COTTAGE GARDENING. 
411 
winter, or plant them out where you please, 
to permanently flower them. 
COTTAGE GARDENING. 
The science of Floriculture would afford 
much amusement if we could trace back its 
history better than we are now able, but in 
all the early Societies there was seldom any 
record of transactions; and one half the mem- 
bers could not even write or read writing. 
The enthusiasm was, however, complete ; 
every cultivator thought more of his flowers 
than himself, and some were much more 
anxious about their gardens than their wives 
or children. However singular it may appear, 
nearly all our best early fancy flowers were 
raised by the silk-weavers who emigrated 
from France, and who followed up the flower- 
fancy, the bird-fancy, and the pigeon-fancy, 
with an earnestness bordering on monomania. 
One would think that pigeon-fancying was 
bird-fancying, but it was not so in the com- 
mon acceptation of the word ; they were dis- 
tinct studies, although some of the florists 
added it to their fancy for flowers. It was 
not until late years that nurserymen troubled 
their heads about raising seedlings, and if we 
go back to the time of Miliken, who was 
pretty early in his cultivation and encourage- 
ment of florist's flowers, we shall find that his 
first book was written as if Floriculture was a 
new science, and surrounded with difficulties, 
while men, who could neither read nor write, 
had given him his practical knowledge. Those 
who look upon the thousands of houses which 
now cover the space that used to boast of the 
gaudy Tulip-beds of hundreds of working 
men, would scarcely think it possible to have 
made so great a change ; but there are many 
small gardens, even now, in the Mile-end- 
road, with their canvass houses, which, in the 
season, look like an encampment, but which 
are doomed, at no short distance of time, to 
give place to brick and mortar dwellings, 
and its present occupants must be scattered 
far and wide, or give up the innocent and 
healthful pursuit of gardening. The distribu- 
tion of the occupants of small gardens has 
been large, and for some years gradual; 
first, one giving place, then another, to the 
new buildings, which cover almost every once 
vacant space ; and unless something be done 
to provide the mechanic with the means of 
indulging the practice of Floriculture, he will 
have recourse to the public-house and the 
skittle-ground, for less healthy amusements. 
Wherever the trade of weaving flourished, 
there also flourished the cultivation of flowers ; 
so that, as the Spitalfields artisans were dis- 
persed, they carried their favourite fancy with 
them, and hence we find the same love of 
flowers pervading that class in all our leading 
manufacturing towns. It is said that around 
Nottingham there are no less than five thou- 
sand plots of ground let out to the humble 
classes, who pursue, as heartily as ever, their 
amateur gardening. And here we may con- 
gratulate the higher classes on the habits of 
the multitude so employed. We mention 
Nottingham only because the number of 
gardens was communicated to us somewhat 
officially; but we are told that Manchester, 
Paisley, Birmingham, Derby, and many other 
places, would give us pretty nearly the same 
results in proportion to the number of indivi- 
duals engaged in the manufactures of cotton, 
woollen, or silk ; for it would seem that Flo- 
riculture, like many other fancies, was com- 
municated from one to another, until it 
appeared to be the leading amusement of the 
industrious classes. The fancy, from the first 
introduction, was kept up by shows among 
themselves ; a constant series of challenges, 
one flower against another, led to similar 
demonstrations in half-dozens and dozens ; 
from these, which were generally settled by 
judges appointed by the challengers, on Sunday 
mornings, in their own gardens, to each of 
which was attached a summer-house, they 
proceeded to establish clubs or Societies, to 
the funds of which they contributed weekly 
or monthly, so that, by the time the show-day 
came round, they had a fund for prizes, and 
enough for a feast on the day of show, which 
was generally appointed a few weeks before- 
hand, according to the prospects of the season, 
and they looked forward to it as a grand 
holiday at all times. The establishment of 
Horticultural Societies, which awarded prizes 
to cottagers, put another face on matters, and 
turned the thoughts of a very large class from 
flowers to vegetables, and we have read some 
very pungent remarks on the propriety of 
keeping such prizes for vegetables only, as 
flowers, being their natural taste, required no 
encouragement, while the devotion of their 
time to vegetables, which increased the com- 
forts, and even afforded luxuries which the 
lower classes never indulged in before, was 
worthy of being promoted by every means. 
Then again, the flowers selected by these 
geneial Horticultural Societies for encourage- 
ment, were not, in one half the cases, the same 
as the humbler classes took delight in. The 
offering of prizes was, in fact, an evil, as it 
turned their thoughts from the Auricula, 
the Tulip, the Carnation, Piccotee, Pink, 
and what are called florist's flowers, to 
things of no importance but that to which the 
offer of a prize raised it ; and the folly of this 
species of interference actually knew no 
bounds. Imagine a Society of sensible per- 
sons, in other respects, offering a cottager, 
