October 11, 1S64. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



289 



while it will have the great advantage of being always bright 

 and clean. As forming part of ornamental grounds it is 

 well worthy of imitation by those whose tastes are not cir- 

 cumscribed by the extent of their grounds or the depth of 

 their purses ; and I should be glad to see this same border 

 in a few years' time, when it has rilled in, as I believe it 

 will. 



. Amongst minor matters I noticed a very excellent con- 

 trivance for vases. It is well known that stone vases are 

 very expensive, and iron ones are not so seemly ; but here 

 the plan is adopted of converting iron into stone — that is, 

 the iron vases are painted a light stone colour, and when 

 wet are dredged all over with sand. This adhering to the 

 wet paint gives the exact appearance of stone, and can be of 

 course easily renewed from time to time. 



It will be seen that these nurseries fully deserve the cha- 

 racter they have obtained of being amongst the most exten- 

 sive and best arranged of our great provincial establishments. 

 There was great order and neatness arrived at throughout, 

 and this is not an easy matter in such an establishment ; 

 but it certainly enhances very much the appearance of the 

 grounds. The morning on which I saw them was bright 

 and clear after the bounteous rains of the past few weeks ; 

 and I came away most favourably impressed with the entire 

 management and stock of this extensive concern. I should 

 add that at the shop in Eastgate Street there was a very 

 fine selection of the best and most sought for Dutch bulbs 

 of all kinds, a worthy appendage to the Upton grounds. — 

 D., Deal. 



■COTTAGES, AND HOW TO TENANT THEM. 



Some friends have kindly told me that I was rather hard 

 on the proprietors of cottage property who had taken little 

 thought about a water supply, and have brought forward 

 instances with which I was well acquainted previously of 

 unsatisfactory investments in cottage property, and the 

 next to impossibility of keeping these cottages, when let at 

 a very cheap rent, even in a healthy condition from over- 

 crowding, and the want of all refined habits in the inmates. 

 I have been told of instances where proprietors had spent a 

 lifetime in endeavouring to give a cheerful aspect and a 

 high moral tone to villagers on their estates ; and that they 

 failed in all their attempts because the people would either 

 crowd their houses by taking people to live with them, or 

 when a son and a daughter at a very early age — but in the 

 painful circumstances none too early — thought proper to 

 marry, without anything to commence housekeeping with, 

 they received an asylum with one of the parents, and thus 

 two or three families were crowded together into a place 

 only suitable for one, with all the consequent attendants 

 of pestilence and fever, increase of poor rates, pauperism, 

 &c. ; and the question is put, What would you do under 

 such circumstances ? 



Well, in the first place, if a gentleman had a number of 

 cottages so bad as to be unfit to live in comfortably, and 

 there could in general seasons be no water supply for the 

 promotion of cleanliness, it would be best to give the occu- 

 pants due notice, and either correct what was amiss or pull 

 the cottages down. 



, Secondly. If a gentleman, as most gentlemen do, let nice 

 cottages at a lower rent than mere contractors, one speci- 

 fication as to overcrowding should be rigidly enforced, and 

 no families, or even lodgers, allowed to live there with- 

 out the knowledge and permission of the proprietor or his 

 agent. If this is not done I know what the consequence 

 will be. Where no refined or high moral feeling exists, a 

 house that might do for a man and his wife, and perhaps 

 four children, will soon be made to hold as it can some ten 

 or a dozen, and of different sexes, and anything like morals 

 and decency be swept away. The very knowledge of such 

 supervision will be a great help to refinement and morals. 



Thirdly. In all such cases monthly tenancies, or at least 

 monthly notices, are of great value; and if the breaking of the 

 conditions be followed with a few cases of expulsion, these will 

 be of great benefit. It is within my knowledge, that in cases 

 where every convenience for decency and cleanliness was 

 given, the tenants would persist in having a dungheap and 

 a slophole close to their dwelling instead of at the farthest 

 part of their gardens, careless how they produced the seeds 



of fever and pestilence in themselves and others. It is a 

 great blessing that the law will not permit a man to poison 

 himself with malaria, or be the means of polluting the atmo- 

 sphere of his neighbours ; but the most effectual law with 

 all such people when admonition and repeated warnings are 

 of no avail, is simply the notice that they must quit their 

 quarters. A few instances of this kind in a neighbourhood 

 will do a vast amount of good. 



Fourth. Though I am anything but a Malthusian, I have 

 a strong impression that in many agricultural districts 

 lads and lasses marry too young ; and I consider that they 

 always do so when they have nothing between them to 

 commence housekeeping with. As for true love in such 

 cases, it is all a chimera. If a young man loved a woman 

 he would never ask her to join her fate with his until he 

 could place her in a cottage at least ordinarily supplied with 

 the necessaries of comfort and decency. I shall never forget 

 going into the cottage of a newly married pair, both very 

 young, and seeing a few rough boards in a corner for a bed, 

 a board with four round spreading sticks stuck in as legs 

 for a table, a couple of large stones and a board between 

 them for a seat, and a pot to answer all culinary purposes. 

 This might be an extreme case, and was ; but how many 

 young couples commence life with taking on their first 

 month's housekeeping, and trying to pay the old as they 

 take on the new ? Now, were I a squire, or a gentleman, or 

 nobleman, and felt a little pride in my cottages, I would 

 allow no young couple to take possession of them without 

 showing me that they could furnish them respectably by 

 their own honest earnings and savings. The gentleman who 

 will condescend to do this, or insists on his agent doing it, 

 will take one sure step towards securing good, well-behaved, 

 moral tenants — a step which will be more productive of 

 good than lots of mere routine visitations once or twice 

 a-year, or ever so many sermons on cleanliness or propriety, 

 however earnest and rightminded the clergyman or the 

 minister may be. 



What gentleman would think of letting a farm to a man 

 merely because he was the highest bidder, if it were well 

 known that he had no effects and not a pound at his banker's ? 

 And yet gentlemen complain of the unthrift, the untidyness, 

 the want of decency, and absence of moral feeling too per- 

 ceptible among a few of their cottage tenantry, notwith- 

 standing all necessary arrangements to the contrary, though 

 they give some of their best cottages unhesitatingly to 

 young couples who between them can scarcely defray the 

 expenses of the marriage feast and marriage ceremony, 

 and commence their united career in debt to the butcher, 

 baker, and grocer, and even to the cabinet-maker for the 

 stool on which they sit and the bed on which they rest — 

 a debt that too often clings like a millstone round their 

 necks, paralysing all the energies of a life. Proverbs are 

 fine things in their way, often the concentrated wisdom of 

 ages ; " Marry for love and work for money," however, has 

 ruined thousands. The landlord who would feel a satisfac- 

 tion not only in having healthy commodious cottages on his 

 demesne, but in having them occupied by industrious, moral, 

 well-conducted families, will exercise the truest benevolence 

 in ascertaining that the young aspirants for tenancy have 

 been well-conducted, and acted on the obverse of the pro- 

 verb, and worked for money before they married for love. 

 Ah ! when scarcity and want stalk in by the door, and ugly 

 wretchedness looks in at the window, love, happiness, and 

 industry are apt to go out by the chimney. Some people 

 that will be reached by nothing else than their own self- 

 interest must have that appealed to ; and the scrutiny I 

 propose would tell on the best interests of all connected, 

 and by means of example exert a general beneficial influence. 

 With every desire that charity may perform its perfect work, 

 it requires no seer's vision to perceive that many of our 

 social evils in the country as respects the working classes, 

 are owing to an undue patronising of the necessarily-ever- 

 needy, because the inconsiderate, the unsteady, and the 

 unthrifty. Though not so pleasant, it would be well to try 

 the other course. — R. Fish. 



Orchidaceous Plants. — The ninth Part, just published, 

 of " Select Orchidaceous Plants," edited by Mr. Warner and 

 Mr. Williams, fully equals its predecessors in useful informa- 



