May 27 . 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
121 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
MAY 27—JUNE 2, 1852. 
Weather near London in 1851. 
Sun 
Sun 
Moon 
Moon’s 
Clock 
Day of 
D D 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. Rain in In. 
Rises. 
Sets. 
R, & S. 
Age. 
bef. Sun. 
Year. 
27 Tii 
Ven. Bede. 
30.093—30.066 
63—46 
N.W. 
_ 
55 a. 3 
59 a. 7 
1 36 
8 
3 
7 
148 
28 F 
Avens flowers. 
30.254—30.203 
68—39 
N.E. 
— 
54 
VIII 
1 
53 
9 
3 
0 
149 
29 S 
K. Cns. II. rest. lGGO. Oxf. T. ends. 
30.307 — 30.349 
75-47 
N. 
— 
53 
2 
2 20 
10 
2 53 
150 
30 Sun 
Whit Sunday. 
30.407 — 30.402 
74—45 
E. 
— 
52 
3 
2 41 
11 
2 45 
151 
31 M 
W hit Monday. 
30.470 —30.40/ 
68—35 
E. 
— 
51 
4 
3 
5 
12 
2 3 7 
152 
1 Tu 
YViiit Tuesday. 
30.363 — 30.195 
76—43 
N.E. 
— 
50 
5 
3m 32 
13 
2 28 
153 
2 W 
Ember Week. Oxford Term begins. 
30.181 —30.012 
72—41 
N.W. 
— 
49 
6 
rises. 
© 
2 19 
154 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-five years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 69 ° and 45.5° respectively. The greatest heat, 91°, occurred on the 28th in 1847 ; and the lowest cold, 30° on the 27 th 
in 1830. During the period 110 days were fine, and on G5 rain fell. 
The exclamation is too usual—“What enormous prices 
nurserymen ask for their plants!” It is too usual, because, 
however high the prices may he, it is quite certain that 
unless a nurseryman has a very large business, even those 
high prices do not render his trade profitable. This is 
demonstrated by many evidences, and first of a few we will 
enumerate. We may state that lately we had occasion to 
correct a list of the Nurserymen of the British Islands, and 
it was necessary to strike from the list, only prepared about 
four years previously, about one-eighth of their number, the 
replies being, they are “ dead, and no one succeeded,” “ gone 
110 one knows where,” and “ emigrated.” Another evidence 
is afforded by the extinction and rapid changes in the 
partnerships of many of the great nurseries about London— 
extinctions and changes being, we regret, not occasioned 
either by the golden deposits rendering the further exertion 
needless, or by one having gathered enough making way for 
another to succeed in the “ gold diggings.” Neither are 
such changes and failures the result of increased competi¬ 
tion in these our days, for in what are irrationally called 
“ the good old tunes ” a wealthy nurseryman was as rare, 
and a nurseryman in difficulties was as common, as now, 
though their produce cost then twice as much, and took ten 
times as long to transmit to their customers than in this 
age of railways. As an example of the best, yet suffering nur¬ 
serymen of “ the good old times ” let us select J ohn Gowetj,. 
He was the contemporary of Langley, Miller, Switzer, and 
other distinguished cultivators at that period, the beginning of 
the last century, when a love of gardening and planting, and 
new designing, was in the ascendant. He is spoken of favour¬ 
ably by his contemporaries ; his catalogues which survive to 
us show that liis nursery stock was rich in variety, and his 
published works demonstrate that he was skilled in his 
craft; yet all these requisites for success were not able to 
preserve him from the curse of the money-lender. He 
became involved; but he was an honest man, and, above 
all, a man who, though he withheld no effort to insure 
success, looked to God to give the increase. That increase 
came, not in the common course of business, however, but 
by the blooming of a rarely-flowering plant, and the editor 
thus epitomises the result in the preface of A True Account 
of the Aloe Americana “ Having had many losses and 
great misfortunes, and not being in the best of circum 
stances (though always honest, and showing himself so 
through the hardest of his disasters), Mr. Cowell looked 
upon this surprising shooting up of this plant as a singular 
gift of heaven, sent for his relief.” “ To show his sense of 
the bounty, lie applied the first profits of this great gift to 
discharge those incumbrances.” 
We have few particulars relative to Mr. Cowell; all (hat 
we know of him is derived from His own works and those of 
Bradley and Switzer. From those wo learn that he was a 
nurseryman at Hoxton, near London ; and when he pub¬ 
lished his Curious anil Profitable Gardener, in 1730, “ Gar¬ 
dening,” he says, “ had been my study for thirty years.” In 
the year when that book was published he appears to have 
died, for in the year following Switzer speaks of him as 
“ late of Hoxton.” 
From Mr. Cowell's work .just mentioned, we will make a 
few quotations ; for they give us various interesting par¬ 
ticulars in the history of some of our cultivated plants. 
“ The Ananas, or Pine Apple, was brought from Surinam 
and Curasao to Holland, where it was first cultivated in 
Europe, and brought to perfection by a gentleman at 
Leyden.” Thence to “ Sir Matthew Decker’s garden at 
Richmond.” “ There is one way of increasing these plants 
which I observed at a curious garden at Mitcham, in 
Surrey, belonging to Charles Dubois, Esq., which I never 
saw elsewhere, viz., that gentleman let several fruit stand 
on the plants a long time after they were ripe, and almost 
every knob of the fruit there pushed out a young plant, so 
that I believe there were thirty upon one head." 
“ The Papa Tree ( Carica papaya ) we have had raised in 
England many years since, when first exotic gardening was 
set on foot by the late famous Duchess of Beaufort and Dr. 
Henry Compton, Bishop of London.” Mr. Cowell grew it, 
and so did Mr. Sherwood and the Chelsea Physic Garden. 
“ The first of the Guava that I have heard of that ripened 
its fruit in England, was at Badmingtou, the seat of his 
Grace the Duke of Beaufort, in that famous lady’s time who 
began exotic gardening in England.” 
“ The Chadock Orange (Shaddock, Citrus decumana) of the 
West Indies is the same with the Ptimpiemus of the East 
Indies, but being brought first to America by Captain 
Chadock, as a curious fruit, the people of that country gave 
it his name.” 
Mr. Cowell offers an excellent suggestion (though bor¬ 
rowed from the Dutch) by which “ Florists’ Flowers may 
have pompous names,” yet those names may be turned to 
a useful account, by intimating their prevailing colours. 
Tims, White flowers should have a name beginning with W. 
as Winifred; if While and Crimson, William the Conqueror. 
Blue flowers should have names beginning with B. as 
Bluchcr, and so on. 
“ The Double Yellow Rose," says Mr. Cowell, “ is hard to 
blow, but in the open ground it will do very well if you cut 
it down within a foot of the ground every summer after its 
blooming season, and make an artificial shelter to put over 
it in wet weather, for this rose will never open well if wet 
comes upon it while it is in bud. It loves a full sun and an 
open air.” 
“ The first largo Common American Aloe came with Sir 
Walter Raleigh and Sir Henry Carew. At its first coming 
it was put into a pit, and covered in the winter with boards, 
as the late Sir Nicholas Carew told a gentleman of my ac¬ 
quaintance. In Mr. Vesprit’s garden, at Lambeth, was the 
first that attempted to blossom in England, and is said to 
have come from one of those brought hither in Sir Walter 
Raleigh’s time, so that it might pierhaps be one hundred 
years old when it pushed forth its flower- stalk, which was in 
the reign of King William III. Mr. Vesprit built a glass 
case for its shelter, but either through the fault of the work¬ 
men, or the extraordinary high winds which followed, the 
glass case was thrown down, and the flowering-stem broken 
off. King William and Queen Mary, who cultivated the most 
curious of exotic plants and flowers in England, ordered a 
draught to be taken by Mr. Brogolane, a famous painter, 
some of which branches painted, are now in one of tho Royal 
Palaces.” Mr. Cowell bloomed it perfectly, and published a 
description of the plant and its history in 1729. 
“ The first of the Great Torch Thistle ( Ccreus hexagonus) 
that was in England, was in the gardens of the late Dr. 
Compton, Bishop of London, at Fulham; and as I am in¬ 
formed, the seed of it was sent to his lordship from Bar- 
badoes,” 
No. CXCL, Vol. VIII. 
