August 9, 1864. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



101 









WEEKLY CALENDAR. 

















Day 

 of 



aTnth 



Day 

 of 



Week. 



AUGUST 9—15, 1864. 



Average Temperature 

 near London. 



Bain in 



last 

 37 years. 



Sun 

 Eises. 



Sun 

 Sets. 



Moon 

 Rises. 



Moon 

 Sets. 



Moon's 

 Age. 



Clock 



before 



Sun. 



Day ofl 

 Year. . 





9 



10 



11 



12 

 13 

 14 

 15 



To 

 W 

 Th 



F 



S 



Son 



M 



Swift last seen. 

 Purple Melic Grass flowers. 

 Foxtail Fescue Grass ripe. 

 . Michaelmas Daisy flowers. 

 Meadow Saffron flowers. 

 12 Sondav after Trinity. 

 Swallows congregate. 



Day. 



74.2 

 75.2 

 75.6 

 75.1 

 741 

 72.2 

 72.8 



Night. 

 ,50.2 

 52.9 

 51.5 . 

 51.0 

 50.2 

 51.0 

 50.0 , 



Mean. 

 62 2 

 64.0 

 63.6 

 63.0 

 62.1 

 '61.6 

 61.4 



Days. 

 14 

 17 

 17 

 14 

 17 

 15 

 15 



m. h. 

 38af4 



40 4 



41 4 



43 4 



44 4 

 46 4 

 48 4 



m. h. 



32 af 7 

 31 7 

 29 7 

 27 7 

 25 7 

 23 7 

 21 7 



m. h. 

 59 11 

 after. 

 11 2 

 13 3 

 11 4 

 59 4 

 42 5 



m. h. 

 47 9 

 20 10 



11 

 60 11 

 morn. 

 50 



2 



7 



> 



9 

 10 

 11 

 12 

 13 



m. s. 

 5 12 

 5 3 

 4 54 

 4 44 

 4 33 

 4 22 

 4 11 



i 



222 

 228 1 



224 i 



225 1 

 226 

 227 ' 

 22S 





From observations taken near London during the last thirty-seven years, the average day temperature of the week is 74.2°, and its night 

 I temperature 51.0°. The greatest heat was 93° on the 10th, 1842 : and the lowest cold, 32°, on the 13th, 1839. The greatest fall of rain was 

 1.14 Inch. 





SEVEN TEAES' HISTORY OF A LITTLE LAWN. 



BISING young barrister, a very 

 clever fellow, received, one 

 morning, a letter from an old 

 college friend, who had re- 

 cently become rector of a 

 country parish.. The clergy- 

 man, after informing his quon- 

 dam crony that Ms son, the 

 barrister's godson, aged one 

 year, was getting on nicely, 

 and now trotted about " quite strong 

 on his feet," to use his mamma's de- 

 scriptive phraseology, proceeded to narrate that finding 

 married housekeeping somewhat expensive, he had de- 

 termined upon taking pupils. Then came the questions, 

 Would his London friend, who, he knew, saw a great 

 many people in his active career, give him any help 

 should he be able ? Might he also refer hesitating parents 

 to his barristership as a referee as to his capacity for 

 teaching, &c. ? The barrister smiled at the idea of his 

 very good-tempered but at college rather non-reading 

 friend becoming a tutor, for in truth he had been a 

 trouble to bis tutors ; though perhaps the London man, 

 being himself very well read, somewhat underrated his 

 friend's knowledge. The two met in the street a few days 

 subsequently, and after such a greeting as only friends in 

 youth give to each other when they meet in after life, the 

 barrister said, " By the way, about your letter. Well, my 

 good fellow, of course I shall be delighted to say a word 

 in your favour, and do all I can for you, pray command 

 me ; but I tell you what, Tom," dropping his voice, and 

 with a sly look, " what can you teach?" "Hush!" replied 

 the clergyman, " at any rate I shall know more than the 

 boys." " Well, true ; I forgot that, certainly ; so you 

 will." 



Now, in occupying a little space in the flower depart- 

 ment of this Journal, I wish to say I write in a very 

 modest spirit : I am but an amateur, with a heart for 

 flowers and an eye for the beautiful, " still I know more 

 than the boys," and by the boys I mean the young readers 

 of this paper, or the young in gardening experience gene- 

 rally. Now for these I especially write to-day, and for 

 those who have but a small garden. 



. Seven years ago a family took possession of a prettily- 

 situated house in the country. It was their own ; not the 

 Queen and the Parliament combined could deprive them 

 of it. Sense of ownership always brings pleasure ; a tenant 

 may be turned out, but not the real owner : hence we 

 usually see, save with the improvident, that it is the 

 owner of a house, or one who rents upon a very long 

 lease, that does much to improve the place, and to make 

 it twice his own by alterations according to his fancy. 



Well, the grand moving day came, and the family took 



possession ; the children, in glee, ran from room to room, 



and the little ones lost themselves in the new house, 



bolting as often into a wrong room as the right one. 



No. 176.— Vol. VII., Netv Skbtes. 



When the house had been put in order, then there was 

 the garden to think about. That denominated the kitchen 

 garden seemed to crave no alteration ; but there was the 

 little lawn on the south side of the house — it measured 

 only 75 feet in length, by 55 wide — that must be altered ; 

 but how to alter aright was a puzzle. Let us paint the 

 little spot in words. There was the throe-foot border, 

 under the windows — well, that would do ; then the gravel 

 path along that, terrace-like and sunny — that would do ; 

 then the lawn, sufficiently sloping to interfere somewhat 

 with a hands-in-the-pocket stroll down, converting the 

 stroll almost into a jolt. On the east side of the lawn 

 was a good border, scimitar-shaped; at the bottom, be- 

 tween the edge of the grass and a well-grown Laurel 

 hedge, was a narrow straight slip — just the thing for 

 standard Eoses, as the roots would be kept cool by the 

 shade, and the subsoil was a rather stiff sandy clay. On 

 the west side a dense Laurel hedge severed the garden 

 from the village lane ; and in the hedge a noble Elm, fit 

 ornament for any park, but far too large to be near a. 

 garden. Added to the mischief of so large a tree (yet, 

 who would be such a Goth as to cut it down ?), the lane 

 ran obliquely by, and threw the lawn " all of a squint," 

 as the country people say, making it awkward to lay out, 

 and awkward to plant, as some beds would not come true 

 to the eye. On it the new owner found eighteen beds, 

 chiefly on the top and the side away from the Elm. 

 Little of design was apparent ; the beds might almost 

 have belonged to a school of eighteen pupils, each bed 

 being a child's garden, cut out according to his fancy, 

 irrespective of its bearing upon the other beds, or of the 

 general effect. 



These were days prior to "King Croquet.;" so the 

 poor little lawn was sniallpoxed very thickly on three 

 parts of its surface with little ugly beds. The first 

 summer was very dry, and the beds became little dust- 

 holes. (N.B. — They were not dug out to any depth, and 

 the soil of the lawn was made up of the rubbish left 

 when the house was finished : hence it was a concrete of 

 bits of brick and [limestone). The first summer, then, 

 was very unsatisfactory. Long before the second came 

 the owner reduced the beds to twelve. This proved a 

 very wet summer, so the little beds were often little 

 ponds, and the flowers bloomed badly. In the third 

 summer the beds were reduced to nine, in the fourth to 

 seven, in the fifth to five, and so they remained for the 

 sixth. Now, upon each reduction there was this advan- 

 tage gained — the beds being larger, they were less of 

 either dust-heaps or ponds.; but there were these two 

 faults — when you reduce your flower garden, by pre- 

 serving some beds and blotting-out others, it is difficult 

 to make any plan pleasing to the eye ; and with this par- 

 ticular lawn, running away to the right " all of a squint," 

 no plan would please — some bed, at some point of sight, 

 came wrong to the eye. 



But to continue the story. Last spring every bed was 



laid down in grass, and an oval one, 22 feet in length, 



was cut in the centre ; it was made 3 feet deep, and filled 



with good soil. That bed I saw the other day ; it was 



No. S2S— Vol. XXXII., Old Series. 



