THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 20 . 
26fi 
Kitchen Gardens will be fully exemplified. We are the 
more anxious upon this point, because we have more 
than one letter upon the subject, from which wo will 
select this from a most intelligent member of the 
Society of Friends :— 
“ Seeing that one object of the projectors of the new 
Crystal l’alace is to do away with the local barriers and 
restrictions which, now confine the advantages of floriculture 
to the opulent few who are subscribers to the Royal Botanic, 
Chiswick, and other similar establishments, and to throw 
the Sydenham Gardens open at a small cost to the million, 
it is devoutly to be hoped that this end will be steadily kept 
in view; and although exotic and rare plants may form a 
noble and interesting feature in the grand design, that our 
truly valuable, and scarcely less ornamental, hardy peren¬ 
nial plants will claim a due share of their attention. These 
I properly belong to the million , who, though they may have 
their gardens, have not the accessories of stoves and hot¬ 
houses for carrying on the higher branches of llower eulti 
I vation. The effect would be, to improve largely the floral 
I taste of the age, to gratify thousands who at present ai'c un- 
! acquainted with the many beautiful tribes of plants within 
j their reach and means of management; it would redeem 
I from neglect, and restore numbers of gems now almost 
j lost sight of through the prevailing taste for the bedding 
system, and give a stimulus, not only to their higher cultiva¬ 
tion, but also to the increase of new rarieties by hybridiza¬ 
tion, and to the introduction of many new ones from friends 
who are settled in distant Colonies. Let any one take up 
the “ Cottage Gardeners’ Dictionary,” and see the numbers 
of hardy perennials there described, and he will be surprised 
at the many with which he is unacquainted even by name, 
and has no knowledge as to where to seek them : these, by 
degrees, might all be introduced into the gardens at Syden¬ 
ham, and that not at a great cost. It is a frequent remark 
among the lovers of flowers of the middle and lower ranks, 
that at the present public flower shows, the principal plants 
exhibited are beyond their means of cultivation, and this is 
a drawback to their enjoyment. Let us hope that in the new 
undertaking this defect will be obviated, and this want 
supplied. If profit be an element in the scheme, it will 
certainly increase the number of visitors, and add to the 
railway traffic. There is yet another feature connected with 
the last point which might be mentioned. If a nursery was 
attached, containing the duplicates, or surplus stock of the 
various plants cultivated in the gardens, and these were 
sold at a moderate cost, it would be an immense boon tu 
the public.” S. P., Rnshmerc. 
Notwithstanding those courts devoted to special pur¬ 
poses which we have enumerated, there will still be 
large spaces in the central transept, and elsewhere, open 
for occasional exhibitions. The public have their atten¬ 
tion upon this already, and how alive they are to the 
Palace’s useful capabilities may be learned from the 
following letter, written by one very favourably known 
1 to our readers 
“What have the lovers of poultry to do with the Crystal 
| Palace ? 
“ The pleasure of one party can scarcely exceed the plea- 
j sure of the whole community—high and low, great and 
j small—at the continued existence of this monument of our 
pride and pleasure. 
“ Charles Dickens, speaking of Chalk Farm Fair, says, 
1 Imagine in this broken, dusty, confined patch of building- 
| ground, a compact, wedged-in, fighting, screeching, yelling, 
! blaspheming crowd. * * * * There was more crime, 
j more depravity, more drunkenness and blasphemy, more 
I sweltering, raging, and struggling in the dusty, mangy, back- 
i yard of a place, than in a whole German principality.’ I, 
too, have both seen and heard Chalk Farm Fair, although 
not like this great practical preacher, by mingling in its 
i masses ; the desciiption which he gives is not exaggerated. 
By way of contrast, let any one compare with it and similar 
places, of which there are so many, one of the most crowded 
days at the Crystal Palace, the hundred thousand persons, 
or more, divided into family parties or friendly groups, the 
hum of happy voices, the comfortable pic nic parties regaling 
themselves in the open refreshment courts, the order anil 
perfect enjoyment that reigned throughout the building, and 
all will — must—feel pleasure and delight on seeing it 
restored. 
“The benefit to the country, and to its morals, likely to 
result from an innocent pleasure, which, it is to he hoped, 
may be enjoyed, like the great exhibition, by all classes, is 
for others to consider; but the admirers of beautiful poultry 
cannot help regarding the removal of the Crystal Palace 
with a perspective hope concerning their own particular 
fancy. Last year, after wandering about it a sufficient num¬ 
ber of times to become a little acquainted with its intrica¬ 
cies, and after seeing the machinery and carriage depart¬ 
ments, the idea at once occurred to me that it would be a 
l beautiful place for poultry exhibitions. Here the pens might 
be large enough to show the birds to the best advantage, 
and the most valuable fowls might be exhibited without 
danger of injuring them in health, which I am told by exhi¬ 
bitors is the great danger now, even in the best buildings at 
present at command for this purpose. At Sydenham there 
are no clustering houses crowded round the place for the 
inhabitants to declare, naturally enough, that the poultry 
! shall not come there: that the beasts aro quite bad enough, 
but that they positively will not have the additional annoy¬ 
ance of a thousand cocks crowing at once. 
“ If the liberal purchasers of the Crystal Palace could dedi¬ 
cate a portion of the building to this use, it would certainly 
be an excellent place for the purpose; but to speak of this 
at present would be premature: it is only now being re¬ 
moved, and cannot be completed for many months. If our 
show wait lor that, it must decidedly wait until 1853, and 
commence its career at Sydenham. This was not the sub¬ 
ject on which I proposed to myself to write when I took up 
the pen. 
“Besides exhibitions of only occasional occurrence, the 
amateurs of poultry, and those who wish to become con¬ 
noisseurs, those who can appreciate the best sorts, and 
would willingly see them become more plentiful, have 
another want; they require a continuing aviary of all the 
choice aud good kinds of domestic fowls known in the 
country to which to apply, as to a book of reference. Now, 
persons who wish to procure fowls with the peculiarities of 
which they are not well acquainted, must choose in igno¬ 
rance, must select the stock, guided by some written descrip¬ 
tion only, or must subject themselves to the very possible 
mistakes, unintentional, or otherwise, of those who are 
desirous of parting with their own specimens. I believe 
there is no such collection in England, unless it may 
possibly exist in the possession of some extensive dealer or 
amateur, neither of whom would like to be at the trouble 
and expense of rendering it very complete by keeping all 
the different varieties. If the owners of the Crystal Palace 
could be induced to add this to its other useful and in¬ 
structive novelties, it would, I think, prove both original and 
attractive. 
“ Under thechargeof some competent person, remunerated 
by a salary large enough to prove an inducement to bestow 
upon it sufficient attention, with knowledge to make good 
selections, intelligence to order the arrangements in the 
best manner, and probity to allow the proprietors to profit 
by all these things, it might surely be made a self-supporting 
department, 
“ The members of this little feathered community must 
be as few in number as is consistent with having all kinds 
duly represented, and each bird should he as perfect a 
specimen of his or her sort as can possibly he procured. 
The arrangements need not be very extensive—twenty or 
five-and-twenty compartments—one for tho exhibition of 
each little family, with perhaps half-a-dozen of smaller size 
for bantams, the different runs confining each a cock and 
two hens with a single brood of chickens, in the season, to 
shew what the development of the young ones should be, 
aud a small number of homes for water fowl. These, and 
some accommodation not. for exhibition, in which to rear 
young ones for the purpose of changing or replacing the 
exhibited birds, would be all that would be necessary. If 
prettily arranged it would certainly form a very pleasing ex¬ 
hibition. The stately, strutting Spanish, by the bright- 
