November 14.] THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 03 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
1 1 
M W 
NOVEMBER 14—20, 1850. 
Weather near London in 1849. 
Sun 
Sun 
Moon 
Moon’s 
Day of 
Year. 
» D 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in In. 
Rises. 
Sets. 
R.&S. 
Age. 
bef. Sun. 
14 Th 
Beech stript. 
| 
29.682—29.576 
55—36 
S.W. 
0.19 
18 a. 7 
11 a. 4 
0 
45 
10 
15 
24 
318 
15 F 
Macliutus. Apricot stript. 
29.720—29.604 
48—35 
S.W. 
0.08 
20 
9 
1 
51 
11 
15 
14 
319 
16 S 
Teal arrive. 
30.087-29-967 
48—29 
N.W. 
— 
22 
8 
2 
59 
12 
15 
3 
320 
17 Sun 
25 Sun. aft. Thin. Hugh Bp. of Line. 
30.241—30.209 
46—25 
N.W. 
-T- 
24 
7 
4 
9 
13 
14 
52 
321 
18 M 
30.211—29-987 
52—43 
S.W. 
0.05 
25 
5 
5 
22 
14 
14 
39 
322 
19 Tu 
Sun’s declination 19 ° 28's. 
30 . 068 — 29.970 
52—31 
N.E. 
_ 
27 
4 
rises. 
© 
14 
26 
323 
20 W 
1 Edmund, King and Martyr. 
30.109—30.100 
49—41 
E. 
29 
3 
5a.11 
16 
14 
12 
324 
I 
On the 10th of November, 1724 , Richard Bradley, a Fellow of the 
Royal Society, was elected Professor of Botany at Cambridge. We have 
sought, but hitherto in vain, for particulars of his early history. It is 
not improbable that he may have been educated for the medical pro¬ 
fession, inasmuch as that he attempted to lecture on the Materia Medica, 
and to the cullers of simples have the Royal Society ever had a favourable 
inclination. That he should have been admitted to the Professorship at 
Cambridge, however, evinces extreme carelessness and culpable credulity 
on the part of the appointing authorities, even supposing one of his 
successors’, Professor Martyn’s, statement of the event to be the whole 
truth. “ He was chosen to that office,” says this respectable authority, 
‘‘by means of a pretended verbal recommendation from Dr. Sherard to 
Dr. Bentley, and pompous assurances that he could procure the Uni¬ 
versity a public Botanic Garden by his own private purse and personal 
interest.” Verbal recommendations and pompous assurances would not 
prevail now in obtaining this responsible appointment; and in the case 
of Mr. Bradley they were soon found to have been totally deceptive. 
His inability to read Botanical lectures was immediately apparent; and 
his entire ignorance of the learned languages rendered him the more 
ridiculous in one of the prime seats of classical learning. “ It may seem 
strange to assert,” says Professor Martyn, “ that the translator of Xeno¬ 
phon’s Economicks did not understand Greek ; it is, however, true. 
Mr. Bradley’s being then a popular name, he was paid by the booksellers 
for permitting them to insert it in the title page.” His incapacity as a 
Professor of Botany at length became so notorious, that the father of 
Professor Martyn, a sketch of whom appears in our last volume (p. 119), 
was appointed his substitute. Mr. Bradley refused to submit to the 
degradation, and attempted to deliver lectures on the Materia Medica in 
Cambridge, at the Bull Inn. This was in 1729; and his conduct con¬ 
tinued so offensive that the University took steps for his removal, but 
death saved him from the public disgrace, and the authorities from the 
painful necessity. He died in the course of the year 1732, between which 
year and his first appearance as a writer in 1713 more than thirty portly 
volumes flowed from his pen. If his other virtues had equalled his 
industry he would not have been elevated upon a black pedestal in the 
Temple of Fame. It may be that the contempt necessarily visited upon 
him urged him to seek forgetfulness by plunging deeper into the dissi¬ 
pated habits in which he had indulged; but this, without in any form 
being admissable as his excuse, serves to warn us from that course of sin 
which once entered upon offers no solace but by hurrying further into 
guilt. When we look upon the array of his works, and find in them that 
acuteness of observation and superiority of attainment which are espe¬ 
cially their characteristics, and then reflect that his end was ignominious, 
and that even the place of his grave is unknown, we feel in full force the 
justice of this conclusion—The fruits of his only excellency remain, 
whilst all traces of their otherwise vicious author have perished. But 
very brief notices of some of his publications must now suffice. His 
History of Succulent Plants , commenced in 1716 , is a work of merit— 
still useful for its plates, referred to by Linnaeus ; his New Improvement 
o f Planting and Gardening , Philosophical and Practical , contains a mass 
of information that must have been highly useful to have widely imparted, 
and is the more curious from containing a new invention useful for de¬ 
signing garden plots, which invention was only improved in the kaleido¬ 
scope by Dr. Brewster a few years since. His Monthly Register of New 
Experiments and Observations in Husbandry and Gardening , published 
in 1722 , contains many valuable communications from the best practical 
men of the day, not the least curious of which is “an account of trans¬ 
planting trees of any bigness in the summer season.” His Dictionarium 
Botanicum , “for the use of the curious in husbandry and gardening,” 
appeared in 1728, and was the first Botanical Dictionary published in 
England. His Gentleman and Gardener's Kalendar was at the time, 1718, 
the best directory of work to be done in every month, and in every part 
of the garden, that had then been prepared. We must here stop from 
even cataloguing his publications, and to analyze their contents would be 
useless, even if we could effect it within our allotted space. It would be 
useless because, if we except some experiments which he instituted to 
prove the circulation of the sap and the sexuality of plants, they con¬ 
tain little but what our more perfect knowledge has superseded. His 
works, however, especially the historical portions, may yet be read with 
pleasure. They abound with information collected from books and men 
of practical intelligence, with whom he maintained an extensive corres¬ 
pondence. Little as is the original information of which he was the 
author, yet he must be regarded as one of the best friends of our horti¬ 
culture. The theoretical and scientific views which he had of vegetation 
and practical gardening—views which he laboured to illustrate with 
experiments and knowledge obtained from the experienced—contributed 
greatly to direct the attention both of amateurs and gardeners into the 
true path—“ science with practice ”—for acquiring a correct knowledge 
of the art. His works ran through many editions, and had a very wide 
circulation ; they coincided most opportunely with the increasing love 
of gardening, and the consequent rapidly increasing introduction of 
exotics, and it is certain that they helped to improve their cultivation. It 
is to be regretted that our gratitude is not due to one less despicable. 
Meteorology of tiif. Week. —At Chiswick, during the last twenty- 
three years, the average highest and lowest temperatures of these days 
has been 49.2° and 35.9° respectively. The extreme cold observed during 
the time was 15°, on the 16 th in 1841. There were 80 days on which rain 
fell, and 81 were fine. 
Insects occasionally are destructive and annoying only in consequence 
of their number. This is especially the case with the family of the 
Thrips. We might bear without much irritation a visit from one or two 
of the Thrips Physapus —that minute black fly which causes us such into¬ 
lerable titiliation when it alights upon our face in sultry weather; but 
we all know that, like the ghosts in Macbeth, “ another and another ” 
yet succeeds, until “we’ll bear no more.” These, however, though 
intensely irritating to mortal flesh, are not injurious to the gardener; but 
the same harmlessness does not characterise the Thrips —thrips Adoni- 
dum —for it is one of the worst pests that can gain a footing in our stoves 
and greenhouses. Our drawing represents this insect highly magnified, 
while the short line upon the scroll intimates its natural length. 
The larvae and pupae are yellowish-white, and the perfect insect is of a 
dull deep black, with the point, and sometimes the whole of the abdomen, 
of a rust colour ; the wings are dirty white ; the horns and legs yellowish, 
the extremity of the former black. It attacks plants by piercing the 
under side of the leaves; and one often sees, at the tip of the tail, a 
globule of blackish fluid, which it soon deposits, and by innumerable 
spots of this glutinous matter the pores of the leaves are stopped up, and 
large portions of the surface become blotched. During March the full- 
grown lame and pupye, which are as large as the perfect insect, are found 
in groups, feeding on the under side of the leaves ; and at this time the 
recently-hatched but perfect insect either lies close under the ribs, or roves 
about in search of a mate (Curtis.) Flowers of sulphur have been recom¬ 
mended as destructive of this plague, but we believe that Scotch snuff, 
applied by means of a dredging box (perhaps Brown’s Fumigator would 
answer), is as effectual an application as any. Prevention, however, is 
better than cure ; and if the plants are kept healthy by due ventilation, 
and of moisture both in the air and soil, this insect may be usually 
banished. 
It is long since we paused from our observations on the 
science of gardening, but we will now resume (from 
yol.iii. p. 330) our remarks relative to the roots of plants. 
We have seen that plants search after and acquire 
food by the agency of their roots; and the extremities 
of these appear to be the chief, if not the only parts 
employed, in the sucking-in of all food not in a gas¬ 
eous state, for M. Dulmmel observed that that portion 
of a soil was soonest exhausted in which the greatest 
number of the extremities of the roots were assembled.— 
(Physique ties Arbres, vol. iii. p. 276.) 
M.M. Sennebier and Carradori found that if roots of 
No. CXI., Vol V. 
