May 13. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
93 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
m| w 
MAY 13—19, 1852. 
Weather near London in 1851. 
Sun 
Sun 
Moon 
Moon’s 
Clock 
Day of 
Year. 
D l> 
Barometer, 
Thermo. 
Wind. Rain in In. 
Rises. 
Sets. 
R.&S. 
Age. 
bef. Sun. 
13 Tn 
Old May Day. 
30.299 — 30.242 
58—31 
N.E. 
_ 
12 a. 4 
40 a. 7 
2 45 
24 
3 54 
134 
14 F 
Orange-tip Moth seen. 
30.335 — 30.291 
57—27 
N.E. 
— 
11 
41 
3 3 
25 
3 54 
135 
15 S 
Beech flowers. 
30.255 — 30.152 
61—29 
N.E. 
— 
10 
43 
3 20 
26 
3 54 
136 
1(5 Son 
Rogation Sunday. 
30.099 — 30.011 
68—46 
S.W. 
05 
8 
44 
3 37 
27 
3 53 
137 
17 ! M 
Barberry flowers. 
29.9(52 — 29.945 
69—48 
S.W. 
— 
7 
46 
3 54 
28 
3 52 
138 
18 To 
Walnut leaves. 
29.881 —29-849 
63-40 
S.W. 
10 
5 
47 
4 14 
29 
3 50 
139 
19 W 
Saintfoin flowers. 
30.0/1 — 29.834 
63—37 | S.W. 
04 
4 
48 
sets. 
© 
3 47 
140 
Meteorology op the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-five years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 64.8° and 42.5° respectively. The greatest heat, 85°, occurred on the 17th in 1833 ; and the lowest cold, 26° on the 15th 
in 1838. During the period 109 days were fine, and on 66 rain fell. 
In our 4th volume, page 347, in sketching a few notes re¬ 
lative to Dr. Stephen Hales, we observed that his work on 
Vegetable Staticks was “the first giving correct views of 
Vegetable Physiology; ” and how important such correct 
views are to the cultivator of plants is nowhere more remark¬ 
ably shown than in the writings of his contemporary, Batty 
Langley. This gentleman, who was a practical gardener, 
says, in the preface to his Pomona, or the Fruit Garden 
Illustrated, published in 1729—“ It is very seldom that our 
nobility and gentry have any fruit truly good, except by an 
accident, when Nature herself has acted the part of a 
judicious gardener, and the reasons thereof wholly unknown 
to the gardener under whose direction she has been. But 
this is not the direct fault of gardeners, for as there is no 
one of them now in England (the ingenious Mr. Miller of 
the Physic Garden, at Chelsea, excepted) that knows, or ever 
thought, of crudities being contained in the juices of fruits, 
or that such crudities are discharged by perspiration, very 
few knowing this meaning of the word, they are not to be 
blamed for what they never knew.” Now, to remove this 
ignorance, and to demonstrate the importance of the 
correcting knowledge, was one of the objects of the volume 
before us, a volume of which it is not too much to say, that 
it contains less of error, and more of valuable information 
relative to the culture of fruits, than any other work that 
down to that date had issued from the press. Our space 
will not permit us to cite many passages in proof of this 
opinion, but the three rules following, deduced from scien¬ 
tific experiments, and confirmed by practice, are evidence of 
the enlightened contents of the volume. “ 1. Displace all 
forward buds by rubbing them off when they first appear, 
and then the whole nourishment will be distributed to the 
necessary branches. 2. As the growths of the several 
branches advance, keep them nailed to the wall, but be sure 
that the distances between branch and branch are never 
less than the length of their leaves when fully grown. 
3. The nearer branches are laid to an horizontal position 
the velocity of the sap is the more retarded, and the nearer 
to a perpendicular position, the more free; therefore, 
branches inclinable to luxuriancy may be chocked by being 
nailed horizontally, and those that are weak helped by being 
nailed perpendicularly.” We might greatly increase these 
unexceptionable quotations, and still further demonstrate 
Mr. Langley’s knowledge of pruning, by a detailed reference 
to his drawings and statements of the wood upon which the 
fruit of each species is borne, and the guidance thence to be 
drawn for the exercise of the primer’s knife. Nor need we 
stay our extracts there; for there are abundance deserving 
quotation relative to the light thrown by science upon the 
trenching and other management of the soil. Of one state¬ 
ment w r e should like to obtain a confirmation or refutation 
from experiments made upon soils of various textures : it 
is this—“I have made divers experiments in great variety 
of soils, to discover the quantity of moisture that Nature 
hath provided for the support of plants in dry seasons, and 
find that the greatest quantity is always contained in the 
second foot below the surface; which is an undeniable 
direction for the depth of soils.” We have not specified all 
the merits of the work, and among our omissions are the 
very numerous engravings of fruit which are sufficiently 
accurate, in most instances, to enable us to discover by them 
the names of varieties we still possess. 
Though more known to his contemporaries as an architect, 
for he brought before them his extravagant notions of 
building most urgently, yet Mr. Langley had better skill as 
a gardener, and his other works on our art are worthy of con¬ 
sideration even now. 
The first of his publications appeared in 172C, under the 
title of Practical Geometry applied to the useful arts of Build¬ 
ing, Surveying, Gardening, and Mensuration, and so useful 
aro some of his problems, when applied to geometrical 
gardening, that we think them desirable to be republished 
in the pages of Tile Cottage Gardener, and before long 
we shall endeavour to introduce some of them. 
In 1728, he published A sure method of Improving Estates 
by Plantations of Oak and other Timber Trees, Coppice-Woods, 
&c. In an advertisement to this, he gives notice that “ his 
services may be commanded to any part of Great Britain 
and Ireland,” and that he undertook “ the laying-out and 
planting of gardens in general, after a rural and more 
grand manner than has been done before." 
He argues upon the importance of new plantations to 
supply the great deductions made in our woods by the 
fellings to supply our navy; and gives experiments after the 
manner of Mr. Hales, to show the moisture trees imbibe 
and transpire; but the work treats more upon the cost of 
planting, and the art of measuring the trees, than upon 
their culture. His attempt in this volume to alter our 
spelling of the Hawthorn into “ Heithorn,” raised from 
“ the Ileis,” instead of Haws, was an error as unsuccessful 
as Mr. Kemble’s to induce his countrymen to alter the pro¬ 
nunciation of “ acli ” and “ Borne.” 
He mentions that Mr. Thomas Green, nurseryman of 
Brentford, endeavoured to obtain a patent for engrafting the 
English upon the Dutch elm, whereby its head is much im¬ 
proved; but it was ascertained that Mr. Evelyn had recom¬ 
mended, and Mr. Furber, of Kensington, had practised this 
mode, and the patent met that fate which we hope all 
patents will meet that endeavour to monopolise any improve¬ 
ments connected with the cultivation of plants. 
In the same year, 1728, ho published New Principles of 
Gardening, or the Laying-out and Planting Parterres, Groves, 
Wildernesses, Ac. There is an appendix detailing the names 
and medicinal properties of the tenants of the kitchen and 
physic gardens. 
He begins by declaring “ our gardens are much the worst 
of any in the world,” and that “ there is nothing more 
shocking than a stiff regular garden." His remedy was “to 
furnish designs that are truly grand and noble, after Nature’s 
own manner;” he includes geometrical diagrams, repub¬ 
lished from his work of 1720, and the garden plans are 
quite as formal, but on a larger scale, as those which he 
derides. His plans of kitchen-gardens, and his culture of 
their contents, are the best portions of the book. 
In 1748, the Commissioners for building Westminster 
Bridge having selected a Swiss architect, Mr. Langley 
attacked them for such preference, in a publication he en¬ 
titled A Survey of Westminster. In this he gave a drawing 
of such an arch as he recommended, and hung up a Swiss 
under the arch ! He might have had some ground for 
complaint, but he hurt his cause by showing too much pre¬ 
judice and resentment. Although the Commissioners may 
have been wrong in employing the Swiss architect, it is 
not so clear that the substitute should have been Mr. 
Langley. Horace Walpole says—“ I must mention a more 
barbarous architect before I come to the luminaries of the 
science. This was Batty Langley, who endeavoured to adapt 
Gothic architecture to Roman measures; as Sir Philip 
No. CLXXXIX., Vol. VIII. 
