Q14 
THE GARDENERS 
CHRONICLE. 
[Apri 1, 
some of my work-people, who had been unaware of what 
Thad been doing with the large stock of Potatoes in an 
out-house, cut them for sets, and planted them, while is 
entirely ignorant that the vegetating principle had been 
destroyed, felt no misgivings on the subject. No Potatoes 
grew, as you must know ; and when the matter was inquired 
into, I actually bribed the labourers to propagate the 
report that the crop had failed from dry-rot. Well, sir, 
we tried Turnips early in July, and they came up well; 
but in order to secure them from the fly, of which I had 
read much, I applied a solution of salt in such profu- 
sion that I killed every plant.—Steady. (Laughing). Well, 
this was certainly a sad blunder ; but you must admit that 
Sir John Sinclair gave you no reason for supposing that 
kiln-dried seed of any kind would grow; and I suspect 
that you made your solution of salt vastly stronger than 
the prescription warranted. I remember that Hogg used 
to make a good deal of money by the orchard of Crofton 
Apples; that, of course, has yielded as formerly ?—San. 
Bless you, no; 1’ll tell you all about that too. Hogg always 
let his cows have the run of the orchard in winter and spring; 
and they ate off or broke down all the lower branches, so 
as to prevent the trees from wooding too much. This 
system I put a stop to, and closed up the gate by which 
the cows used to enter, and the consequence was that the 
trees ran so'much to wood, that I had no crop. Hogg’s 
mode of pruning with cows’ mouths and horns had been 
really efficacious, though no one could have supposed that 
such rude and unscientific practice would have succeeded. 
—Steady. Whoever takes this farm now ‘will reap the 
advantage, however, of your unsuccessful outlay. “You 
have been, I suppose, ploughing a good deep furrow, and 
to my knowledge Hogg never gave anything but a scratch- 
ing to the land.—San. Ay, but his scratching brought 
him crops, which my deep ploughing has failed to do.— 
Steady. How ?—San. Unfortunately, I insisted that’ the 
ploughs should go deep into the under till—which is the 
worst kind of yellow clay—and bring it to the surface, and 
the consequence is, that I have poisoned my land. In 
short, my good neighbour, I have had no return at all for 
my expenditure ; and I leave my malediction onall writers 
on husbandry, from the greatest to the least, from Jethro 
Tull down to Martin Doyle.—Steady. Oh! pray except 
Doyle—whatever you may do with all the rest ; there are 
no crotchets in him. I myself have just bought the tenth 
number of the new edition (in monthly one shilling 
numbers) of his Cyclopedia. If you will follow the plain 
and well-selected advice which that experienced writer 
ords: San. Hang me if I do—(in a violent passion). 
No, sir, I shall make no exception whatever ; they are all 
a parcel of humbugging, ignorant. Steady. My dear 
r. Sanguine, be composed; believe me, you have mis- 
apprehended many things, and not exercised discrimina- 
tion. Excuse my freedom ; you have taken isolated cases 
instead of looking at the whole; and you have ventured 
to act for yourself in matters requiring skill and expe- 
rience, without possessing either of those qualifications. 
Ifa surgeon writes an able work on surgery, does it follow 
that a man who has been uninstructed in that art can 
exercise the knife, the probe, or the saw? The books are 
not so much to blame as you think, for they all presuppose 
a knowledge of farming to’ be possessed by the readers of 
them.— San. Yet, if they give erroneous directions, even 
a professional farmer may be misled by them. For in- 
stance, I read somewhere that a few stones of Wheat would 
be sufficient to sow an acre, and that thick-sowing is worse 
than waste of seed; and I tried four stones of Barley to 
an acre, in drills—why, sir, I had not more than the third 
part of a crop.—Steady. At what distances were your 
drills ?—San, Eighteen inches.— Steady. No wonder that 
you were disappointed. Now, I will venture to say that 
the writer referred to Wheat only, and that he intended 
horse-hoeing, on Tull’s principle.—San. Exactly so. But 
if this treatment was good for Wheat, I took it for granted 
it ought to be good for Barley.— Steady. By no means: 
there was your ignorance (excuse me), and not the error 
of the writer ; you applied to one kind of grain the in- 
structions given respecting another, and under peculiar 
circumstances: did you horse-hoe ?— San. No, for I 
sowed Clover seeds with the Barley. — Steady. Well, 
even if you had, your field would not have yielded half a 
crop, because Barley does not tiller, as Wheat does, on 
every fresh stirring of the earth, and acquire the same 
invigoration and extension in consequence. The book was 
not to blame in this instance, nor is it the science of agri- 
culture—as far as I can judge from what you have stated 
—that is in fault, but your misapplication of its prin- 
ciples. Writers on this subject, 4s on others, no doubt 
often publish a great deal of nonsense; but a prudent 
reader cannot be misled, if he has discretion enough to 
receive new-fangled opinions, which are in opposition to 
uniform practice, with great caution, to weigh well all the 
circumstances, and to adopt the new suggestions slowly, 
and not until the test of experience has established their 
correctness. One should begin with experiments on a 
small scale, and not change the entire system in a moment, 
as you have done : you drained too extensively at starting, 
and that before you had ascertained the best method of 
doing it ; then you undid your work as inconsiderately as 
you had d it—you abandoned the system of fal- 
lowing all at once, without having a better to succeed its 
© take two or three successive Corn crops is contrary to 
all good theory and practice ; but you contrived it so as to 
ave hardly any crops at all. You went at once to an 
Spposite extreme, and deserted the old system before you 
had established the new, without reflecting that the 
transition-state should be slow, and suited, in all its pro- 
portions, to the new and untried circumstances’ to which 
it is to pass. A new r of farm 
should be effected ‘as 9 manufacturer changes from one 
branch of manufacture to another: he cautiously and 
prudently makes his pre-arrangements, and does not 
abandon the one manufacture until he is ready to com- 
mence the other in a well-organized and effective manner ; 
he calculates his probable profits at the lowest rates, and 
his losses at the highest, with an ample allowance for un- 
favourable contingencies. — San. I have unfortunately 
acted in the contrary way, and deceived myself in conse- 
quence in every item, in proportion to my over-sanguine 
expectations. For instance, I anticipated from the field 
which I drained in so needlessly expensive a manner a 
great return, and when I bought improved ploughs, and 
insisted on deep furrow-slices, in defiance of the advice 
which my ploughmen gave me and the infertility of the 
subsoil, I calculated on an immediate increase of produc- 
tions.— Steady. Just so,—and that reminds me to remark 
that you ought to have brought up the subsoil very 
gradually in successive years, allowing time for the 
atmosphere and manures to fertilize each thin layer of 
clay brought to the surface, and not to have incorporated 
in one season an overwhelming mass of bad matter with 
the shallow surface-earth, from which old Hogg would 
have had a good crop of Oats. Then, again, Mr. San- 
guine, in attempting all at once to bring in the alternate 
system, you made great mistakes ; for example, in buying 
cattle to consume green food, which was not even in a 
growing state, and in rejecting Corn crops before you had 
made adequate preparations for replacing them with 
artificial green crops.—San. Between the two stools I 
have fallen to the ground completely.—Sveady. And I 
believe that you dismissed a very intelligent and prudent 
though old-fashioned steward, though you had not expe- 
rience yourself to undertake such great land improve- 
ments without a practical guide at your elbow; but, as 
you have very candidly said that you have fallen to the 
ground, I must be permitted to express my deep regret at’ 
€ ci both from apprehension of the conse- 
quences which may result to this country—where agri- 
culture is so defective—from your failure of success and 
consequent distaste to rural improvement, and from the 
loss which I shall individually sustain by the removal of 
so kind and valuable a neighbour [Mr. Sanguine bows, he 
could hardly do less] from this district. The conse- 
quences to which I advert are these ;—the obstinate and 
unimproving farmers will be now more than ever con- 
vinced that their old plan of fallows and crops of Corn 
while the ground can yield them, is the best, and that all 
innovations on this practice, however really necessary and 
excellent in themselves, are to be avoided. They will 
refer to your mistakes as unequivocal evidences of the 
folly of new schemes, and triumphantly say nothing would 
satisfy Mr. Sanguine but deep ploughing, and the mischief 
a blade of Corn he had for his pains,—he must have 
Turnips, and where was his crop? and then, the poor 
misguided gentleman must drill his Barley,—and what was 
the end of it? Why, he had not the third part of a crop, 
—the cattle of the country were not good enough for him, 
and the big ones he brought here were starved, and 
scarcely gave a sup of milk, and he was often obliged to 
buy butter for his breakfast,—the poor foolish gentleman ! 
—This was neither very complimentary nor consolatory 
to.the unfortunate specul in land i , but 
it was very true. The gentlemen parted with mutual ex- 
pressions of good-will and regret ; and in about a month 
afterwards, an unimproving but wealthy farmer of the old 
school was established in the farm which Mr. Sanguine so 
hastily relinquished ; and from all that the former (who 
was not bound by any obligations as to a routine of cul- 
ture) perceived of the proprietor’s mi ig a 
2 
> 
pink; Bouquet pourpre, double, dark blue; Dibbet’s, a single 
flower of the brightest rose colour; Voltaire, large single white ; 
Pyrene, double white; Goudveurs, a fine, double, flesh-coloured, 
fl plus Noire, very dark blue, approaching to black ; 
Emilius, single, light blue; Diana, single, light red ; Staten Ge- 
neral, single, delicate white; Madame Talleyrand, a beautiful 
single white; Triomphe Blandina, double, pale fiesh-colour ; 
Pasquin, a very fine double flower, light blue; La Majesteuse, 
single, blue; Croon Van Indien, double, dark blue; and Appe- 
lius, single, light pink. The show-house is moreover enlivened 
with a variety of Camellias. Amaryllis vittata, Magndlia conspi- 
cua, and other flowers. The Tulips appear to be in good condi-~ 
tion, and the Auriculas, of which Mr. Groom has a great number, 
are beginning to throw up their trusses. We noticed here two 
handsome Cinerarias, one called Grand Duke, dark blue; and the 
‘sery, Clapham.—-The Camellias at this 
Nursery, although not large plants, are flowering well. Amongst 
them are Cliveana, a tolerably-good variety, the two exterior 
rows of petals being deep rose, having the centre filled up with 
smaller variegated ones; ‘ch, a middle-sized flower, red, 
and sometimes coming mottled; Rossii, not unlike Cliveana in 
Ss 
stripes; and Li A F 
thin of petals. Epacrises of various kinds 
fine double white.; L’Or végétale, a beautiful double yellow; 
Groot Voorst, light pink, very double; and Princesse Marianne, 
a single, deep, ‘rose-coloured flower. Amongst the herbaceous 
plants we observed a singular Polyanthus, of a blueish colour, 
almost, passing into green, edged and striped with yellow.—R.A., 
March 30, 
Iebiews. 
Rural Chemistry. By B. Solly, Jun., F.R.S. 12mo. 
Tue universal attention which has been directed towards 
the Chemistry of Agriculture and Horticulture since the 
appearance of Liebig’s work has produced a plentiful crop 
of books intended to teach the principles of what may!be 
almost regarded as a new branch of science, at least’ in 
this country. Among such works, Professor Johnston’s 
“© Elements of Agricultural Chemistry,’ published: last 
year by Blackwood & Co.,* deserves especial notice, 
more particularly with reference to the nature of soils 
and of fertilising agents. But it ‘has always appeared to 
us that, in general, such elementary books have failed in 
placing clearly before their readers those simple facts and 
laws of Chemistry, upon which all reasoning and practice 
absolutely depend. Some are too geological, some too 
learned for ordinary apprehension, while others are inge- 
nious discourses, from which much may doubtless be 
collected, but not exactly that which the reader requires in 
the first instance. As to general introductions to Che- 
mical Science, they are quite unintelligible to those who 
merely desire to understand clearly the exact nature of the 
gaseous, fluid, or solid bodies they have to do with in 
their cultivation. 
t was in q) of this i i that we 
asked Mr. Edward Solly, when the Gardeners’ Chronicle 
first appeared, to favour us with a short and simple expo- 
sition of common chemical facts, for the understanding of 
which no apparatus beyond a few glasses or cups, and 
such substances as are to be found in any country village, 
would be necessary. This gave rise to a series’ of excel- 
lent articles, headed ‘‘ Rural Chemistry,” and signed Z., 
which we knew from our correspondents were-found to 
be exactly what they wanted. The work now before us is a 
republication of those articles much altered and improved, 
nd 
abortive undertakings,—the twenty-acre: field, however, 
was an unequivocal and perpetual record of the advantages 
of complete draining,—he was confirmed in his opinion 
that the old and now almost exploded method was the 
best.—I conclude with the rather too brilliant similitude 
of the very sensible French writer, whom I have en 
deavoured to follow as closely as possible in the foregoing 
sketch :—f In agriculture, as in everything, nothing per- 
manently good can be effected in a moment. Time does 
not spare what is done without him. Imitate Nature in 
her order of the seasons and the development of her 
phenomena. Between the rigour of winter and the heat 
of summer, she has placed autumn to harmonize between 
these two extremes. . Between daybreak and noon there 
are many intervening hours: the sky is tinged with many 
shadowings before it appears in all its brilliancy. So, in 
order to bring a farm to perfection, it must pass through 
many stages. Agriculture, like many sciences of inquiry 
and observation, consists in a perpetual investigation, and 
while all its principles and fundamental rules could be 
comprised in the smallest duodecimo, ten quartos would 
not contain all the exceptions. To observe—to feel one’s 
way—to make an experiment—to advance—to recede— 
to enlarge—to contract, with due regard to the quality of 
the soil, the temperature of the seasons, and the success 
of different crops,—why, this is the whole art.’?”—From 
the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture. 
GARDEN MEMORANDA. 
Kensington Gardens.—On the west bank of. the Serpentine, 
nearly the whole water-frontage has been converted into two 
magnificent beds for flowering trees and shrubs, Rhododendrons, 
Kalmias, Azdleas (150 varieties), Magndlias, &c. Messrs. Lod- 
diges have just put in six hundred named varieties—so that Lord 
incoln seems determined that these grounds shall be veal gar- 
dens, and deserve the name of Kensington Gardens. 
The extensive collection of 
in full perfection in a few 
with a addition of new matter. They at pre- 
sent form a duodecimo of 169 pages, with a very complete 
Index, the entire want of which in Professor Johnston’s 
“ Agricultural Chemistry,’’ and the badness of which in 
‘Liebig’s celebrated work, render those valuable books 
much less useful than they might be. 
Independently of the omission of all superfluous matter, 
which is, as we think, so very good a feature in Mr. 
Solly’s “ Rural Chemistry,” it has the additional merit of 
avoiding all statements founded on doubtful or ill-under- 
stood experiments. Theory, unsupported by positive 
evidence, is consigned to the works of speculative 
writers ; and, therefore, the reader will find nothing stated 
by him which Chemists do not admit to be unquestion- 
ably true. If a doubtful point is admitted, it is cautiously 
distinguished from ack ledged facts, so that no confu~ 
sion may arise between the certain and uncertain—a 
merit of some value in these days of speculative reasoning. 
A further merit-which this book certainly possesses is 
its chemical accuracy. It is of the first degree of im- 
portance that what is learnt should be learnt well, 
for there is nothing more disheartening to a beginner, 
after he has made himself master of an elementary work, 
and fancies himself ready to go on a little further, than to 
find that much of what he has been taking the pains to 
fix in his mind must be corrected and amended ; in short, 
that what he has been learning is wrong. This capital 
error in many elementary works Mr. Solly seems to us 
to have entirely avoided. 
ur readers are so familiar with the manner in which the 
author formerly dealt with this matter in our columns, that 
extracts from the chemical part of the work seem unneces- 
sary. We therefore select a passage or two from the intro- 
duction. In tracing the history of discoveries in the 
Chemistry of Cultivation we have the following statement : 
“The first Chemist who wrote on Agriculture was, I 
believe, J. G. Wallerius, who in 1754 ‘published a book on 
the Cause of Fertility. He was succeeded by several 
other authors, amongst whom ought to be mentioned Gyl- 
lenborg, Hinhof, and Dundonald; but the speculations of 
* This must not be confounded with Mr. Cuthbert Johnson’s 
“ Agricultural Chemistry,” published by Ridgway. 
