88 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
manuring; and while such branches of practice are thoroughly 
described, they are not treated in a manner so as to produce the 
backache in reading about them. The book is not by any means 
dull and dry, but is such as an amateur gardener might rest over — 
that is, read with pleasure even when fatigued after a hard day’s 
labour. In this respect it differs advantageously from the usual 
style of kitchen-gardening books which are rather profusely issued 
from the press ; yet while the style is free and pleasant, the practice 
detailed is sound. 
“ Besides treating briefly on the principles of kitchen gardening, 
such as site, form, character of soil, etc., there are chapters on pits 
and frames, protecting, soils, manures, and the cultivation suited to 
crops of vegetables, herbs, and fruits usually found in moderate- 
sized gardens. These chapters are concise, and the instructions 
given are explicit. The selections of varieties are judicious, and far 
superior to those given in a bulky volume recently issued, which was 
once a standard work. The author of the ‘ Amateur’s Kitchen 
Garden ’ has not fallen into the common error of recommending the 
Mazagan Bean as the best early variety, but correctly describes it as 
a ‘ poor thing, but early.’ We agree that it is little better than a 
horse bean, but have never found it so early as the Early Longpod. 
The author’s practice on Broccoli culture having been gained in the 
south he has not experienced the difficulty of preserving that im- 
portant crop through the winter, which is so hard to accomplish in 
northern districts. He has never found it necessary to lay the 
plants down, but he has found the value of sprinkling the ground 
between the plants with salt at the rate of ten or twelve bushels to 
the acre. Others who adopt this practice will find the value of it 
too, for, as the author observes, ‘ it is certainly not a waste of labour 
or of salt, for the result is a wholesale destruction of vermin, and a 
consequent protection of the plants from their ravages during those 
mild winter and early spring days, when slugs and other such come 
forth in tro )ps and eat out the hearts of the best vegetables in the 
garden. It is worth remembering, too, that the salt is worth its cost 
as manure, and its presence in the soil will benefit the next crop.’ 
When the author found in his trials that Snow’s Winter White 
Broccoli was in use from April 2nd to April 16th, we think he 
had not the true variety, or the trials were conducted during an 
exceptional season. We usually cut heads of this variety in 
January. 
“ The practical nature of the volume will be best exemplified by 
a few further extracts. Alluding to such necessities as walls and 
fences, low walls for fruit trees, which have recently been advocated 
in a sensational pamphlet, are rightly denounced — negatively, it is 
true, but none the less emphatically by the following sentence : — 
‘ The minimum height for a wall to be of any use in fruit-growing is 
eight feet.’ Such a wall the author goes on to say ‘should be nine 
inches thick, and have a coping projecting forwards. If from eight 
to fourteen feet the thickness should be thirteen and a half inches, 
and the coping six to eight inches. If from fourteen to twenty feet 
the thickness must be eighteen inches, and the coping should project 
