August 15, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



125 









WEEKLY 



CALENDAR. 















Day 

 of 



Month 



Day 





Average Tempera- 



Rain in 



Sun 



Sun 



Moon 



Moon 



Moon's 



Clock 



betore 



Sun. 



Day 



Week. 



AUGUST 15—21, 1872. 



ture near London. 



43 years. 



Rises. 



Sets. 



Rises. 



Sets. 



Age. 



Year. 









Day. 



Night. 



Mean. 



Davs. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



m. h. 



Days. 



m. s. 





15 



Th 



Assumption. 



73.1 



50.0 



61.6 



17 



47 af4 



20 at 7 



83 af 5 



morn. 



11 



4 11 



228 



16 | P 





73.0 



51.5 



62.2 



21 



48 4 



18 7 



30 6 



49 



12 



3 58 



229 



17 



S 





72.7 



50.1 



61.4 



23 



50 4 



16 7 



14 7 



5 2 



13 



3 46 



230 



18 



Sun 



12 Sunday after Trinity. 



73.2 



50.7 



62.0 



16 



51 4 



14 7 



44 7 



83 3 



o 



3 33 



231 



19 



M 





73.1 



49.2 



61.2 



21 



53 4 



12 7 



9 8 



4 5 



15 



3 19 



232 



20 



To- 



Wotton-under-Edge Horticultural Show. 



72.8 



50.6 



61.7 



20 



55 4 



10 7 



28 8 



34 6 



16 



S 5 



2&3 



21 



W 



Royal Horticultural Society, Fruit, Floral, 

 [and General Meeting. 



72.6 



49.7 



61.2 



14 



56 4 



8 7 



45 8 



59 7 



17 



2 50 



234 



From observations taken near London during forty-three years, the average day temperature of the -week is 72.9° ; and 



its night temperature 



50.2°. The greatest heat was 92", on the 18th, 1842 j and the lowest cold 36°, on the 18th, 1866. The greatest fall of ram -was 0.S1 inch. 





ABOUT EEFUET SEED-GBOWEBS, AND GETTING 

 TO THEM.— No. 1. 



AM on the road." Whither? To the land 

 of the Teuton. To the land of brown bread 

 and saurkraut, poetry, and music — what 

 seeming incongruity! To the land where 

 every woman is a Minerva and every man a 

 Mars ; to the land that bristles with bayonets 

 and expands in education. Yes, I have 

 passed through fertile and , unpieturesqne 

 Belgium, left behind me the iron district of 

 Ehenish Prussia, and now I have crossed 

 the Ehine, forsaken the ordinary route of English travel- 

 lers, and am journeying onwards through what may be 

 truly called Germany proper. 



Scarcely has the elegant fretted outline of Cologne 

 cathedral faded from view, when the hitherto flat sur- 

 face of the country begins gradually to become more 

 undulating, and at last breaks up into a range of mode- 

 rately lofty hills. Through these, in most tortuous course, 

 a tolerably broad river picturesquely winds its way, and 

 over this the railway frequently passes until necessity 

 demands that it should take an opposite direction. At 

 a glance the traveller can see it is not a fertile district. 

 The hills in some places are rocky and steep, and appear 

 to be but thinly covered with soil, wherein nothing seems 

 to flourish but certain Conifers and some sparely-growing 

 shrubs. In the alluvial deposits among the hollows exist 

 the only signs of successful cultivation, and here in in- 

 termittent tracts are grown grass and those cereals for 

 which the climate is best adapted. Any farmer from the 

 Eastern Counties or the Border could hardly resist an in- 

 voluntary smile on looking over the little patches which 

 here cover the face of the ground. No jealous hedges 

 or ditches, but the crops rest beside one another in charm- 

 ing simplicity, seemingly glorying in their numbers, and 

 looking very much like a seedsman's trial-garden on a 

 somewhat larger scale. With this primitive style of 

 farming the numerous hamlets, some one. of which is 

 always in sight, seem to be in perfect keeping. The 

 houses which form them almost invariably have walls of 

 a framework of whitewashed wood, the intervals being 

 filled up with rafters and clay or bricks ; the roof of thatch, 

 in most cases overgrown with moss, and having a green- 

 ish-brown colour. The village church, as a rule, is a 

 most simple, bare, and ugly erection, very different from 

 the steepled or towered churches of our own rural homes, 

 so often overgrown with Ivy and surrounded by noble 

 trees. Now and then there would come in sight, situated 

 on some rocky eminence, and in picturesque decay, the 

 once-proudly towering home of the feudal baron. 



Onward the train still goes at no very rapid pace and 

 with frequent stoppages. Here, at the stations, one has 

 time to remark how the type of the people's countenance 

 is gradually changing, and the further on we go the 

 greater becomes the resemblance to the Saxon type of 

 our own English race. Here, too, is almost invariably 

 to be seen a soldier— generally a medium-sized weighty- 

 No. 594,-Vol. XXIIL, New Series. 



looking fellow, who, like the verb in their own German 

 sentence, looks as if he might often be a long time in 

 coming up to the mark, but very effective when he got 

 there. And so on I go. The scenery grows less hilly, 

 but otherwise much the same ; now appears another 

 river, a more than ordinarily large wood, a good-sized 

 town with a castle in the middle, a distant tower, a waste. 

 The train goes slowly, and the hours in proportion ; 

 night draws on ; a junction, two hours waiting, three 

 hours more travelling in darkness, and then I am at 

 the point. Yes, is it surprising that under the provo- 

 cation of sixteen hom-s' travelling in order to span over 

 less than two hundred miles one's mind is apt to be 

 irritable, and one indulges in a tirade against journey- 

 ing generally, or to become discursive and indulge in 

 prattlings, as I have ? But now at last it is all over, and 

 I have come to the point from which I hope to send you 

 some information more congenial, perhaps, than that 

 which has gone before. 



My destination was Erfurt, and at last I am there. 

 Here, within the town the worship of the god of war 

 is diligently pursued, and the temples erected in his 

 honour frown grimly forth upon tlie smiling country over 

 which the gifts of the goddess Flora are thickly strewn. 

 In prosaic language Erfurt is an important fortress,, 

 and the seat of a considerable trade in flower seeds. 

 There is nothing very interesting in the town itself, unless 

 it be its ancient history, its cathedral, its ramparts, and 

 the unevenness of the streets — which last property seems 

 to be common to most German towns. The houses do- 

 not appear to be particularly old, and if there are any of 

 remarkable age they do not possess the picturesqueness 

 of those of the old Flemish cities. This may, perhaps, 

 be due to the fact that several times in its history great 

 portions of the town have been consumed by fire, the last 

 fire having taken place in 1814, when, after the battle o 

 Leipsic, the French defended it against the advancing 

 army of the allies. At present it has a population of 

 about 40,000 persons, and possesses a pretty thriving 

 trade ; but although this time may be justly called the 

 most flowery period in its history, still the most flourish- 

 ing was during the early part of the fifteenth century, 

 when it was one of those towns through which the trea- 

 sures of the east found their way westward, and when 

 it carried on a great trade in woad, which, in those days, 

 was used instead of indigo. Then the population num- 

 bered 80,000, but what with struggles for liberty against 

 the supremacy of the Archbishop of Mayence, what with 

 the intrigues of ambitious electors and princes round- 

 about, and the bitter dissensions among the citizens them- 

 selves, it gradually sank lower and lower, until in 1620 it 

 had but 15,000 persons within its walls, and retained but 

 a small fraction of its once so prosperous trade. It can 

 boast of having been the home of Luther in his younger 

 years, and also of having given birth to many other men, 

 who, although not much heard of now, were nevertheless 

 noted in their own day. It once possessed a celebrated 

 university, but that had descended to such a state of 

 infiiToity that it was disestablished in 1816. It was here, 



No. 1246.— Vol. XL VIII., Old Series 



