16 
A STROLL THROUGH THE GARDEN. 
renders every fine day valuable, and every 
thing that can be done during frost and in 
very wet weather, should be left whenever 
the soil is fit for working. The men have 
been at work for hours, but we shall see what 
they have been doing as well as what they 
will then be performing. We are sure to be 
in time for any sowing that is to be done, 
because the gardener or foreman will never 
let that be done except while one or other of 
them is at hand, and, whenever they can, 
they do it themselves. * * * * 
Well, now you are ready for the garden. 
Observe the piece of rough ground that I told 
you was left in ridges, that the frost might 
penetrate as far as possible, has been for the 
greater part levelled ; you see the man throws 
down the top of the ridges into the bottoms 
of the furrows, and makes the surface tolera- 
bly even ; he will presently take his large 
rake to smooth it a little, preparatory to sow- 
ing or planting in it ; meanwhile, we will go 
on to the bed that the man is preparing at 
the other end. See how those pale railishes 
and lettuces have recovered their green 
colour, although rhey have had the liglit only 
yesterday and the forepart of to-day. Here 
is a man planting cabbages from the nursery 
bed that I sho'A'ed you some days ago ; he is 
planting them too thick to grow into full- 
sized cabbages, but he intends that every 
alternate plant shall be pulled up half-grown, 
to be eaten as greens, such as you see tied up 
in bunches at the shops and markets ; they are 
• nine inches apart in the rows, and the rows 
are eighteen inches from each other. Ob- 
serve, there is another man " earthing up,'' as 
it is called, all that large piece of brocoli, 
Brussels sprouts, late savoys, and early cab- 
bages ; that is, he is drawing the earth up to 
the stems and stirring the surface of the soil 
between the rows ; if you notice particularly, 
you will see that he forms a kind of bank all 
along the rows, and brings the soil three or 
four inciies up the stems. This always 
greatly refreshes all sorts of crops of the cab- 
bage tribe, besides refreshing them and 
enabling them to strike fresh roots into the 
soil higher up their stems ; observe how 
much cleaner and better the crop looks after 
earthing; and stirring the surface always does 
a great deal of good, because the rain runs 
the soil together and closes it against the air ; 
stirring it admits the air and allows the rain to 
penetrate more easily. Now we have arrived at 
the work I spoke of when we were too distant 
to see it : The bed, you observe, is four feet 
wide ; this width is chosen, that the man may 
be able to reach the centre from either side, 
to pull out weeds or thin the plants. Here 
he is sowing several different things, a few 
of each, because they may fail if a very hard 
frost should come and last some days. Beans 
(the broad sort) you see are sown very thick, 
not more than an inch apart ; these are only 
wanted to grow for planting out in rows. 
Suppose the winter set in veiy hard, this 
small patch, which is not more than four feet 
square, could be easily covered to protect 
them. Had he sowed them at once in thin 
rows, six inches from seed to seed, and 
two feet from row to row, they would have 
been much more difficult to protect, because 
of the great space they would cover. He 
has also a patch of turnips and carrots, and 
lettuce. He has made up his mind to protect 
this whole bed, just as he protected the bed 
of radishes and lettuces, which we noticed. 
There is a man on the right there earthing up 
celery. The soil forms a complete bank, and 
the higher it is, the longer will be the white 
part of the plant. We will just walk across 
to the place where the hot-bed is, and which 
is called, in large establishments, where it is 
separated from the garden, the forcing ground, 
but here there is no separation. There ap- 
pears to be a quantity of dung spread over a 
large space of ground ; that, covers a number 
of pots which are put over plants of sea kale, 
and the gardener is trying an experiment 
with the rhubarb, that is worth notice. 
Under close cover and in the dark, the 
rhubarb plant grows blanched like celery or 
kale, and the flavour is not nearly so strong; 
but he has two or three wooden frames 
made, some eighteen inches long and some 
two feet nine inches long, like a square pipe : 
here they are. You see they are formed of 
four pieces of nine-inch wide board, and are 
open at each end ; one end is put on the 
ground to cover the plant, the other is open 
to the sky, but they are surrounded with 
hot stable dung, and a flat bit of glass is put 
on the top. In the daytime, the dung is 
taken from the top of the glass to let in the 
light, and the glass is removed altogether 
occasionally to let in the air. This will be 
found to give colour, and add to the flavour. 
Observe these flower-pots on the ground, they 
have roots of mint in them ; the gardener will 
put them in the hot- beds one after another, 
and so have a supply of green mint next 
month, and a succession till that out of doors 
comes forward. The cucumbers have grown 
considerably in this short time, but there is no 
appearance of asparagus yet. The ground 
that was ridged and is now levelled, is partly 
planted with the remains of the winter greens 
out of the nursery bed, all of which are 
cleared, except the cabbage and cauliflower ; 
and I see he is planting a few rows of potatoes. 
We have now seen the principal operations 
that can be performed with advantage in 
January ; and our next visit shall be to the 
