General Notices. 



nothing of the detriment done to the sleeves of the dress, will frequently 

 insert themselves between the gloves and those sleeves, scratching the 

 wrists, and causing no slight degree of uncomfortableness, and, I may say, 

 of present and after pain. To obviate this long experienced difficulty, it 

 at length entered, I cannot exactly say my own imagination, to conceive, 

 that gloves made after the fashion of gauntlets would at once protect 

 both wrists and sleeves from injury j and in this idea some members of my 

 family gave a glove-maker instructions in making a pair of stout leather, 

 which appear as if they would well answer the purpose, preventing the 

 intrusion even of the strongest prickles. Believing that many lady gar- 

 deners may have felt the same inconvenience, without, perhaps, having 

 thought of a remedy, I am induced to send you the accompanying little 

 sketch of one {fig- 18.) of the gardener's gauntlets, and the information 

 that they were made by Mr. T. Joy, No. 12. Mount Street, Lambeth, who 

 will undertake to make them to order of any size and description. Yours, 

 &c— C. P. Surrey, November 22. 1831. 



Howden's Gate-shutter Hinge, (fig. 19.) — Few things are more vex- 

 atious about a gentleman's premises, or even on a common farm, than to 

 have gates left open by careless people. The following hinge, or contriv- 

 ance for fixing on the lower end of the hanging style of the gate, serves as 





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an effectual gate-shutter. Being made of cast-iron, it is both cheap and 

 durable. " You see it looks like two semicircles, working into each other 

 in the way of tooth and pinion : but they are not semicircles, they are not 

 segments of circles, they are not even the two halves of an ellipsis ; as I 

 tried all these before I got it perfect. I made the model of a beech board, 

 1J in. thick; I formed an ellipsis 7 J by 6 in. : this I sawed in two, on the 

 line of the longest diameter ; the segments I cut into regular teeth, or 

 cogs, seven in the one, and eight in the other, so as to work freely into 

 each other ; these I tried and altered, till I got the gate to play to the 

 greatest nicety, and then had sets of castings (fig. 19. a) for iron gates, and 

 (fig. 19. b) for wooden gates. The chief alteration from a semi-ellipsis is 

 flattening the centres, so as to give the gate a home or resting-place. A 

 gate thus hung cannot possibly be left open (unless fastened open), any 

 more than the pendulum of a clock can remain stationary any where but 

 perpendicular to the centre of gravity. The best gates in your Encyclo- 

 paedias, I see, play upon two centres, which is certainly a great improve- 

 ment on the old hook and thimble ; but then, they are very hard to open at 

 first, and though the fall gradually diminishes up to the square or point 

 where the gate, when open, makes a right angle with the line of the gate 

 when shut, yet, if opened any wider, the fall is reversed, and back it goes 

 with a bang, straining itself all to pieces : whereas my gate, playing upon 

 something like two quadrants, is most easily opened at first, the pressure 

 gradually increasing, not only up to the square, or right angle, but 20° 

 beyond it, both ways. — John Howden. April 30. 1830. 



On the Advantages of M^P hail's Pits for growing early Cucumbers. — Sir, 

 The season having approached when those who desire early cucumbers are 



