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ON THE CULTIVATION OF WATER CRESSES. 
vegetable garden, he eagerly embraced the offer, and in a most spirited 
manner commenced the culture of the plant, on what he could call his 
own premises, and with the most successful and profitable result. 
The great success attending this new branch of vegetable culture 
attracted the notice of the Horticultural Society of London, and on 
application, he supplied the society with a detailed account of his 
proceedings and success ; and for which the members of the society 
voted him a medal, or some other valuable mark of their approbation, 
since that time numerous other cress plantations have been made in 
different parts of the kingdom, and it really appears that the demand 
about London is fully equal to the supply, thousands getting their 
bread by hawking cresses about the streets; and from the quantities 
daily disposed of, a stranger to London might naturally suppose 
water cresses to be, in that city, a necessary of life. 
The place chosen by the first cultivator was a very shallow and 
wide branch, or rather a tributary from springs to the river, where the 
water ran rapidly over a clean pebbly bed, and in depth from one to 
two or three inches. It is necessary that the pebbly bed have a 
uniform and regularly graduated fall, as this is conducive to the growth, 
cleanliness, and facility of picking the cresses. In planting, for the 
first time, such a part of a stream, plants are brought from where 
they grow naturally, with a little of the mud adhering to them, 
and beginning at the botttom of the pebbly bed, arranging the plants 
one above another in longitudinal stripes, or narrow beds, with open 
spaces of a foot wide between, to allow a free passage to the water, 
and paths for the pickers to tread in. Thus placed the plants soon 
take root in the gravel, and are in no risk of being floated away. 
If the plantation be subject to be deeply flooded by sudden thaws 
of snow in winter, or heavy rains at other seasons, the owner should 
have some contrivance like a dam or barrier at the top to turn the 
flood aside. 
Any quick-flowing rivulet is suitable for growing water cresses; 
but spring water fresh from the fountain-head is by far the best, not 
only from the heat of spring water inducing more rapid growth, but 
because the growth is continued throughout the winter, and is therefore 
more profitable in that season when the produce is most valued. The 
success of the first cultivator depended very much on his supplies 
of spring water issuing from under the chalk formation in that 
neighbourhood. But his industry and skill contributed greatly to 
to make the business a profitable speculation. 
A plant of this kind is cultivated in India in rather an expensive 
manner. It is called water cress by the English residents, but whether 
