January 5, 1871. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



WEEKLY CALENDAR, 



Day 



Dav 



of 



of 



Month 



Week. 



5 



Th 



6 



F 



7 



S 



8 



Sdn 



9 



M 



in 



Tc 



11 



W 



JANUARY 5—11, 1871. 



Epiphany. 



1 Sunday after Epiphany. 



Averaj^e Tempera- 

 ture near London. 



Rain in 

 43 years. 



Day. 

 41.4 

 41.1 

 41.7 

 41.0 

 41.2 

 42.0 

 41.5 



Niitht, 

 27.3 

 28.6 

 29.1 

 80.1 

 80.8 

 30.3 

 SO.l 



Mean. 

 34.4 

 34.8 

 85.4 

 85.5 

 36.0 

 S6.1 

 85.8 



Days. 

 16 

 14 

 17 

 14 

 15 

 18 

 22 



m. h. 

 8af8 



7 8 



7 8 



G 8 



6 8 



5 8 



Snn 

 Seta. 



m. li. 

 4af4 



6 4 



7 4 



8 4 



9 4 

 10 4 

 12 4 



Moon Moon 

 Rises. bets. 



m. h. 

 Oaf 3 

 48 3 



m. h. 

 48af 6 



7 

 8 



14 9 

 48 9 

 16 10 

 40 10 



Moon's 

 Age. 



Days. 

 14 

 O 

 16 

 17 

 18 

 19 

 20 



Clock 



before 



Sun. 



5 35 



6 2 



G as 



C 53 



Day 



of 



Year. 



5 

 6 

 7 

 8 

 9 

 10 

 U 



iBRARY 

 NEW YORK 



30TAN!CAL 

 GARDEN. 



From observations taken near London during fortv-three years, the average day temperature of the Tveek is 41.4*', and its night tempera- 

 ture 29.5'. The greatest heat was 54^ on the 7th, 18i5, and 9th, 1S52 ; and the lowest cold 6^ on the 7th and 8th, 1861. The greatest fall of 

 rain was 1.00 inch. 



NEW YEAR'S HOPES. 



H. KENT —whether Mr., or Mrs. or Miss I 

 L'now not — you are responsible for my sitting 

 down to write another New Year's paper, 

 3rour kind words in the last number but one 

 beckoned me to my chair, bade me get out 

 the accustomed paper, and dip my pen into 

 the ink, your genial expressions having 

 warmed mj'- heart ; I therefore summon up 

 memory, and write yet again, as there may 

 be other A. H. Kents who dislike not a 

 sketching pen, and wlio care, now and then at least, for 

 something in addition to business details. I have put for 

 title the words " New Year's Hopes ;" and never were men 

 more in need of hope than now. " Hope springs eternal in 

 the human breast," and well that it does. A poet of our 

 century picturing a time (so like the present), 



" When murder bares lier arm, and rampant war 

 Yokes the red dragons of her fiery car :" 



When all seem to forsake, when peace and mercy are 

 banished, he adds — 



'' Yet Hope the charmer lingers still behind." 



So at the beginning of this year, in spite of the sad past, 

 let us indulge in Hope — hope for more peaceful days, hope 

 that the New Year may not see, as the old one did, the 

 labours of the husbandman, the Vine-dresser, and horti- 

 culturist trodden beneath the spoiling foot of ths soldier. 



The greater number of our readers and writers deUght 

 in a garden ; a great, perhaps the greater proportion, are 

 professionally engaged in horticulture. Amid their dis- 

 couragements, and all callings have many, yet gardeners 

 have many things which, boi'ne in grateful recollection, 

 are suited to comfort them, and make them content. 

 They are for the most part removed from the corrupting 

 influences of large towns ; the wages are more likely to be 

 husbanded carefully, books to be studied, and the minds of 

 young men better trained and disciplined, and the winter's 

 evenings better employed. Are thej^ young married men 

 with families? A cottage in a garden, with garden and 

 rural surroundings, is an innocent atmosphere in which to 

 bring up children — healthier and purer for mind and soul. 

 It is a blessed thing to be able to rear our young ones 

 away from vicious scenes, and with the teachings of Nature 

 before their eyes. I have known where a country-spent 

 boyhood has been a great means of preserving a pure man- 

 hood. Well said Lord Derby at the last dinner of the 

 Gardeners' Royal Benevolent Institution — " A man might 

 walk through a picture gallery, and see a great picture or 

 statue, and yet it would only create within him a feeling 

 of admiration. But take the dullest lout out of the streets, 

 or the most savage Arab that ever slept under a dry arch, 

 put him amongst flowers and trees, these will do him good, 

 for they are things which appeal to something in man that 

 awakens within him a consciousness of his duty to his 

 Creator." 



Further, working gardeners with large families will soon 

 have a chance for their children which they had not so 



No. 510.— Vol. XX., New Sskies. 



readily before — I mean the advantages of a State-watched- 

 over and therefore an efficient education. This will in future 

 years give boys a great advantage — grant to all boys the 

 opportunity of an equally good education ; subtract from 

 their number the idle, the dull, and perhaps the sickly : 

 then the remainder will have a capital opportunity of 

 " going to the front," and doing well in the world. In 

 Scotland, a country up to the present tune far before us as 

 regards elementary (not higher) education, this has often 

 been seen. The father of Robert Burns was a gardener ; 

 he sent his son to school at six years of age, it was all his 

 good father could do for him, but what a result ! Had the 

 parents of Burns, for I must include the mother's influence 

 as well, been content to let their boy wander about with- 

 out learning of any kind, one great name would have been 

 blotted out of the roll of British literature. Therefore 

 many parents with large families may take comfort, for if 

 they send and keep their children to school they may have 

 sons, aye and daughters too, known in the future ; for " to 

 the front " will go in years to come the educated, the clever, 

 and the industrious. 



But with the thought of the increased brain-work in 

 England comes also the thought of the increased need of 

 wholesome recreation. England is further and further 

 receding from the " merrie England " of olden time, which 

 meant to a great degree holiday-making — May-pole dancing, 

 Christmas and Twelfth-night romping, and keeping all 

 the many holidays of the old calendar. Now it is work- 

 ing England, and he who provides a wholesome recreation 

 for his fellows in this brain- exhausting age is a public 

 benefactor. But nothing gives such a change and benefit 

 to men, to those, especially " in populous cities pent," as 

 a glimpse of Nature. A recent writer in the Saturday 

 Review says well — " In the way of recreation one view of 

 Hampstead Heath is worth whole volumes of tropical 

 travel ; and a linnet in a Surrey hedge gives a fresher 

 idea of Nature's charms than all the stuffed specimens in 

 the zoological department of the British Museum." But 

 no object to pursue daily and constantly equals horticul- 

 ture for providing wholesome recreation, and, let me add, 

 for promoting good temper. Wonderfully fascinating is it. 

 Deny a garden ; yet he who loves one will not be beaten. 

 Thus we all remember " Picoiola, or the Prison Flower," 

 and he who watched it with intense delight as it un- 

 folded itself from its first pair of leaves to its full flowering. 

 Then there is Dickens's story of the boy, crippled and bed- 

 ridden, who was devoted to his plant in the broken jug in 

 the window ; j'es, and what comfort it gave him. 



It is wholly wrong to ridicule one who has found some 

 hobby, though we may not care for it. I have read of a 

 very hardworking clergyman whose delight was to see and 

 measure lai'ge trees. Every spare hour he could get away 

 he was looking for a large tree ; he had trees on the brain. 

 He dreamed of trees of vast girth and height. His yearly 

 holiday was devoted to searching for large trees. In a 

 happy time of longer leisure he crossed the Atlantic, sailed 

 up the mighty Amazon, and sought and found vaster trees 

 than before. He collected pictures of trees, books on trees, 

 facts about trees, and I should fancy drew from trees, as 



No. 1102.-YOL. XL v., Old Seiues. 



