February 17, 1833.] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



127 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



Day Day 



of 1 of 



M'nth Week. 



17 



TtJ 



18 



W 



19 



Th 



20 



F 



21 



S 



22 



Scn 



23 



M 



FEBRUARY 17-23, 1S63. 



SanovE Tuksday. 



Lent Begi>s. Ash Wednesday, 



Yew flowers. 



Coltsfoot flowers. 



Sun's ueclin. 10° 37' s. 



1 Sunday in Lent. 



Cresalpinustlied 1G03. B. 



"Weather 



near London in 1862. 



Barometer. 



Thermom. 



Wind. 



Rain in 

 Inches. 





decrees. 







29.475-20 379 



48— 3S 



E. 



.14 



29.364— 29.270 



53-39 





.02 



29.543-29.419 



55-44 



S.E. 



•09 



29.645—20.467 



5S— 29 



S. 





29.914—29.782 



58—39 



S.E. 



— 



29.819-29.659 



56—40 



S.E. 



■01 



30.098-30.010 



51—34 



E. 





San 

 Rises. 



I Moon Clock 



Sun | Rises Moon's : before Day of 

 Seta. |and Sets Age. Sun. Year. 



m. h.j m. h.l m. h. 

 13af7 ' 15af5 ' 26 m 6 



17 

 19 

 21 

 23 

 25 

 26 



sets 

 36 a 7 

 53 8 



8 10 

 21 11 

 morn. 



29 

 • 



1 

 2 

 3 

 4 

 5 



48 

 49 



14 17 



14 12 



14 7 50 



14 1 51 



13 54 52 



13 47 53 



13 39 : 54 



Meteorology op the Week.— At Chiswick, from observations during the last thirty-six years, the average highest and lowest 

 temperatures of these days are 45.8' and 32 5" respectively. The greatest heat,, 58', occurred on the 21st, in 1846 ; and the lowest cold, 2 , 

 on the 17th, in 1855. During the period 14S days were muvand on 104 rain fell. 



MEMOIE OF THE EEAL " LAWEIE TODD." 



T was somewhere about 

 the year 1833 or 183-1 

 that we met in the 

 quadrangle of Edin- 

 burgh University a 

 wee wee man, about 

 4 feet 10 inches high, 

 clothed in very very 

 long garments, the 

 skirts of which reached to his 

 ankles, and with a very low- 

 crowned and very broad-brim- 

 med hat upon his head. His feet, 

 like the brim of his hat, were out of all proportion to his 

 body, for they were very large and very long; but beneath 

 that broad brim there shone a beaming countenance, full 

 of intelligence, benignity, and playful humour. It needed 

 not to have his name announced, for the world had been 

 made familiar with his portrait through " Fraser's Maga- 

 zine," and we had no difficulty in at once recognising the 

 living image of Grant Thorburn. 



Our woodcut is a faithful portrait of that original, and 

 we learned that he was the model from whom Gait 

 sketched his "Lawrie Todd." That sketch by no means 

 pleased the model ; it contained, he says, " scraps and 

 mutilated extracts " of his history, and, as he proceeds, 

 " I have always found that whatever business was laid to 

 my hand, was best done when I attended to it myself: " 

 therefore, " I think I owe it to myself to state the simple 

 truth ;" and we owe Grant Thorburn no merely cus- 

 tomary thanks for having paid that which he considered 

 a debt due to himself, for he has left more than one most 

 amusing and most instructive record how he, an emigrant 

 nailer, " landed on Governeur's Wharf, New York, with 

 only three cents in his pocket, and his nail-hammer in 

 his hand, and rose to have a seedsman's establishment 

 the most extensive in America." This " suggests the 

 inquiry, How was it brought about ? " We will endeavour 

 to show in his own words. 



"I was born in Dalkeith on the 18th of February, 

 1773. My father was poor (some are cursed with rich 

 fathers), honest, and industrious, and by trade a nail- 

 maker. He was a very strict Scotch Presbyterian, a 

 Covenanter, and, like his neighbour and prototype, 

 Davie the father of Jeannie Deans, an honest man. Our 

 cottage stood within two miles of Davie Deans's farm, 

 within three of the Laird of Dumbiedike's mansion," 

 immortalised in the " Heart of Mid-Lothian." 



Passing over the incidents of his youth, and as he 

 verged upon manhood, he relates — "In the year 1792, 

 when the French Eevolution had fairly commenced, and 

 the pulpit and press were teeming with Beform, I joined 

 the Societies of what were then called ' The Friends of 

 the People,' and in London were termed 'The Corre- 

 sponding Societies,' whose ostensible motive was to ob- 

 tain the reform of parliament by a more equal repre- 

 sentation ; and in the winter of 1793, with seventeen more 

 No. 99.— Vol. IT., New Series. 



of the members of the said Society in Dalkeith, I was 

 marched a prisoner into Edinburgh. We entered the 

 town marshalled two and two through a concourse of 

 people, one woman among whom, when she saw me 

 bringing up the rear rank, exclaimed in her broad 

 Scottish dialect, 'The Losh presarve us ! if the king be 

 afraid of sic a little fellow as that, I dinna ken what will 

 become o' him ! ' ' 



" The little fellow " was examined and discharged by 

 the magistrates ; but either he feared he might be led 

 into overt acts for reform, or he was resolved to live 

 where there was no king to fear or make afraid — at all 

 events he sailed for Sew York with his brother in 1794. 

 When they arrived they could not land on account of the 

 expense of living on shore, for they had but six and a 

 half cents between them. So says our hero, "My brother 

 and I sat down on the deck, his feet against my feet, and 

 a wooden-bowl of potatoes between our legs, and began 

 to scrape the skins off from the potatoes. Whilst thus 

 employed a hardware merchant came on board, and asked 

 if there were any nail-makers ? I caught the word, and 

 answered I was one. He was a tall man, and looking 

 down on me, inquired, with a tone of surprise, ' Can you 

 make nails F' I answered quickly, 'I would wager 

 sixpence (all I had) I would make more nails in a day 

 than any man in the country.' " Thorburn knew he 

 could make 3320 nails between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., so he 

 was tolerably sure of a triumph. 



Thorburn and his brother were hired ; they were in- 

 dustrious, obliging, God-fearing young men, so they 

 were respected and prospered ; but we must pass on to 

 1S02, when he thus proceeds — " About this time the 

 ladies of New York were beginning to show their taste 

 for flowers ; and in the fall of the year, when the plants 

 wanted shifting, preparatory to being placed in the 

 parlour, I was often asked (for he then kept a grocer's 

 shop) for pots of a handsomer quality than the usual red 

 earthenware. It came into my mind to paint some of 

 my common flower-pots with green varnish paint. They 

 sold fast, and to good advantage. In the April following 

 I observed a man for the first time selling flower plants 

 in the Fly Market. As I passed along I took a leaf, and 

 rubbing it between my finger and thumb, asked him for 

 its name. He answered, ' a Geranium.' This, as far as 

 I recollect, was the first time I ever heard that there was 

 a Geranium in the world." 



Thorburn bought two of those Geraniums, sold them 

 speedily in his " green-varnished pots," and soon found 

 that it was a ready, profitable trade, and that the pur- 

 chasers asked for seeds. This set him " thinking that if 

 I could get seeds I would be able to sell them ; but here 

 lay the difficulty, as no one sold seeds in New York ! " 

 He soon arranged with the man " in the Fly Market " 

 to stay at home and grow plants and seeds, whilst he, 

 Thorburn, opened a shop and sold them. But war broke 

 out ; he attempted to grow seeds, failed, and in 1815 was 

 released a whitewashed bankrupt, with a family to 

 support, and but twelve dollars with which to begin life 

 again. 



No. 751.— Vol. XXIX., Old Series. 



