150 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December 1. 
cattle—being rather adapted for feeding mature animals 
which fatten and prosper amazingly there. So the 
kitchen-gardener makes his seed-bed of the poorer and 
less promising soil; removing his choice plants in due 
season to some highly cultivated plot, there to make 
the most of themselves. 
It may not be out of place to note here, how few of 
our distinguished citizens, bishops, judges, and scholars, 
have been town-bred and born. We even prefer our 
domestics, clerks, and confidential servants, from the 
country. The great world has always acted on the 
maxim, that it is cheaper to buy than to breed. Annual 
devastations from epidemics, would, in a century or two, 
reduce our great cities to nothing, were it not for large 
annual infusions of pure country blood. And it has not 
been numbers only, but cool heads and steady hands; 
talent, work, and all the elements of true greatness, all 
have “come clown" from the country. J. J. 
HOW SHALL WE RENOVATE OLD GARDENS? 
It is pretty-well known to the majority of our readers, 
that many of the vegetables we cultivate will not suc¬ 
ceed so well in our old and long-cultivated kitchen- 
gardens as in fresh-enclosed grounds. It matters not, 
on some soils, how much manure is applied, such things 
as Carrots, Lettuces, the Cabbageworts, &c., plainly 
show that they are not at home. I do not say this of 
all gardens, but the majority I have found, by expe¬ 
rience, are of this character. Here, for instance, the 
kitchen-garden has been in work for about a century, 
constantly tilled, and the difficulty of procuring some 
things is very considerable, and were it not for what the 
world calls a deal of pains-taking, which, assuredly, 
involves a large amount of labour, we should occa¬ 
sionally have to encounter long visages. As it is, 
I am not aware that we have anything to blush at in 
vegetable culture, and this emboldens me to indulge in 
a little—at least, harmless—discussion, in order to en¬ 
lighten the minds of those who are taking first steps in 
gardening. It has been truly observed, that there is no 
royal road to geometry; and if a prince take to fiddling, 
he is, I am grieved to say, obliged to run through the 
gamut by the same road as the veriest clown. And 
so it is in many gardening processes; pains, extra pains, 
efforts, call them as you please, must occasionally be 
resorted to; and what to those luckily circumstanced 
at times appears a vast deal of trouble, on a closer and 
more judicious inspection would appear a manifest 
duty. ’ 
Amelioration—the term I select to express what I 
would explain—of course, means bettering, and the first 
notion (with a complete clod-hopper) connected with 
this term would be manuring. An old farmer of this 
class, long esteemed as a country wit, was once asked 
in this district, by a gentleman of much consideration, 
what was the best time of year to apply muck?—the 
phrase here for all auimal manures. “ All the year 
round,” was the answer; and this has passed on, for 
some thirty years, as a piece of transcendental wit: not 
a wake occurs, but poor old P’s wit comes forth fresh 
as ever. Poor old P. is now gathered to his fathers, 
and thus spared the double penalty of observing that 
this muck question has become a question of figures, 
and, moreover, that there are certain conditions in land 
that require something even beyond muck. 
Without for a moment attempting to enter the labo¬ 
ratory of the chemist, a proceeding I respectfully transfer 
to higher hands, I may observe, that these “ worn-out 
soils” (the ordinary phrase,) have parted with some j 
principle essential to a high pitch of culture. That they ! 
have, in many instances, acquired something equally 
undesirable to certain crops, is, too, I think, equally 
manifest: I speak merely from a common sense view of 
the matter. However, as I can say little about che¬ 
mical agencies, I may, at least, be permitted to state a 
few facts, with, perhaps, some mere opinions. 
Draining, where stagnation exists, I merely point to 
in passing, as the only true basis on which to commence 
a thorough amelioration ; this operation refers, perhaps, 
more to texture than quality in its permanent effects. 
Without this, indeed, land generally requires double the ; 
amount of labour, whilst it will only yield half the i 
amount of success. We must not taik of permanent j 
amelioration whilst the soil is so soured as to be all but i 
impervious to the marvellous influences of the atmos¬ 
phere. But my chief purpose now, is to point to deep 
digging, or trenching, and the application of materials 
of a very economic kind, and which are but too apt to i 
be treated lightly through their very inexpensiveness. 
I have before alluded to the great importance of deep 
digging or trenching, in The Cottage Gardener, and 
I must again point to its continued beneficial effects, as 
exemplified in the crops here. Until the last five or 
six years trenching had but seldom been resorted to, 
and I began to find that several kinds of vegetables de¬ 
preciated both in size and quality; and the club in the 
Cabbage-worts, generally, had become so serious as to 
threaten a total failure, unless some remedial measures 
could be devised. Concluding that it was very probable 
that certain inorganic materials might be contained in 
the subsoil, which would be of service to the surface-soil, 
besides the benefits arising from a deeper root in dry 
weather, I at once went on the principle of adopting a 
periodical trenching, of about once in three years; 
making a point of bringing about four inches of the 
subsoil—a sort of dirty, half-sandy, half-clayey sub¬ 
stance—to the surface at every operation. This has 
done wonders, and it is a practice that will be continued 
by me just as long as I can obtain labour to carry it 
out. 
I may be pardoned, perhaps, for repeating what I 
once before related in these pages, that 1 originally took 
the hint from an odd circumstance. About seven years 
since, being determined to grow neat little Silver-skin 
Onions, for pickling, and for which the general garden- 
soil had proved too rich, I caused a plot to be very 
deeply trenched, as an experiment, bringing up six or 
eight inches of the subsoil, on which, too, I sowed some 
Red Beet, as there had been complaints about the gross¬ 
ness of the Beet on the ordinary soil. It turned out, 
however, that both Beet and Onions were the largest in 
the garden, although growing pricipally in this queer¬ 
looking subsoil. 1 have little doubt that the slight 
tendency of this subsoil to a clayey character is 
of much benefit in this case, the surface-soil being 
rather sandy. But this cannot bo all; there must be 
something in the character of this material which re¬ 
places some quality of which the soil had been robbed, 
and, perhaps, some peculiar chemical agency induced. 
I must here oonfess, that such bold processes may not j 
apply to all descriptions of subsoil equally : for instance, 
who would think of bringing up a mere sand, or a gravel, J 
unless the surface be too adhesive? 
I have seen so much of the evils of shallow ploughing, ! 
during the last twenty-five years, by farmers close to my 
elbow, that I would almost adopt any other plan than 
this dish-skimming system. There are scores of acres, I 
almost touching my house, of as nice, mellow, upland , 
soils, as ever crow liew over, (to use a Cheshire idiom); ! 
soils which have been skimmed and turned about five or 
six inches deep, for more than a century; and, of course, j 
