523 
HORTICULTURAL NOTES. 
thirty or forty-fold. I have had a hundred- 
fold. They may be followed by the broad 
bean, or by later sowings of themselves. I 
have always found the Mazagan surer and 
more produetive ; they may be sown all over 
a ridge from 6 to 9 inches apart, and gathered 
from the furrow. But I should recommend 
their being sown in a single row along the 
centre of the ridge, and about 6 or 8 inches 
from each other, filling the ridge with cab- 
bages, turnips, parsnips, or other low-growing 
crop. In this way a much larger quantity of 
beans than might be supposed would be ob- 
tained without any loss in, or injury to the 
other crop. 
Maize or Indian Corn. — The green stalks 
of Maize are very large, soft, and juicy, and 
the juice is so sweet, that a syrup as sweet as 
sugar is made of it. The usual time of sowing 
it is April.; it may be sown in rows 2 feet 
asunder, and the seed dropped from 6 inches 
to a foot. This would also answer well, like 
the beans, sown in a single row along the 
centre of the ridge in which low-growing 
crops were planted. The green stalks, bruised 
and boiled and the juice squeezed out, would, 
in the latter part of the summer, thickened 
with a little meal, make nutritive and palat- 
able food, and from its sweetness would be 
well liked by children. Though a slow 
ripener it is a quick grower ; and although it 
has not yet ripened in Ireland, it has, I believe, 
produced its seed. These in a green state 
are boiled and eaten as peas by the Ameri- 
cans, and are much esteemed. In tin's state 
they might come into use at the end of Au- 
gust. — [This crop cannot be advantageously 
grown, in England, under the circumstances 
assumed, unless in places very mild and much 
screened from easterly winds.] 
Beocoli and Cabbages. — TheWalcheren 
Brosoli, sown early in September and planted 
out under glasses (as cauliflowers are) in 
England, gives a succession in spring. It is 
probable, but we have no experience of it, 
that many of the brocoli sown in September 
or early in October, and left in the seed-beds, 
would stand our winters without protection ; 
and with a view of obtaining supplies of a 
most excellent vegetable early in summer, the 
experiment is well worth trying, the only risk 
a few shillings' worth of seed. If it suc- 
ceeded, the return at only one halfpenny a 
head would be four guineas for every shilling. 
I would recommend the Walcheren and the 
Wilcove Brocoli ; the latter is named from 
a village near Plymouth. I consider the only 
danger is in the possibility of their starting 
in the spring, and in which case, they would 
still make delicious greens. The sowing of 
cabbage-seeds both of early and late kinds, 
may also be ventured on. The seed-beds 
should be well manured, ashes entering into 
the composition of the manure ; and, need I 
say, should be weeded early and constantly. 
The beds should, if possible, run in a direc- 
tion from south-cast by east to north-west by 
west, with a side-slope towards the sun of 1 foot 
in 4 of the breadth of the beds. In severe 
weather, and at night, and in frosts, it would 
be well done to afford them the shelter of 
some description of covering to check the 
radiation of heat from the surface, such as 
prepared calico at Qd. a square yard, the 
common thin calico at 2\d. or 3d. a yard, the 
common garden matting, or even a little straw. 
But all covering should be removed in open 
weather, or the plants will be too tender. 
An ounce of good seed, affording 2,000 or 
3,000 plants, may be sown on not more than 
10 square yards of a seed-bed, if the seed is 
evenly and carefully sown. The expense, 
therefore, of a covering, would not be much, 
and it would be well repaid. A sod, 6 inches 
thick, laid on each side of the bed, and a few 
sticks thrown across, would support the cover- 
ing, which should be pegged down to the sods. 
A line, with little loops, might be run along 
the edges of it. The slope given to the beds 
will not only give them a more direct face to 
the sun, but a fall for the rain from the 
covering. — J. M. Goodiff. — G. C. 
Gardens in London. — There is more mis- 
chief in the want of free air than in the pre- 
sence of smoke, hence all plants succeed better 
on the top of a house than on the ground. In 
the miserable walled slips that are to be found 
behind some houses, plants hardly move; they 
are, as it were, at the bottom of a pit. The 
fresh air blows along the house-tops, but be- 
low it is not free; the stagnant air that reaches 
the bottom may be whirled round and round, 
and form a little eddy; but there it remains, 
like the smoke in a chimney, when particu- 
lar winds prevent its escape. Of course, 
the wider the space that a garden occu- 
pies, the more the air is distributed, the 
more likely the fresh breeze is to reach tin 
ground. Vegetation, therefore, is more healthy 
in the squares than in small gardens; but if 
those who delight in plants would grow some 
on the house-tops, even in the heart of London, 
they would find much more gratification than 
they could anticipate from the appearance of 
London gardens. 
Preserving Walnuts. — There is some 
difficulty in keeping these fresh for any con-| 
siderable time. By the following plan they 
have been kept in good preservation for twd 
years : — Clean off the outer skin, and placa 
them, when quite dry, in an earthen jar, iif 
layers, alternating with layers of dry sand 
tying them at top to exclude the air. Si 
the jars in a cool dry place. 
