June 10. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
L57 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
.11 w 
JUNE 10—16, 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. 
IOTh 
Hedge Nettle flowers. 
29.720—29.642 
55—43 
N.E. 
32 
45 a. 3 
13 a. 8 
1 10 
22 
0 53 
162 
11 [F 
St. Barnabas. 
29.980—29.965 
67—48 
s.w. 
04 
45 
14 
1 26 
23 
0 41 
163 
12 S 
Trinity Term ends. 
29 . 737 — 29.650 
61—56 
S.W. 
23 
44 
15 
1 43 
24 
0 29 
164 
13]Sun 
1 Sunday after Trinity. 
29.913 — 29.722 
67—47 
S.W. 
04 
44 
15 
2 0 
25 
0 16 
165 
14 M 
Large Skipper Butterfly seen. 
30.061 —30.036 
67—41 
s.w. 
01 
44 
16 
2 18 
26 
0 4 
166 
15 To 
Tremella Nostoc seen. 
30.056—29.904 
64—52 
s.w. 
38 
44 
17 
2 39 
27 
0b. 9 
167 
16 W 
Buckthorn leaves. 
30.031 — 29.832 
67—45 
w. 
— 
44 
17 
3 5 
28 
0 22 
168 
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 73° and 49.6° respectively. The greatest heat, 90°, occurred on the 13th in 1842 ; and the lowest cold, 30° on the 15th 
in 1830. During the period 115 days were fine, and on 60 rain fell. 
In the infancy of any art or science, as certainly as in the 
infancy of the human mind, the results of imagination 
predominate far more than those of cool inductive reasoD. 
Thus in the early days of chemistry its adepts revelled in 
visions of creating gold; when medicine was similarly young 
she was equally wild in the pursuit of the elixir of life ; and 
young mechanics roam after the perpetual motion. So 
when horticultural literature was young its chief authors 
were poets; and when more sober writers succeeded in our 
land, they either wrote in verse like Tusser, mingled the 
fabulous with facts like Hill, or translated from the ancients, 
mixed verse with their prose, and now truths with old 
fictions, like Barnaby Googe. This said Barnaby Googe 
was a literary character of the 10th century, whose poetry 
and translations are very superior specimens of our lan¬ 
guage, both in prose and verse, if they are compared with 
the similar productions of most of his contemporaries. It 
has been conjectured that he was born about the year 1538, 
but there is no room for conjecture, inasmuch as that he 
dates one of his prefaces, “ In the year of Christ, 1500, and 
of my age, 20.” In the same preface, that of the edition 
containing the first three books of The Zodiack of Life , he 
also styles himself “ B. Goge of Alvingham ” ( B. Oojceus 
Aluinyhamus), which determines the place of his birth ; for 
it confirms this passage in old Anthony Wood—“ If I mis¬ 
take not, ho was Barnaby Gooche of Albingham, or Airing- 
ham, in Lincolnshire, grandfather to Barnaby Gooche, living 
there in 1031 and after.” The difference in the spelling is 
not material, for in another sentence Wood speaks of him 
as “ Barnaby Gouge, Goch, or Gooche.” 
He was educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and 
removed thence to become a student-at-law in Staples Inn. 
It is certain that he is the Barnaby Googe who was a gentle¬ 
man pensioner to Queen Elizabeth, and a relation and 
retainer of Sir William Cecil. It is probable, also, that he 
was the father of the Doctor of the same names, Master 
of Magdalen College, Cambridge, who was incorporated 
at Oxford when King James was there in the August 
of 1005. In 1563 he published a little volume of Ecloynes, 
Epitaphs, and Sonnets, a work now so rare that only two 
copies are known, one of which is in the library of Trinity 
College, Cambridge. His principal translation was the 
wearisome satire of Palingenius Stellatus, entitled the 
Zodiac of Life. This appeared complete in 1565. In 1570 
he translated from Naogeorgus a poem on Antichrist; in 
1570, Lopez and Mendoza’s Spanish Proverbs-, and after¬ 
wards Aristotle’s Table of the Ten Categories. The work 
entitling him to our notice first appeared in 1577, and an 
edition, “ Enlarged by Barnaby Googe, Esquire,” and dated 
1611, is now before us. It is entitled, The whole art and 
trade of Husbandry , contained in four boohs-— viz., 1. Of 
Earable Ground, Tillage, and Pasture ; 2. Of Gardens, 
Orchards, and Woods; 3. Of Cattle ; 4. Of Poultry, Fowl, 
Fish, and Bees. The dedication is dated from Kingston. 
He says these four books were “ collected and set forth by 
Master Conrad Heresbach, a great and learned counsellor 
of the Duke of Cleves,” “ altered and increased with mine 
own readings and observations.” He includes the culture 
of the Vine because he believes it may be successfully cul¬ 
tivated here, and, as a proof, he states—“ There is besides 
Notingham an ancient house called Chilwell, in which house 
remaineth yet, as an ancient monument, in a great window 
of glass, the whole order of planting, pruning, stamping, 
and pressing of vines. Besides, there is yet also growing 
an old vine that yields a grape sufficient to make a right 
good wine, as was lately by a gentlewoman in the said 
house.” Can any of our readers inform us what has become 
of this old mansion, and whether there are any remains of 
its window or of its vine ? 
“ In England,” he says, “ the best cheese is the Cheshire 
and the Shropshire; then the Banbury cheese; next the 
Suffolk and the Essex cheese; and the very worst the Kent¬ 
ish cheese. The places where the best cheese is made 
appeareth in this old English distychon, better sensed than 
footed:— 
“ Banbury, Langtony, Suffolk good cheese, Essex go thou by, 
Shropshire cum Cheshire, Hertford may well with the best compare. 
“ Of the discommodity of the Essex cheese, our English 
Martial, John Haywood, thus merrily writeth :— 
“ I never saw Banbury cheese thick enough. 
But I have seen Essex cheese quick enough.” 
In liis observations upon poultry he says :— ,l Let your 
hen be of a good colour (dun, red, yellow, or black), having 
a large body and breast, a great head, with a straight, red, 
and double comb, white ears and great, and her talons even." 
Book the second is a dialogue between Thrasybulus and 
Marius, of gardens, orchards, and woods, opening with a 
declaration of the antiquity of horticulture—proceeds with 
a very just description of the best situation of a garden, the 
necessity for a good supply of water, and the time for apply¬ 
ing it; of enclosing a garden by walls, <fcc., but with especial 
directions how to form a quickset hedge. “ The beds are to 
be made twelve feet long and six broad, that they may be 
easier weeded.” Then follow directions about the most 
favourable age of the moon, during which to sow. The best 
as all suppose is “ the moon being aloft and not set.” Of 
asparagus he gives directions to cultivate, nearly as followed 
at present, with a notice of its cookery, “ as my friend 
William Pratt, very skilful in these matters, telleth me.” 
“ If you breake to powder the home of a ram, and sowe 
it watrying it well, it is thought it will come to be good 
sperage ” (asparagus). Endive was bleached in various 
ways. That by “ tieing the leaves together, and covering 
them with some little earthen vassel,” seems to have anti¬ 
cipated our mode of blanching sea-kale, &c. Upon the 
whole, the work is certainly, as he makes one of the cha¬ 
racters say in his dialogue, on a subject “ not thoroughly 
entreated of by others,” and therefore by implication more 
perfectly by himself. It is a book replete with just observa¬ 
tions, and, though short and imperfect, still superior to any 
work that had preceded it, and in fact is superior in the 
details of cultivation to Parkinson’s Paradisus, that appeared 
more than lialf-a-century subsequently. Too much, how¬ 
ever, is taken from Greek and Latin authors, rather than 
from contemporary practitioners. Theophrastus, Cato, Co¬ 
lumella, Pliny, Ac., are continually quoted as authorities, 
and, in unison with them, absurd practices, and superstitions 
the most gross, are given with all the earnestness of truth. 
He concludes with these Old English Buies for purchasing 
land :— 
First, see that the land be clear 
In title of the seller. 
And that it stand in danger 
Of no woman’s dower. 
See whether the tenure be bond or free, 
And release of every feoffee. 
See that the seller be of age. 
And that it lie not in mortgage. 
Whether a tail be thereof found, 
And whether it stand in statute bound. 
No. CXCIIL, Vol. VIII. 
