670 Rotation of Crops in Kitchen- Gar dens. 



having very short corymbs of flowers. It is much hardier than any of the 

 others, having stood against an exposed wall in the hard winter of 1837-8, when 

 all the others were either killed down to the ground or entirely destroyed. It 

 grows freely in any good garden soil; flowers in June or July ; and is increased 

 by seeds, or by cuttings of the half-ripe wood, taken off about August, and 

 treated in the ordinary way. {Bot. Reg., Nov. 1843.) 



Lonicera d'wersijdlia Wall. Cat. No. 477. ; CaprifolidcecB. — A hardy shrub, 

 raised in the garden of the Horticultural Society from East India seeds. It 

 is in the way of Lonicera Xylosteum, the common fly honeysuckle, and has 

 bright yellow sessile flowers, appearing in June. (^Bot. Reg., Nov. 1843, 

 Misc.) 



Art. VII. Ow the Rotation of Crops in Kitchen- Gardens. By 

 Robert Errington. 



Mr. Barnes lias said, of late, some excellent things about kitchen- 

 garden cropping ; he has practised, it seems, in that best of all 

 schools, a London market-garden. As he has, however, not 

 dwelt much on the general rotation of crops, I beg to offer a 

 few remarks on that head, and to detail my general practice ; 

 premising, in the first place, that the gardens of which I have 

 the charge are a sandy loam of 26 in. on a substratum of dry 

 red sand. 



These are the days for economising manures. It is well it 

 should be so ; but, like all other public fits, it has a tendency to 

 rush to extremes. I must, however, declare my conviction, that 

 all the lawn-sweepings and gas water from London to John 

 o' Groat's will never produce the cauliflowers, asparagus, celery, 

 lettuce, &c., for which rotten muck has been so long famous. 

 There is an old saying, " no argument like a breeches-pocket 

 argument;" and, through this circumstance, writings on this 

 head frequently carry more weight than they are entitled to. 



One of the great secrets in working old kitchen-gardens is, to 

 prevent, as much as possible, the ^rassica tribes from following 

 each other. I feel well assured that the digging in of the 

 residue continually of the rotten remains of cabbages, cauli- 

 flowers, &c., has a tendency to lead to the disease called club. 

 Haspberries and strawberries which have stood, it may be, years 

 on the same ground offer, when broken up, an excellent oppor- 

 tunity for any of the brassicas ; in fact, one not to be lost. 

 Another difficulty arises in » getting proper plots for onions and 

 carrots, as, in the great majority of old gardens, they are so liable 

 to the grub. For my part, I have invariably found, by many 

 years' experience, that the more ground is manured for the two 

 latter crops, the more liable they are to the grub. Old asparagus 

 beds are another excellent resource to fall back on ; but there 

 are generally so many candidates for ground of this kind, that 

 the difficulty is to choose. In gardens liable to club, however. 



