118 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 17 
Covent Garden market. Then, there is Mr. Steven’s 
sale rooms close at hand, and it so happens that he sells 
all manner of fowls every day our society meets, and, 
of course, one must call in on passing the door, if only 
to keep up old acquaintance. I did not wait this time 
to see the high prices they bid for fancy birds, hut I never 
saw so many really good birds beforo in this room. Of 
all he sells, the light Buff Slianghaes are my choice; and 
the best hen among them, according to my fancy, was 
lot 93; and the next, lot 86. Then, as many of our 
readers must have seen the result of this day’s sale, and 
as very probably I may never see it, they can judge 
from the prices these two lots fetched how far I have 
succeeded in learning what are the best points in this 
breed; the greatest defect in either of these hens is a 
little wear in the comb. There were above two hundred 
lots, and I should think much about four hundred birds; 
and if so, three hundred of them were Buff and common 
Shanghaes. There were four or five pons, or lots, of jet 
Black birds of this breed, and a few White ones, also 
Partridge-speckled ones; but the Buffs formed the bulk 
of the sale, which was more like a show than a sale¬ 
room that day. When I was a flower gardener, I did 
not care the value of a straw for the “points” which the 
florists most prize in their new Dahlias, and when I saw 
a new Dahlia in a bed for the first time, if it did not 
come up to the points most prized by the ladies, I would 
out with the book and mark D. against the name; D. 
stands for many things, but in my garden book it stood 
only for “ done with.” Now, although we have had new 
Dahlias and other florists’ flowers coming out every 
season, for time out of mind, and notwithstanding that 
some of us cared very little about the qualities which 
gave them value, still, a really good, new flower of any of 
the fancy breeds commands a high price—as much, in¬ 
deed, as it did five-and-twenty years ago ; I take it, there¬ 
fore, that a fancy bird of any of the strains, and more par¬ 
ticularly these Shanghaes, with all the points up to the 
mark of the fancy, will command just as high a price 
twenty years hence as they fetch at the present day; 
and for this reason, that it is just as difficult to get a 
really good fancy bird as it is to raise a superior seedling. 
But, already, it is just as clear as crystal, that the heads 
of departments in the poultry fancy are getting on the 
old horse which ran away with the florists, and never 
stopped till he and they got head over heels into the 
ditch, whence no one has ever yet got out with clear 
garments and untarnished reputation. 
Be that their business, and mine to report on Covent 
Garden, of which I know much now, as that I regu¬ 
larly go to a certain stall for a bit of gossip, about flowers 
and new ways, before I go round the market; this stall 
is kept by a nice young woman, who thinks I am a 
foreigner, and never dreams that I am ever likely to put 
up in opposition to her, so I get into all the secrets 
about how they do things for the market. Gauntlet is 
the newest and best paying Geranium they have got. It 
is now on sale almost all the year round. It forces with 
less heat than Alba multiflora, is a good bedder, and 
comes “ of itself,” till very near Christmas. It is not 
“ business-like ” to bring plants of it for sale, as cut 
flowers pay so much better. 
The next newest move—only three years old in this 
market—is mixing various kinds of live moss with cut 
flowers, and this has “taken” so well, that penny 
bunches of green moss are now as common on the stalls 
as cut flowers themselves. This certainly deserves 
imitation; you can hardly believe how nice the moss sets 
off Rosebuds, at this season, in glasses or china vases, in 
rooms, and the moss lasts a very long time in water; 
you can never make believe that you have living plants 
on the table by mixing their own leaves with cut 
flowers; therefore, when there is a better substitute, 
loaves ought to be sparingly used, and the best flowers 
in the world are improved in looks by having something 
mixed with them in the glasses. The best cut llowers 
were the following: Roses of many sorts—the Standard ! 
of Marengo, the darkest of them, and a thin flower; j 
Mignonette, border Anemones, Pansies, double Marigolds, 
Heliotropes, of which the old one was the best; Wall¬ 
flowers, Picotees, Dahlias, Scarlet Gauntlet Geraniums; 
and Corn-flowers (Centaurea Cyanea), Sweet Gera¬ 
nium leaves in bunches, Scabious, Chri/santhemums, 
chiefly the Queen and Pompones ; Camellias, the old 
double white, and the old variegated; Ten-week Stocks, 
Cactus (Epiphyllum speciosum breed), Aphelandra cris- 
tata, Ixora coccinea, leaves of Cissus discolor, beautiful 
garnishors with cut flowers. Alamanda cathurtica, 
^Daphne Indica rubra, Auriculas, Fuchsias, Heaths, 
Ageratums, and Potentillas. 
The bouquets were not numerous nor tastefully made, 
except three kinds. The simplest and best made one 
had a double white Camellia for a centre ; the body was 
quartered in dark blue and white, with a fringe of Mig¬ 
nonette near the fancy cut paper in which all these 
market nosegays arc put up. There were six divisions 
of dark blue Violets, increasing in breadth from the 
Camellia to the Mignonette, say a bunch of five Violets 
for the first round after the Camellia, and every suc¬ 
ceeding round having a greater number of \ iolets in 
the bunch; the six white stripes to divide the blues 
were of single flowers of the double white China Prim¬ 
rose. This is exceedingly pretty when well done. We 
had the same style last spring—white Hyacinths divid¬ 
ing quarters of blue, and the dark Hyacinths, Prince 
Albert, to make black ribs for white quartering. A 
very simple nosegay is made with a white Camellia, or 
white Rose, for a centre, then a row of bunches of Violets 
round it, and outside a thin fringe of Mignonette. A 
child could make this nosegay. 
Another tasteful nosegay was made exactly as I advise 
geometric flower-gardens to be planted. A garden so 
planted, or a nosegay so made, will stand prooj, thus 
Cut it into two across or lengthways; and it the two 
parts could be folded together, like two leaves of a book, 
the same colours and the same-sized plants would fall 
on each other throughout: a bed of yellow, eighteen 
inches high, could not fold over a yellow bed, only ten 
inches high, without a serious blemish. Now, the nose- 
gav on this plan had, for a centre, a large, double, white 
Camellia,—a scarlet or rose Camellia would spoil the 
whole,—two bunches of Violets, two ditto of Gauntlet 
Geranium, two of Scarlet Geranium, two of the yellow 
Citisus ( ramosus), two bunches of Heliotropes, two 
double white China Primrose, three kinds of Roses, two 
flowers of each, then a fringe of Mignonette, and a row 
of rose-scented Geraniums fora guard. The colours in 
this nosegay were not exactly placed as one would 
arrange them in a flower-garden, but it was a very 
good attempt, and the best disposition of colours I ever 
saw in a nosegay. I could almost vouch tor it that 
that nosegay was made by a woman, whose natural 
taste has not been vitiated by reading about these 
things, except, perhaps, in The Cottage Gardener. 
The best Vegetables in the market were—White 
Turnips; Red Cabbage; Celery; black Spanish Ra¬ 
dishes, as large as Ribston Pippin Apples; Brussels 
Sprouts, very fine; Savoys, good; Brocoli, not at all 
good; one lot of Leeks, after the Edinburgh fashion 
of having the bottom ten inches blanched as white as 
wax, but only about one-half the size for “ cock-a-leelcy; 
Tomatoes, splendid, but from abroad, packed in saw¬ 
dust, and the dust blown out with a common bellows,— 
not a bad plan, and a very quick one; foreign white 
Grapes, as nasty as anything, and anything but whole¬ 
some to eat: if I was the Lord Mayor, or a sanitary 
commissioner, I would get in the police to sweep every j 
bunch or berry in the market into the sewers and down I 
