JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 11, 1883. ] 
35 
date of 1345, addressed by the gardeners of various nobles, 
bishops, and merchants to the Lord Mayor, their complaint being 
that they were no longer allowed to take up their accustomed 
standing in the front of St. Austin's Church, where they used to 
vend vegetables, fruit, and herbs. They had been interfered with 
by the ecclesiastics on account of the noise they made, and the 
Mayor allotted them another place ; but he could not re-instate 
them as they desired. It is a curious fact that these personages 
five centuries ago could grow more than they required for their 
own households. There could not, however, have been much 
variety of vegetables, probably some sort of Kale and pulse— 
i.e., Peas and Beans. Perhaps it was the increasing smokiness of 
the centre of the metropolis that led a number of citizens some 
few years afterwards to take a tract of land near the City Road, 
which they formed into garden plots for their convenience and 
recreation. For a long period the place retained the name of the 
“City Gardens.” 
The early “ professional ” traders in vegetables, it is supposed, 
grew what they sold along the streets in their small gardens about 
Golden Lane and neighbourhood, now densely populated ; also 
they offered fruit, Apples prominently, whence they came to be 
called “ costard-mongers.” The herb-women, or herb-wives, seem 
occasionally to have carried vegetables. As the population of 
London increased the farmers began to grow these for the market 
in the fields towards Hoxton, about Whitechapel and Shoreditch, 
north and east of the city. The first ground on the west side that 
was broken for gardening purposes, in order to raise a variety of 
choice vegetables, was in the district of the “ Neat houses ” be¬ 
tween Millbank and Chelsea, where the moist rich soil made it 
particularly suitable. But this was not till about the middle of 
the seventeenth century, when more esculents had been introduced. 
Strype refers to the quantities of Asparagus, Artichokes, Cauli¬ 
flowers, and “ Musmelons ” grown on the part of the Thames 
bank. These and other plants came into England during the 
times of the Tudors, principally owing to those inhabitants of 
Flanders and the Low Countries who were driven from their 
homes by persecution. In 1530 and years following parties of 
these emigrants worked their way across Kent to the suburbs of 
London, and they had market gardens on its south side at Vaux- 
hall, Battersea, ani Bermondsey. 
A fresh impulse was given to gardening during the domestic 
peace that followed the Restoration, and more new vegetables 
were introduced. Yet it was not until nearly the close of the 
century that our forefathers came to regard vegetables as a lead¬ 
ing item in their daily food, and most private residences of any 
importance bad a kitchen as well as a fruit and flower garden. 
Then vegetables ceased to be imported from Holland and France, 
partly from the interruption to trade by war, and partly from the 
cheapening of home produce, owing to the increase in market 
gardens near London and elsewhere. The culture of vegetables 
for profit was, I should consider, at its best during the reign of 
good old George III.—J. R. S. C. 
MICROCACRYS TETRAGONA. 
Tasmania is not rich in Conifers, though examples of several 
genera unknown or rare in the northern hemisphere occur in the 
island, such as Arthrotaxis, Fitzroya, Dacrydium, Bodocarpus, and 
Microcachrys ; but few of these are confined to that country, some 
being common both to New Zealand and Australia. Dacrydium 
Franklini, the Huon Pine, is a well-known inhabitant of Tas¬ 
mania, but the plant of which a spray is shown in the woodcut 
(fig. 9) is rare in its native country, and also rare in cultivation 
in England. It is, however, one of the most remarkable of the 
Conifers found at the Antipodes, and indeed in the whole family. 
The great peculiarity of the plant is that the female cones are of 
a semi-transparent texture, fleshy, and most brilliantly coloured, 
being of a rich red hue that in sunlight is very striking. These 
cones, though small, are borne in considerable numbers on short 
branchlets, and, the main branches being of a decumbent or droop¬ 
ing habit, the plant has a graceful and really beautiful effect grown 
in a pot with the main stem secured to a stake. It is found grow¬ 
ing on the western mountains of Tasmania, where it forms a low 
straggling bush, the branches being four-angled, as the specific 
name indicates, the leaves small and closely pressed to the stem. 
It was introduced to Kew about 1862 by W. Archer, Esq., of 
Cheshunt, and several plants in the temperate house there succeed 
very well and produce their attractive cones very freely. 
Several Conifers produce coloured fruits, but in most cases it 
is a disk, aril, or some appendage that is so coloured, and not a 
true cone, as with the Microcacrys. For instance, the fleshy aril 
of the common Yew is well known, and in the genus Podocarpus 
several similar examples occur, one of the most noteworthy being 
P. neriifolia, the Oleander-leaved Podocarp. The fruit of this 
species has a large fleshy globular or ovoid bright red disk about 
half an inch long, upon the top of which is seated the seed, a true 
fruit about the size of a large pea, but more egg-shaped and 
Fig. 9.—Microcacrys tetragona. 
bright green, forming a most peculiar contrast with the richly 
coloured disk.—L. C. 
EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES. 
In a late number of the Journal I praised the Champion, 
Skerry, and Magnum Bonum Potatoes as prolific and good 
keepers. In confirmation of the same I enclose you a clipping 
from the Belfast Newsletter which appeared some time after I 
wrote my paper, and possibly the report may interest your many 
readers, horticultural and agricultural.— Comber, Co. Down. 
At a recent meeting of the Chemico-Agricultural Society of 
Ulster Mr. Davidson read the following report on “ Experiments 
on the Potato Crop : ”—In presenting the report of the experiments 
conducted on the Potato crop at Brookfield Agricultural School, in 
order to prevent miscalculations by any portion of the public inter¬ 
ested in such experiments, I may be permitted to state that all 
possibilities of waste are excluded from these calculations, that an 
acre means every inch of land in an acre, and that no allowance is 
made for the necessary waste of culture, fences, or any other sources 
of deficiency, and that no part of the crop is considered beneath the 
care of calculation. A Potato the eighth of an ounce in weight, 
