System of Kitchen- Gardening. 427 



Letter XVII. System of Kitchen- Gardening. Cullure of the Straivberry, 

 Asparagus, Sea-kale, Celery, and Cauliflower. 



In my last I promised I would give you a short account of my 

 rough System of Kitchen- Gardening, which, I am sorry to say, 

 is still in a very imperfect state ; not one job having been done 

 in Bicton kitchen-gardens yet to please me. They, as you 

 observed when here, are on a level (an artificial level though), 

 well supplied with water all the year round, from a beautiful 

 stream which runs through it. The ground a sandy loam ; the 

 subsoil a body of dry, coarse, red sand, inclining rather in some 

 places to a sort of rocky flat stones. This garden was formed 

 at an immense expense, having thousands of loads of loam to 

 make the borders, &c., and yet in places the sand is still near 

 to the surface : but since you were here I have got home about 

 500 yards of beautiful loam and marl ; intending to make a good 

 preparation for every tree that is planted, and to wheel a 

 quantity of it on every piece of ground, as the crops are cleared 

 off, giving the ground a good trenching, breaking the subsoil 

 with a strong fork and leaving it where it is. I make it a standing 

 rule to return as much as possible of the refuse of vegetables 

 back to the ground again, by trenching down cabbage leaves, 

 broccoli stumps, pea haulm, and all such articles, in a green 

 state. The benefit to the soil is great, and the saving of labour 

 considerable ; for I have seen much time lost in clearing a piece 

 of ground of the vegetable rubbish on its surface, previously to 

 trenching. 



Now the kitchen-gardening business, before I came here, 

 had been done in a very different manner from what I had been 

 in the habit of seeing done and practising myself. The tools 

 the most paltry I ever met with. It is some trouble to get a 

 Devonshire man to use a spade with an eye to it. Their spade 

 (which no doubt you noticed when in this county) is an iigly, 

 home-made, heart-shaped bit of heavy iron, Avith a great socket 

 to it ; and they form the handle of it themselves, by cutting a 

 great, heavy, lumbering stick out of a hedge, 6 or 7 feet 

 in length, about the size of a Kentish hop-pole, so that they 

 can always use it without bending their backs ; although the 

 generality of men in Devonshu-e are a shortish race. How- 

 ever, this long-handled spade and the homespun tibble arc 

 almost the only tools you can get them to use ; and they have 

 the ugliest-made wheelbarrow too, the most awkward and 

 cumbersome that can be imagined. Any kind of improved tool 

 they appear to dislike ; so that you need not wonder at our 

 being a little out of order. For instance, a few days since, a 

 load of potatoes was wanted from the field, for the use of the 

 house. I had already had two potato forks from Essex. Some 



