THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
18 
SOLD PRODUCE OF THE YEAR 184;. 
Produce of two cows, after family’s consumption, 
fattening one calf and weaning one 
One calf fatted, weighed nine stone, at 8s. 2d. per 
stone of 14 lbs. 
Skin, head, feet, &c. 
One year-old heifer 
One fat pig of eight stone, at 8s. per stone 
Twenty sacks of potatoes, at 8s. 
Twelve bushels early do., at 5s. 
Seven thousand cabbages, at £d. 
Twelve pecks of onions, at Is. 
Various seeds, vegetables, &c. 
Deduct rent for land, at five per cent, on purchase- 
money (including expenses) £250 
Rent for house .. 
Rates, taxes, &c. 
Net profit for the year 
This fully confirms the statement made by an aider- 
man in our pages a shorDtime since, of the profit to be 
made out of land, and fully justifies us in the efforts we 
have made to benefit the peasant, and through him the 
kingdom at large, by advocating an extension of the 
ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 
THE FRUIT-GARDEN. 
Fokmation of Fruit and Kitchen Gardens. —As 
many of our readers will doubtless be engaged in such 
matters, at this or some other period, a few points of 
advice will probably prove acceptable to the unlearned 
in such things; and as the subject is a wide one, and 
too broad to be completed in a single paper, we must 
run it on as occasion serves, adapting our remarks as 
much as possible to the period at hand. In discussing 
this subject, it may be well to assume the case of a pro¬ 
prietor, liaving new gardens to make out of open arable 
or pasture land; and it will be our duty to point to a 
judicious selection of site, leaving the disposal of the 
floral matters to our worthy coadjutors. The culinary 
garden, we fear, we must perforce intrench on, inasmuch 
as the subject of a fruit-garden is necessarily woven 
into it. It is not our present purpose to discuss mere 
orcharding matters; such may be said to concern a 
small minority of the readers of The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener. 
Selection of Site. —Two very important considera¬ 
tions are here very apt to come in antagonism, viz., 
the choice of a proper soil, with a proper situation. 
The architect will insist in planning a house, that all 
other considerations must be waived in deference to his 
claims. The landscape gardener complains afterwards 
that he ought to have been consulted by the architect, 
and then things could have been done in a much supe¬ 
rior way, whilst not unfrequently the sins of both are 
made manifest for ever in the selection of a bad site, 
and ungenial soil for the fruit and kitchen-garden. All 
this merely shows that such a harmony— theoretically, at 
least —as exists in our time-lionourod constitution, in 
which the three estates constitute in their very essence 
a constant countercheck on each other, should be 
observed in the erecting a house, embellishing its 
grounds, and establishing that which, after all, is the 
summam bonum of the whole affair—at least in the sur¬ 
veyor general’s eye—a good and plentiful kitchen and 
fruit-garden. 
Now, to endeavour to prevent all the aforesaid neces¬ 
sary officers from knocking their heads together is cer¬ 
tainly a very bold attempt; but with the permission of 
the class termed carpers, we must really endeavour to 
do something, now that the ice is fairly broken. As to a 
site for a bouse, we must just in charity suppose, that 
the designer has not been of so exclusive a character 
[October 10. 
but that he has left chances enough for the landscape 
gardener and the schemer of the kitchen-garden; and 
in order to collect the matter in a focus, we must beg to 
suggest, that the two latter distinguished professionals 
are united in one. \ 
In the first place, we would never allow the kitchen 
and fruit-garden to be farther than about two hundred 
yards from the house, and we would never permit it to 
be nearer than fifty yards, which indeed is too near as 
a principle: still we would fain make our remarks as 
broad as possible. Any cases in which the kitchen-gar¬ 
dens come nearer still to the house, or forsooth form 
even a portion of the frontage, we do not at present in¬ 
clude. Such are generally mere town gardens, or those 
of the cottager; and it will be best to treat of such in 
a separate way subsequently. 
Our remarks now must be considered as chiefly ap¬ 
plicable to the ornamental suburban villa, to the ferine 
ornee, &c , &c; occupied in the main by retiring mercan¬ 
tile gentlemen, who wish to enjoy according to the 
famous old maxim, “ case with dignity.” 
Next in importance to selecting good soil for the 
kitchen-garden should be, the providing an intervening 
plot of ground of sufficient compass to screen and con¬ 
ceal the culinary department. There are those who 
attempt to render it as conspicuous as possible ; but for 
our part, we consider that although a systematic looking 
and fruitful kitchen-garden is one of the most agreeable 
objects imaginable, yet that it has no claim to forming 
a portion of the scenery, as seen from the principal 
windows of the house. We would have both the kitchen 
garden and a mass flower-garden strictly episodical, 
that is to say, digressing from a principal walk, which 
should make one bold range through the best features of 
the place, possessing a proper circuit through some 
well concealed part, and entering at right angles to the 
commencing part, which would sufficiently point out 
its character as a return walk. The point of junction 
should be densely planted with shrubs, &c. 
We can now fancy the ardent florist exclaiming— 
“ What! won’t he allow us any flowers on the lawn before 
the windows? are we to have nothing to look upon but 
a cold landscape ? ” Oh yes, by all means! and before 
going farther with the culinary and fruit garden, we 
must beg to say how. 
We do think it bad taste, and a kind which will one 
day be entirely superseded, to bespatter a lawn in full 
sight of the windows with flowers of evanescent habits, 
when the immense accession and cultivation of choice 
shrubs in later years offers such excellent facilities for 
serving the double purpose of forming an appropriate 
foreground to the landscape, and of combining with it 
as much colour and floral habit as the eye in general 
is content to rest upon. Masses of “Americans,” roses, 
the dwarf or flowering shrubs, plants or groups of such 
things as fuchsias, &c., &c., with here and there a group 
of hollyhocks, the taller delphiniums, with any other 
high, pointed, and showy herbaceous plants, might be 
occasionally introduced—not among but between them, 
in order to relieve flatness and monotony of outline, 
to which groups of dahlias, &c., may be added. These, 
then, with plenty of roses inclining to the perpetual 
character, with huge specimens of exotic plants in tubs 
or pots, placed judiciously, chiefly as appendages of the 
house, would in our opinion produce a lawn most agree¬ 
able and interesting both in winter and summer. 
Such admitted, why then, as before observed, a mass 
garden, an annual garden, a little rosary, a Dutch garden, 
&c., &c., might, as room permitted or fancy dictated, form 
digressive sallies from the principal walk; always taking 
care to give partial concealment by planting, in order to 
give an idea of snugness and privacy, as well as to make 
these little episodes subservient to the general effect as 
to their exterior—a point too little attended to. Thus 
£ S. a. 
29 12 8 
3 12 6 
0 l6 0 
- 4 8 6 
5 0 0 
3 4 0 
8 0 0 
3 0 0 
14 11 8 
0 12 0 
5 15 0 
£/4 3 10 
12 10 0 
8 0 0 
2 12 0 
- 23 2 0 
£51 1 10 
