66 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 1. 
quarters thus cleared may be prepared for either po¬ 
tatoes, broad-beans, or peas, during line weather. 
Routine Work. —Allow no spare ground to be idle. 
Manure, trench, and fork, and if not required for plant¬ 
ing at this advanced season, let the manure, at all events, 
be got on to all spare ground, and be at once ridge- 
trenclied. The wheeling on of manure should be 
done early in the morning or late in the evening, when 
other jobs cannot be so well attended to. Let clean¬ 
liness prevail everywhere. Look to the edgings of 
the walks, to the walks themselves, as well as to 
the alleys, and let due attention be given to drainage, 
which is the foundation of all good culture. See, 
therefore, that all ditches and water-courses are in 
good order. James Barnes & W. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
OUR VILLAGE WALKS. 
(No. 4.) 
One of the loveliest objects in our English scenery 
is a beech tree in October. Nothing can exceed the 
richness and softness of its varied tints, or the beauty, 
generally speaking, of its form. We occasionally see 
the round-headed beech looking like an enormous 
cabbage, and in its autumnal dress its formality is 
almost forgotten; but the tall, graceful, feathery 
beech, with its drooping boughs, decked out in the 
beautiful colouring of its departing foliage, is deci¬ 
dedly the ornament of the landscape. Lovely as is 
the fading tint of every forest tree, the beech sur¬ 
passes them all; and in Sussex and Hampshire, 
where this tree peculiarly abounds, the autumn must 
indeed be a season of unspeakable beauty. The finest 
beech trees in England are said to be those of Hamp¬ 
shire; but the forest of St. Leonard, in Sussex, is 
described as abounding in noble specimens also. 
Among the beautiful things of English nature, too, 
the Burnham beeches are described as taking a 
conspicuous place. They stand as monuments of 
by-gone ages, near the little village of Burnham, 
about two miles from Maidenhead, in Berkshire. 
The size and evident antiquity of their trunks, and 
the gnarled and twisted forms of some of them, ap¬ 
pear to be very remarkable; and the writer, whose 
account of them is full and very interesting, adds, “ I 
recommend every lover of nature, once in his life, to 
visit the Burnham beeches.” The beech is a very 
usetul tree, as well as one of extreme beauty. Its 
wood is next in value to the oak and ash; and, for 
water-pipes, is said to be little inferior to the elm. It 
is well adapted tor all domestic purposes, because it 
retains its whiteness, and is well suited for bread 
plates, bowls, &c., on that account. The London 
strawberry baskets, called pottles, are all made from 
the beautiful beech-tree ; and among the Greeks and 
Romans it was very highly esteemed, not only as the 
ornament of the soil, but as a useful and valuable 
wood. The beech nut is pleasant to the taste, and I 
have read that the flour obtained from it makes good 
bread; and as the Greeks called it by a name signi¬ 
fying “ I eat,” it is possible that in those early times 
it might have been used for this purpose. The oil 
expressed from these nuts is considered equal to the 
best olive oil, and even to keep longer without becom¬ 
ing rancid. What an advantage it would be to us 
could this process be effected! But a patent was once 
granted for making beecli-oil in this country, which 
was attempted in vain, because the common people 
preferred collecting them for their pigs to selling them 
to the patentee, thus entirely defeating his very pro¬ 
mising design. The oil is very generally used in 
France, in places where these trees abound; and it 
is used instead of butter in Silesia. The cakes which 
remain after the oil is extracted fatten poultry, pigs, 
and even cattle. A bushel of mast or nuts wall 
afford a gallon of good oil. The dry leaves of this 
tree collected in the autumn are most useful to fill 
mattresses, as they remain sweet and soft for many 
years. The fresh leaves are said to be good, when 
chewed, for the teeth and gums ; and they were used 
by the Romans, mixed with honey, to restore the hair 
when sickness had caused it to fall off. We may, 
indeed, call the beech the cocoa-nut-tree of England— 
in so many ways it is valuable, and might be so ex¬ 
tensively useful: its wood, its leaves, its nuts, might 
all be turned to good account; and if the oil were 
obtained in sufficient quantity it might become as 
extensively used, and as useful in this country, as it 
is abroad. It is extremely wholesome, and would be 
advantageous in many ways to rich and poor. In 
this age of enlightenment and enterprise would it be 
possible to carry out the oil-making system ? The 
business of collecting the nuts would employ chil¬ 
dren, and be a little help to their parents ; and the 
dry husks make a capital “ backing up” to the cottage 
fire. These trees might be more extensively culti¬ 
vated in England ; and in favourable situations they 
are fit for felling in about twenty-five years. They 
thrive extremely well on stony ground and on chalk, 
which is so little suited to trees in general. On our 
own property there is a very large and deep chalk¬ 
pit, at the bottom of which stand three or four noble 
beech-trees. The coating of soil above the chalk is 
very thin, yet they flourish as richly as those on 
higher and better soil, and I often regret that such 
fine trees should be in so secluded a situation. The 
beech is found also to resist the sweeping winds on 
hills better than any other tree, thus accommodating 
itself to very unfavourable situations, and almost ask¬ 
ing to be allowed to clothe and decorate the many 
bleak places our island home possesses, especially in 
her northern regions; and to be firing, food, and fur¬ 
niture to all around them. The beech is raised from 
seed. I have seen the whole space beneath their 
spreading boughs so thickly covered with little seed¬ 
lings, that it seemed like a coarse kind of grass. The 
mast should be collected when they begin to fall, 
spread on a mat in an airy place to dry, and either 
planted immediately or kept in bags for spring sow¬ 
ing, which is the safest way, because vermin may 
destroy them in the winter. They need not be sown 
more than an inch below the surface, and they will 
not all vegetate the first year; but by leaving the 
ground undisturbed young plants will appear the fol¬ 
lowing season. Let us henceforth regard the beau¬ 
tiful beech-tree with double admiration. It is no un¬ 
profitable ornament to our woods and wilds; it would 
benefit us much if it could, if we would use it freely 
and thriftily, and is peculiarly suited to screen the 
cottage garden and orchard from withering winds, as 
it cheerfully submits to be trained as an espalier, in 
this way forming a sturdy hedge, and generally retain¬ 
ing its leaves till they are fairly displaced by those of 
the next season. Till we think and inquire a little 
about some of the beautiful things we see, how much 
instruction and pleasure is lost to us! We admire a 
lovely object in nature, it pleases our eye and taste, 
but knowing nothing about it we turn away and for¬ 
get it. How much its interest is increased when we 
learn its history or its uses, for there is use in every 
thing. If we glance round our cottage homes, what- 
