December 19 .] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
in 
M W 
d d 
| 
DECEMBER 19—25, 1850. 
Weather 
> -- 
Barometer. 
NEAR LO 
Thermo. 
N DON IN 1849. 
Wind. Rain in In. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. Sc S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
i 
19 Th 
. r . r T T j 
30.236 — 29.8/8 
45—32 
N.W. | 0.03 
5 a. 8 
50 a. 3 
rises. 
© 
2 41 
353 
20 F 
Sun’s declination 23° 27' sooner. 
30.312 — 30.233 
41—30 
N.W. — 
0 
60 
5 a.37 
17 
2 11 
354 
21 S 
St. Thomas. Shortest Day. 
30.491—30.394 
35—29 
N.E. i 0.02 
6 
51 
6 49 
18 
1 41 
355 
22 Sun 
4 Sunday in Advent. Winter com- 
30.530 — 30.519 
37—28 
N.E. — 
7 
51 
8 7 
19 
1 11 
356 
23 M 
[mences. 
30.572 — 30.516 
35—22 
N.E. | — 
7 
52 
9 27 
20 
0 41 
35 7 
21 Tu 
White Nun comes. 
30.404 — 30.372 
36—24 
N.W. 0.02 
7 
52 
10 46 
21 
0 11 
358 
25 W 
Christmas Day. 
30.530 — 30.326 
38—28 
N.E. 0.01 
8 
53 
morn. 
€ 
bef. 18 
359 
About Christmas Day, in the year 1717, died Mr. George London, 
of whose birth and education we have been able to obtain no information, 
but whose career as a Nurseryman and Market Gardener will enable us 
to place some curious and interesting particulars before our readers 
relative to the enormous amount of vegetable produce grown by those 
tradesmen alone for the annual supply of London. Industry and strong 
common sense—the characteristics which in after life obtained for Mr. 
London the patronage of the nobility and gentry—were early discerned 
in him by his master, Mr. Rose, gardener to Charles II., of whom he 
was a favourite pupil for four years, and who then sent him into France 
for further improvement in the art of gardening. Upon his return from 
the Continent he was engaged as head gardener by Dr. Compton, Bishop 
of London, whose gardens and greenhouses at Fulham Palace contained 
a greater variety of exotics than those of any garden establishment then 
in England. After a few years he left that prelate’s service, and entered, 
in the year 1681, into the successful speculation of the Brompton Park 
Nursery. His partners were Mr. Cook, gardener to the Earl of Essex ; 
Mr. Lucre, gardener to the Queen Dowager, at Somerset House ; and 
Mr. Field, gardener to the Duke of Bedford, at Bedford House, in the 
Strand, of which the gardens covered a portion of where now is Covent 
Garden Market. In 1 691 , two of his partners having died, and the third 
retired, he admitted into the firm a fellow pupil, Mr. Henry Wise ; and 
the partnership of London and Wise was then as celebrated as that of 
Messrs. Loddiges of the present day. Mr. Gibson, who visited their 
establishment in the year following, says, “it has a large greenhouse, the 
front all glass and board, the north side brick. Here the king’s greens * 
which were in summer at Kensington, are placed; but they take but 
little room in comparison of their own. Their garden is chiefly a nursery 
for all sorts of plants, of which they are very full.” At that time the 
garden covered more than one hundred acres; and the best contemporary 
authorities, Switzer and B^wack, agree, that if the plants w'ere sold at a 
penny each the stock would have realized nearly forty thousand pounds. 
“ Brompton Nursery,” says Mr. Evelyn, “was the greatest work of the 
kind ever seen or heard of.” 
After the Revolution in 1688 Mr. London was made superintendent of 
all the Royal Gardens, with a salary of ^200 per annum ; and a Page of the 
Back Stairs to Queen Mary. He had the care of conveying Princess 
Anne to Nottingham, from the fury of the Papists, previous to the Revo¬ 
lution being completed; he was, in conjunction with Mr. Wise, director 
of nearly all the gardens and parks of note in the kingdom. Soon after 
the peace of ltyswick, he accompanied the Earl of Portland, Ambassador 
Extraordinary to King William, into France; at this time (April, 1698 ) 
he made the Observations on the Fruit Gardens at Versailles, which are 
in the preface to the abridgment of Mr. Quintinie’s work, which he, in 
conjunction with Mr. Wise, translated. On the death of King William, 
Mr. Wise being appointed to the care of the Royal Gardens by Queen 
Anne, Mr. London chiefly devoted himself to his country business, 
visiting once or twice a year most of the considerable gardens in England. 
He was accustomed to ride 50 or 60 miles a day : his northern circuit he 
performed in five or six weeks—his western in about the same period— 
in the southern and eastern districts he was occupied but three or four 
days. Switzer intimates that his knowledge of Botany was slight, his 
industry great, but the cultivation of fruit his peculiar excellence, though 
in that of all kinds of flowers and shrubs he was as skilful as any man in 
his time. Switzer is not much of authority when speaking of his excel¬ 
lence in designing, which he considers to have been not great. The 
gardens of Wan stead House were began by him for Sir Richard Child in 
1706 , and were nearly his last undertaking : he died before completing 
the gardens of the Earl of CaenarvOn, at Edger, in Hertfordshire. His 
activity and continued exertion on horseback brought on a fever, which 
caused his death after an illness of a fortnight’s duration. 
* Exotic plants were generally spoken of then as Greens, and this 
explains why the structure for their winter shelter came to be called a 
Greenhouse. 
Covent Garden Market, which we have incidentally mentioned, and to 
the supply of which Messrs. London and Wise contributed, is held in a 
square which is the oldest in London. It was commenced in 1631, at the 
expense of the Duke of Bedford, and from the design of Inigo Jones—a 
design never completed. It is an oblong of 500 feet by 400. The south 
side was occupied by the garden wall of Bedford House, and over this 
wall hung “trees most pleasant in the summer season.” Beneath those 
pleasant trees, in this fashionable square of the metropolis, did the nur¬ 
serymen and market gardeners have stands for the sale of their flowers 
and fruits ; and so lucrative did these become, that moving his town 
residence to Bloomsbury-square, that of Covent Garden was abandoned 
to be a market, regularly chartered in 1671 “ for the buying and selling 
of all fruits, flowers, roots, and herbs whatsoever.” We have no space 
in which to trace its gradual increase, but must content ourselves with 
observing that in 1679 there were there twenty-three salesmen, rated at 
from 2s. to Is. each ; whereas now the market is rated at ^1800. Besides 
Covent Garden, London has the Borough, Spitalfields, Farringdon, Port- 
man and Hungerford Markets—that of Spitalfields being the great 
emporium for potatoes and brocoli, and that of Farringdon for water- 
cresses. The following table, showing the aggregate amount of their 
annual sales (exclusive of Hungerford) from which we have no return, 
will give our readers some particulars on which to found an estimate of 
the extent of ground required for supplying one town with “ fruits 
and kitchen-garden stuff". ” 
Apples .... 
685,000 bushels. 
Asparagus (Covent Garden only) . 
63,000,000 heads. 
Beans .... 
132,000 bushels. 
Brocoli (including Cauliflowers) . . 
14,328,000 heads. 
Cabbages .... 
89,672,000 —• 
Carrots .... 
16,784,800 
Celery (Covent Garden only) 
18,000,000 heads. 
Cherries . w 
169,000 bushels. 
Currants .... 
127,000 — 
Endive (Covent Garden only) 
2,000,000 heads. 
Filberts (Covent garden only) 
2,240,000 lbs. 
French heans (Covent Garden and Spitalfields) 
143,000 bushels. 
Gooseberries .... 
273,500 — 
Onions (Covent Garden and Spitalfields) 
505,000 — 
Peas .... 
434,000 — 
Pears .... 
353,000 — 
Plums (Covent Garden, Spitalfields, and Farringdon) 141,000 — 
Potatoes ... 
3,892,040 cwt. 
Raspberries (Covent Garden and Spitalfields) 
28,000 bushels. 
Strawberries .... 
45,750 — 
Turnips .... 
29,450.800 
Walnuts (Covent Garden only) . 
25,000 bushels. 
Watercresses (Covent Garden and Farringdon) 
84,825 cwt. 
We may fairly add one-fourth more to each of the foregoing immense 
quantities, to include the Markets from which there are no returns, 
private sources of supply, and retail vendors obtaining their goods direct 
from the country. To the item Potatoes a still more vast addition must 
be made ; for the great stores for these are in Tooley-street and ltothcr- 
hithe; and from these, in an average season, 1,200,000 sacks are delivered, 
each sack containing 168 lbs. of potatoes. 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, the average highest and 
, lowest temperatures of these days, from observations during twenty- 
three years, are 44.3° and 33.5°, respectively. The greatest heat, 58°, 
| occurred on the‘25th in 182/; and the lowest cold, 10°, on the 24th in 
1830. Observations during the same years, and at the same place, show 
! that the night of the 25th of December, and of the 15th of January, arc 
there, usually, the coldest in the year. On 63 days rain fell, and 98 were 
I fine. 
We concluded, at page 94, our observations upon the 
roots of plants, by reconciling the apparently discrepant 
experiments of Saussure and Hassenfratz, who respec¬ 
tively asserted and denied that plants increase in weight 
when their roots are supplied with water only. Some of 
those who, like Saussure, found that plants so fed do 
increase in weight, sprang at once from the solid path of 
experiment aud concluded that water is their sole food. 
They even instituted some experiments to maintain this 
most erroneous opinion, but all those experiments totally 
fail in justifying such an induction; nor, indeed, are 
any experiments needed, for the experience of every cul¬ 
tivator of the soil, from Adam downwards, refutes such 
a conclusion. 
In the lirst place, all waters contain earthy, saline, 
and organic matters : even distilled water is not pure, as 
Sir H. Davy has proved; and rain water, Margraaf has 
demonstrated to be much less so. No plants, growing 
in water only, will ever perfect seed; and the facts, that | 
different plants affect different soils, and that a soil will [ 
not bear through a series of years the same crop, where- | 
as it will bear a rotation of different ones, demon- 
No. CXVI, Vol. IV. 
