
strictly honourable conduct that marks their lives. To 
virtues such as these we bear our willing testimony ; 
and because we know of them and honour them, we 
are the more anxious to draw a broad line of distine- 
tion between gardeners of respectability and the 
people just described. 
It happened, not long since, that a very worthy 
young man was induced to join a party of gardeners 
in arranging some meetings for mutual instruction, 
and for other purposes connected with their pro- 
fession. An object of this kind, one would have 
thought, would have met with approbation, if not 
assistance, from every gardener who deserved 
the name. But no; Timothy Cackle, one of 
the low fellows we allude to, was present, wha 
ridiculed every proposition that was made, bullied 
everybody, and, by mere force of impudence, contrived 
to upset the business of the meeting. In doing 80, 
Mr. Timothy Cackle no doubt thought himself a fine 
fellow; but his master did not estimate him s0 
highly when he knew of his proceedings. Would Mr. 
L. keep this man in his Society ? 
A second case was reported in the Times a short time 
since. It appears, that, among other ruffians appre- 
hended for torturing a bull, was one Isaac Ransom, @ 
gardener of Sudbury. It was proved that this worthy 
had been among the most active in setting dogs on the 
bull, and that the animal was tormented about an hour, 
during which language of the most filehy and dis- 
gusting description was indulged in. The magistrate 
very properly sentenced Mr. Isaac Ransom: to im 
prisonment with hard labour in the House of Conec- 
tion for two montis. _ Is this man the sort of person 
Mr. L. would keep in his Mutual Instruction Society ? 
Now we affirm that these men, Cackle and Ransom, 
are only a type of the class which we shall continue 
to call low gardeners ; that such occurrences, or others 
very similar, are by no means uncommon among them ; 
and that their brutal habits can, in fact, lead to no other 
results, Nevertheless, well-meaning men, like Mr. L., 
are apt to regard such conduct as of no consequence 
to themselves ; and to think that, so long as their own 
acts are unimpeachable, they have nothing to do with 
those of others. We can assure them that in this they 
commit an error seriously prejudicial to themselves. 
It is the interest of all gardeners to watch over 
their profession; not by their own conduct alone, 
but also by influencing and controlling that of others 
beneath them. If they do this effectually, the charac- 
ter of gardeners is raised; and, as their importance 
advances, remuneration will keep pace with it. On 
the other hand, if no means are taken to eradicate the 
evil portion, it, like weeds upon a dunghill, will grow 
rank, and flourish, and choke the good seeds that are 
sown among them. Cure the Cackles and ead 
good Mr. L., by the most gentle of ne sate 
monstrance, by showing them your OWB S000 &X- 
ample, by persuasion, by kindness, by 4” Pei tr 
der and affectionate process, i/yov cane 7 sig ie 1€ 
meanwhile, remove them from your Society: that is 
ur advice. : 
We oe no enemies to conviviality. | We should be 
the last to require gardeners t0 lead a life os total ab. 
stinencesaAllewereontend tomas ene MECessity of-so- 
briety ; a man may be happy epee drunk ; 
and gardeners, above all weer ah fo eee require to 
be proof against this vice aa ve charge entrusted 
to their care is great and wi not bear neglect. How- 
we have said enough upon i the subject for the 
present: or, if we haye not, we shall surrender itinto 
the hands of a correspondent, who signs himself ‘*A 
Gardener,” and whose experience in these maiters will 
be found in another column. 
2 HEATING. 
Ov attention has lately been called by Mr. Beck, of 
Isleworth, to a somewhat novel method of heating by hot 
water, which appears worthy of being more generally 
known, The apparatus now in use at that gentleman’s 
residence is upon a very small scale; but the principle 
upon which it acts is capable of being carried out to any 
extent, and is at once so simple and economical, that we 
shall attempt to describe it briefly to our readers. 
The originality of this invention lies with Mr. Rendle, 
of the Plymouth Nursery, who, in June last, forwarded to 
the Horticultural Society a paper upon the subject, which 
was read at one of their meetings, and of which an ab- 
