February 13.J 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
299 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
]> 0 
FEBRUARY 13—19, 1851. 
Weather 
Barometer. 
! 
NEAR LO 
Thermo. 
N DON IN 1850. 
Wind. Rain in In. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R.&S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
13 Th 
Brimstone Butterfly seen. 
• 
30.23(5 — 29.8.37 
43—21 
N. 
_ 
21 a. 7 
8 a. 5 
5 16 
12 
14 
31 
44 
14 F 
Valentine. Raven builds. 
30.126 — 29.957 
51—47 
s \y 
0.16 
19 
10 
6 11 
13 
14 
29 
45 
15 S 
Coltsfoot flowers. 
30.007 — 29.952 
56—13 
s.w. 
0.14 
17 
12 
6 57 
i* 
14 
26 
46 
16 Son 
Septuagesima Sunday. 
30.29(5 — 29.889 
50—32 
N.W. 
_ 
| K 
14 
rises. 
© 
14 
23 
47 
17 M 
Partridges pair. 
30.300 — 30.209 
50-42 
S.W. 
— 
13 
15 
7a.l7 
16 
14 
19 
48 
IS To 
House Pigeon hatches. 
30.199 — 30.146 
54—43 
S.W. 
— 
11 
17 
8 40 
17 
14 
14 
49 
19 W 
Crocus flowers. 
30.080 — 30.008 
50—48 
S.W. 
0.01 
9 
19 
10 1 
18 
14 
9 
60 
Two of the most beautiful sights among the many to be seen annually 
in the landscapes of England are derived from her apple-trees. We know 
of no view so rich as looking down into a Herefordshire valley when 
those trees are in full blossom ; for it realises the poet’s fancy of groves 
of roses in the Vale of Cashmere. Visit again the Hereford valley at 
the close of an autumn, when the apple harvest is abundant, and walk 
among the trees in a well cultivated orchard, and there will be found a 
treat as rich as in the spring, in the tints well contrasting with the 
foliage, and a fragrance that will in no way offend another of our senses. 
John Philips thought so before us, for he has written— 
“ whilst English plains 
Blush with pomaceous harvests, breathing sweets, 
O let me now, when the kind early dew 
Unlocks th’ embosom’d odours, walk among 
The well-rang’d files of trees, whose full ag’d store 
Diffuse ambrosial steams, than myrrh or nard 
More grateful, or perfuming flow’ry bean.” 
If any of our readers will visit the Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey 
they will find a somewhat elevated profile bust, with this quotation from 
the second of Virgil’s Eclogues : — 
Honos erit huic quoque pomo . 
“ Honor shall be awarded to the apple also.” 
This was the motto chosen by the same Philips for his poem entitled I 
Cyder , and it appropriately refers to his best work, whilst it marks the ■ 
monument thus raised to his memory by Lord Chancellor Harcourt. But I 
the poet’s burial place is not there, for he lies interred among the 
apple orchards of which he was the laureate. 
Philips was born to literary ease, for his father was Archdeacon of 
Shropshire, and rector of Hampton, in Oxfordshire—the town where our 
poet was born on the 30th of December, 1 676 . We are told that he was 
a boy of early promise, and of temper sweet, but of feeble constitution— 
characteristics which we can well understand would win for him the 
general regard of even a public school, and would justify even the “ rigid 
disciplinarian ” who presided for making him an exception to that obe¬ 
dience to ‘‘rugged rules severely exacted from the rest.” Want of 
strength prevented him joining in the sports of the other Winchester 
scholars ; and that weakness of the lungs which at length proved fatal 
kept him within his chamber when others courted rucle health on St. 
Catherine’s hill. There is no affliction in this world without its twin 
consolation, and with illness was given to Philips a love for reading, and 
especially a taste for the poetry of Milton. The style of this great poet 
he aimed to imitate ; and even before he passed from Winchester, in l0p4, 
to Christchurch, Oxford, he was a successful imitator of his chosen master. 
He there speedily attained pre-eminence, and was as much beloved for 
cheerfulness and gentle raillery, which never degenerated into coarseness, 
as for the excellence of his public performances. At Christchurch, as at 
Winchester, he seems to have been fortunate in an indulgent master ; for 
Dean Aldrich, the head of Christchurch, must have been no disciplinarian 
or he would not have endured the cool impertinence of the two students 
who wagered whether the Dean abstained from smoking even at ten in 
the morning. Admitted to his study, and announcing the occasion of so 
early a visit, he decided, in perfect good humour, that he who had 
wagered in the affirmative had lost, for, replied the Dean, ‘‘you see, 
gentlemen, I am not smoking, but filling my pipe.” Philips was not less 
a favourite with the Dean for being a smoker too ; but Philips had the 
extenuating plea, that it was an alleviation of his pulmonary disease, or, 
as he describes it in poetical verbiage,—• 
‘‘ Nature’s choice gift, whose acrimonious fume 
Extracts superfluous juices, and refines 
The blood distemper’d from its noxious salts.” 
I It is no wonder, therefore, that he fell in with the general taste, and 
descended to sing the praises of “ the Indian weed” in more than one of 
! his few productions. Even his Splendid Shilling— the most popular of 
! his works—owes some part of its attraction to the happy introduction of 
a tobacco pipe. This was the first of his published poems, and was 
written in 1/00, being succeeded by Blenheim in 1/05, and Cyder in the 
year following. With a notice of the last we shall alone occupy our 
space. This poem is written in Miltonian blank verse, which verse we 
are told we ought to admire more than rhyme, because this is 
“ At best a crutch that lifts the weak along, 
Supports the feeble, but retards the strong.” 
i Be this as it may, Cyder continued long to be read and loudly praised, 
I and is yet readable, not only because it tells of country manners a century 
' old, but because it is grounded on truth. Dr. Johnson says, “ I was 
told by Miller, the great gardener and botanist, that there were more 
books written on the same subject in prose which do not contain so much 
truth as that poem.” This is but negative praise, yet it deserves none 
I more positive. We will give a few extracts, that our readers may form a 
judgment for themselves, 
He thus describes the soil suitable to the apple :— 
” Whoe’er expects his lab’ring trees should bend 
With fruitage, and a kindly harvest yield, 
Be this his first concern ; to find a tract 
Impervious to the winds, begirt with hills 
That intercept the Hyperborean blasts 
Tempestuous, and cold Earns * nipping force, 
Noxious to feeble buds: but to the west 
Let him free entrance grant, let Zephyrs bland 
Administer their tepid genial airs ; 
Naught fear he from the west, whose gentle warmth 
Discloses well the earth’s all-teeming womb, 
Invigorjvting tender seeds : whose breath 
Nurtures the Orange, and the Citron groves, 
Hesperian fruits, and wafts their odors sweet 
Wide thro’ the air, and distant shores perfumes. 
Nor only do the hills exclude the winds : 
But when the blaftkning clouds in sprinkling show’rs 
Distil, from the high summits down the rain 
Runs trickliug ; with the fertile moisture cheer’d, 
The orchats smile; joyous the farmers see 
Their thriving plants, and bless the heav’nly dew. 
Next let the planter, with discretion meet, 
The force and genius of each soil explore; 
To what adapted, what it shuns averse : 
Without this necessary care, in vain 
He hopes an apple-vintage, and invokes 
Pomona's aid in vain. The miry fields. 
Rejoicing in rich mold, most ample fruit 
Of beauteous form produce ; pleasing to sight, 
But to the tongue inelegant and flat. 
So nature has decreed ; so oft we see 
Men passing fair, in outward lineaments 
Elaborate ; less, inwardly, exact. 
Nor from the sable ground expect success. 
Nor from cretaceous, stubborn and jejune : 
The Must, of pallid hue, declares the soil 
Devoid of spirit; wretched he, that quaffs 
Such wheyish liquors ; oft with cholic pangs, 
With pungent cholic pangs distress’d he’ll roar, 
And toss, and turn, and curse th’ unwholsome draught, 
But, farmer, look, where full-car’d sheaves of rye 
Grow wavy on the tilth, that soil select 
For apples ; thence thy industry shall gain 
Ten-fold reward ; thy garners, thence with store 
Surcharg’d, shall burst; thy press with purest juice 
Shall flow, which, in revolving years, may try 
Thy feeble feet, and bind thy falt’ring tongue.” 
Of the benefits derived from watering orchards he thus speaks :— 
“ Th* industrious, when the sun in Leo rides, 
And darts his sultriest beams, portending drought, 
Forgets not at the foot of ev’ry plant 
To sink a circling trench, and daily pour 
A just supply of alimental streams, 
Exhausted sap recruiting; else false hopes 
He cherishes, nor will his fruit expect 
Th* autumnal season, but, in summer’s pride, 
When other orchats smile abortive fail.” 
Of thinning the young fruit he is particularly urgent: — 
“ When swelling buds their od’rous foliage shed, 
And gently harden into fruit, the wise 
Spare not the little offsprings, if they grow 
Redundant; but the thronging clusters thin 
By kind avulsion : else the starv’ling brood, 
Void of sufficient sustenance, will yield 
A slender autumn, which the niggard soul 
Too late shall weep, and curse his thrifty hand, 
That would not timely ease the pond’rous boughs.” 
Lastly, wc will quote his enumeration of the varieties most favoured in 
those days by the cider-orchardists of Hereford :— 
“ The Pippin burnisht o’er with gold, the Moyle 
Of sweetest honey’d taste, the fair Permain, 
Temper’d, like comlicst nymph, with red and white. 
Salopian acres flourish with a growth 
Peculiar, styl’d the Ottley ; be thou first 
This Apple to transplant, if to the name 
Its merit answers, no where slialt thou find 
A vviue more priz’d, or laudable of taste. 
Nor docs the Eliot least deserve thy care, 
Nor John-Apple, whose wither’d rind, intrencht 
With many a furrow, aptly represents 
Decrepid age, nor that from Harvey nam’d, 
o veiling: why should we sing the Thrift, 
No. CXXIV. Vol. V. 
