September 2 $. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
391 
M 
w 
SEPTEMBER 23—29, 1852. 
Weather near London in 1851. 
M 0011 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
D 
D 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. Rain in In. 
Rises. 
Sets. 
23 Th 
21 F 
25 S 
26 Son 
•27 M 
28 Tu 
29 W 
Herald Moth seen. 
Beech nuts fall. 
Wild Honeysuckle’s second flowers. 
16 Sunday after Trinity. 
Birch turns yellow. 
Woodlark sings. 
Michaelmas Day. 
30.114 
30.118 
29,815 
29.691 
20764 
29790 
29705 
— 30.106 
— 29.939 
— 29.647 
— 29.606 
— 29.625 
— 29.665 
— 29.601 
73—54 
66—47 
64—42 
56— 43 
57- 39 
62—30 
60—39 
N.E. 
N.E. 
S.W. 
s.w. 
w. 
N.W. 
s. 
08 
Of) 
01 
14 
50 a. 5 
61 
53 
55 
56 
58 
VI 
55 a. 5 
52 
50 
48 
46 
43 
41 
morn. 
1 3 
2 14 
3 25 
4 33 
rises. 
6 a 33 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
© 
16 
7 
8 
8 
8 
9 
9 
9 
*7 
8 
28 
49 
9 
29 
49 
267 
268 
269 
270 
271 
272 
273 
Meteorology ok the Week. At Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-five years, the average highest and lowest tempera¬ 
tures of these days are 05.3 anu 45.8° respectively. The greatest heat, 82°, occurred on the 25th in 1842 ; and the lowest cold, 24 °, on the 2?th 
m 1828. During the period 85 days were fine, and on go rain fell. 
LONG-TAILED CENTRANTHUS. 
(Centranthus Macrosiphon .) 
This is rather a gay little hardy annual, hut not slender. 
The ilowers are ruby-pink under a bright sun. Like all 
the Yalerianworts, to which it belongs, the flowers are col- | 
lected together into heads, at the end of all the shoots. It 
is a native of the high lands of Grenada, whence it was 
sent to France a few years since. The Horticultural Society 
introduced it from France, and distributed quantities of it 
to the fellows. An ordinary observer would take it for a 
dwarf Valerian, but the construction of the flower is a 
little different, which is expressed by the name Centranthus, 
or Spur-flower, or Kenlranthus, as it was first named by 
Necker, a German botanist; but Decandolle’s more eupho¬ 
nious name, Centranthus, has been preferred. Stem erect, 
stout, branched, hollow, milky-green ; lower leaves short- 
stalked, egg-shaped, obscurely toothed ; upper leaves stalk¬ 
less, sharply toothed, and lobed ; flowers in corymb-like 
close clusters; tube of the corolla three times the length of 
the fruit. It belongs to Monandria Digynia of the Linmean 
system.—B. J. 
Culture and Propagation. —The usual treatment of hardy 
annuals will do for this Centranthus. It may be sown in 
the open borders any time in April or May, and allowed to 
flower where it is sown. Or it may be transplanted very 
easily from a seed-bed to flower anywhere else. I had a 
little bed of it last year, but I did not think much of it, and 
it did not flower above six weeks or so ; but I have seen it 
used about London to very good purpose, and in that way I 
fully recommend it. Sow it in August, or early in Septem¬ 
ber, either in the open ground, or in pots, and cany it 
through the winter in cold frames, like Common Stocks, 
and it comes in early in April, or sooner, for flowering in 
the conservatory, or in rooms. A single plant of it, in a very 
small pot, just coming into flower, might be turned out, and 
the ball put in a glass of water on the mantel-piece, and it 
would last full three weeks in beauty. Like the Nemophilas, 
it would bo a good thing to transplant into beds where 
Crocuses, or Hyacinths, or Tulips are to flower; such plants 
keep the bulb beds gay until their leaves ripen, then bulbs, 
plants, and all are removed, the beds are dug and watered, 
and are then ready for another crop. D. Beaton. 
The potato is one of the greatest blessings bestowed 
upon mankind ; for, next to rice, it affords sustenance 
to more human beings than any other gift of God. 
It has been impiously called the curse and the Upas of 
I Ireland ; but the abuse of the blessing is the curse, and 
it is as unjust thus to condemn it, as it would be to 
anathematize iron, because man has formed from it the 
rack and the thumbscrew, as well as the ploughshare, 
the loom, and the compass. 
The potato is a blessing so long as it is only a sub¬ 
sidiary food of a people; adopted by them, as in Eng¬ 
land, as an aid, or resource, when other better food is 
deficient, and as a diluent, or corrective of grosser 
animal nutriment. No man in a mild or torrid climate 
can live healthily upon a preponderating animal diet; 
and it is for the purposes of giving the quantity required 
for appeasing the sensation of hunger that such food as 
potatoes and rice are so beneficial. 
In Ireland, this cheap produce has become the chief, 
the staple, food of the inhabitants; and, as the staple 
food of a people regulates the price of wages paid for 
their labour, wages have become so low in that country, 
that when a dearth of potatoes occurs, the day’s earnings 
are not sufficient to purchase a day's sustenance of dearer 
food. But why has the potato become the staple food of 
Ireland ?—because the priest and the middle man, in 
days not yet passed, encourage the division and sub¬ 
division of paltry holdings into others still more and 
more miserably small. This subdivision of farms, says 
Mr. Macculloch, has been both a cause and a conse¬ 
quence of the use of the potato as a principal article of 
food. A small farmer, or even proprietor, with five, 
ten, or fifteen acres of land, cannot afford to keep him¬ 
self aud family on bread and beef. He is compelled to 
resort to inferior food; and as the potato affords the 
greatest quantity of nourishment from a given extent 
of ground, to that lie naturally resorts; and this facility 
of obtaining support tempts to a further division of the 
No. CCVI1L, Vol. VIII. 
