Hints, fm- Improvements. 669 



the facilities which lithography and steel plates afford, infinite good might 

 be accomplished in this way, at a very moderate expense. {Literai-y Gaz., 

 April 11. 1829.) 



A Mode of Existence for Gardeners. — In a letter of Dr. Franklin to B. 

 Vaughan, Esq., in 1784, at that time M.P. for the borough of Calne, Wilt- 

 shire, is the following remarkable paragraph : — 



" It has been computed by some political arithmetician, that if every man 

 and woman would work four hours a day on something useful, that labour 

 would produce sufficient to procure all the necessaries and comforts of life; 

 want and misery would be banished out of the world, and the rest of the 

 twenty-four hours might be leisure and pleasure." 



" Why should poverty exist in the world ? " &c. &c. 



A celebrated gardener at Brighton [who ?] gives it as his opinion, that 

 one acre of rich land, by the best mode of cultivation, would support a man, 

 his wife, and three children, giving a proportionate quantity of animal food, 

 bread, and vegetables. 



I seriously would recommend ten or twenty gardeners to club their means, 

 and, by the assistance of the friends of horticulture, an experiment might be 

 tried as to the number of hours noiu necessary to accomplish what four hours 

 would accomplish forty-four years ago. 



The gardeners should accumulate, by their own deposits, and by dona- 

 tions from noblemen and gentlemen, a sufficient sum of money to purchase 

 land enough, tithe-free, to support double their number of families, getting 

 an equal number of the families of artisans, of a respectable class, to join 

 with and contribute their share of capital, skill, industry, and perseverance. 



Buildings could be erected at trifling cost, by means of fir [>oles being cut 

 down to proper thickness and length, placed at distances of 4 or 6 ft. and 

 in rows 6 in. apart,jrods and twigs thin nailed along, and the centre filled 

 with clay and straw, or other material of that kind, and plastered over with 

 a little lime added to the clay, the walls coloured ; a story added, if desired, 

 and roofed with thatch or cheap composition. 



I have by me a calculation of the cost of such, which I will furnish the gar- 

 deners with, if they consider it of the least service ; but the sum at this mo- 

 ment strikes me to be not above 6l. for a room, exclusive of labour, which 

 would be comparatively trifling, considering the rapidity with which such 

 buildings could be erected. — J. V. London, Sept. 5. 1828. 



Trials of Green-house Plants in the open Air. — Sir, Were all your 

 readers and correspondents to send you lists of plants from time to time, 

 which from their own experience and observation they found hardy 

 enough to resist the winters in our climate, I am sure they would confer 

 a benefit upon many of your readers ; I mean those plants that have 

 not yet been known to resist the frost in this country. I am led to 

 make these observations from your notice of the Digitalis canariensis in 

 Vol. IV. p. 139.; there it is said to be " an elegant plant from the Canary 

 Islands, long since introduced, but by no means common." — This plant 

 is certainly an elegant one; but that it is by no means common seems 

 rather surprising, as it is one of the hardiest plants we have, and ripens its 

 seed abundantly, retaining its verdure throughout the severest winter, and 

 is indeed quite an evergreen shrub. 



Ferbena triphjlla, changed to Aloysia citriodora, I have growing upon 

 the east end of a vinery, and it has stood these eight years. It nearly 

 covers the whole end of the house, and the only protection it gets is a 

 loose mat hung over the root about 3 ft. high. By all who have seen it, 

 it is considered to be the finest plant of the kind in this part of the 

 country. 



On this west coast of Scotland, Cratse'gus glabra endures the severest 

 winters without protection, in the open border. This plant is marked 

 hardy in Donn's Catalogue. Daphne Cnidium and odora, Pittosporum 



