430 THE COTTA( 
happened to tlie flue, but that is readily cured in a few 
hours. If the houses are properly constructed, you may 
heat the bed without increasing the temperature of the 
house, and by admitting air by the flues beneath the bed, 
which should lead through the outside wall, you can have 
any amount of fresh air into the house, day and night, 
slightly warmed. 
As to the scorching, singing, roasting, blistering, blotch¬ 
ing, and curling, I am quite sure that they are not to be 
attributed to Polmaise. It is very strange, that houses so 
frequently suffering, according to Mr. Golightly, from the 
inroads of sulphur, should be such fruitful nurseries for 
red spider, tlirips, and scale. I had an impression the red 
spider would infest an open Peach wall, certainly beyond 
the reach of Polmaise, unless well looked after, and I have 
formerly had the foliage of Peach-trees entirely destroyed 
by it. As Mr. Golightly and I reside in the same locality, I 
should much like to see his unfortunate Polmaised houses, 
and argue the merits of the system with him on the spot. 
You may, if you please, exchange my address with him for 
his own.—T. 
PICKLED NASTURTIUM LEAVES. 
In a recent article, by Mr. Pish, on the subject of Capers, 
he observes, that Nasturtiums form an excellent substitute 
for the favourite adjunct to boiled mutton. He does not, 
however, mention a fact of which probably many of your 
readers are unaware, namely, that Nasturtium leaves are 
equally available for the above-mentioned substitution, with 
the green Nasturtium seeds usually employed. 
All that is necessary is to gather the healthy leaves at 
any period of their duration and to bottle them in vinegar; 
a proportion of these being chopped up and mixed with the 
melted butter, when required for use. The plant intended, 
is the common garden Nasturtium or Indian Cress, the 
Tropoadum majus of botanists, and not any species of the 
dissimilar genus Nasturtium. —M. C. 
GOATS. 
Milk is becoming, with other necessary articles of food, 
dear and of bad quality ; and it is desirable that labouring 
men with families should be aware that, where they have 
a little outlet, or small inclosed garden, a goat or two may 
be kept so advantageously as to abolish the “ sky blue” and 
milkman's bills together. 
On the continent, and especially in the North of Germany, 
Goats are kept to a very great extent, and they are of large 
size, giving a very considerable quantity of milk, which 
every one who has tasted it knows to be of the best quality. 
I was speaking on this subject, this day, to an intelligent 
native of the Black Forest, and he informs me that there 
every poor person has a Goat, which browses on the Forest 
in the summer, and stays at home during the winter, in a 
shed, giving milk for about eight months in the year. In 
the summer they are driven out at six o’clock in the morn¬ 
ing, fetched in to be milked at eleven; kept in the shed 
during the heat of the day; driven out again about five; and 
brought home and milked again about eight. In the winter 
they are milked only once, and fed principally upon rough 
hay: but in such localities the country is wild and uncul¬ 
tivated to a great extent, abounding with rocks and plants, 
to which the animal is very partial; and in such places no 
material mischief can be done. 
This is the difficulty in an enclosed and highly-cultivated 
country like England, for Goats are so mischievous that they 
would not be permitted to be at large, and it would be most 
praiseworthy on your part, if you would, in a set treatise on 
the subject, in the columns of your publication, point out to 
to your readers a practical mode of keeping and using these 
hardy and valuable animals, beginning with the enclosure, or 
place where they might be kept; their food and manner of 
treatment generally. They will bear almost any treatment, 
and have been known to give milk and thrive on board a 
ship, in stormy weather, when fed upon brown paper; and, 
as I have read in your pages, when fed upon pigtail tobacco, 
carpenters chips, and kippered salmon; so there is no diffi- 
E GARDENER. March 2. 
culty where a man has a garden. There is the 'prejudice to 
be got over, and perhaps that is the greatest obstacle of all; 
and where servants (?) have to milk them, I don’t know 
what would be done; for servants, now-a-days, through 
learning so much, are above their calling, and can with diffi¬ 
culty be found able to milk cows, or fit (as Cobbett says) 
to take care of a cat. Indeed, in this neighbourhood, there 
is so much bother about education, that I verily believe the 
real philanthropists among the promoters of it think that 
education will alone feed, clothe, and lodge, every human 
being, without any thing besides. I mean their book educa¬ 
tion ; far different from the opposite sort of education I con¬ 
template, namely, the teaching every child to set a just 
value upon every object it may come in contact with, and to 
take care of everything they are intrusted with, either be¬ 
longing to themselves or their employers. On the contrary, 
they are now taught enough to enable them to read those 
destructive periodicals which are issued in swarms from 
every petty shop in almost every street, which make heroes 
of thieves, and attractive characters of murderers ; and the 
effect may be imagined. I am sorry to trouble you so 
much; I should not have done so, but from a conviction, 
that in your hands the subject may be made useful to the 
great population of the country.— Thomas Standbeidge, 
Edgbaston. 
[Editors ought to know everything; and we do know some 
little about Goat-keeping ; but we shall be obliged by any 
one sending us the results of his experience, and mode of 
treatment.— Ed. C. G.j 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Trees and Shrubs for a Damp Place (A. S. B.).— They might 
have been all planted by this time had we known your wants before. The 
large-leaved Alder (Alnus cordifolia), Cut-leaved Alder (A. laciniata), 
Deciduous Cypress, Balsam Poplar, Ontario Poplar, and the so-called 
Black Italian Poplar, White Willow, Duke of Bedford Willow, Brittle 
Willow (Salix fragilis), and the Goat Willow' (S. capraee), American 
Plane Tree, Scarlet Maple ( Acer rubrum), and White Maple A . eriocer- 
pum ), are among the very best ornamental trees for a damp place. The 
Spruce Fir grows beautifully in deep, moist soils, and in low situa¬ 
tions, far better than on dry soils. The Common Holly and all 
the variegated ones, will also grow in your filied-up pond; and so 
will Filberts, Blackthorns, and Privet; "also common Laurels, to an 
enormous size; and round the sides, Weeping Birch does much better 
than on dry soil; and the Deodara grows with its roots nearly in the 
river, on the left hand, as you enter Oxford from London, and nothing 
can do better—the Willows close by do not look better. The following 
shrubs will do with you, and look very ornamentalThe common ever¬ 
green Berbery (B. uquifolium). Magnolia purpurea. Scarlet Dogwood, 
Sweet Gale, Comptonia asplenifolia, Snowdrop Tree, Scarlet-berried 
Elder ( Sambucus racemosa), common Elder, common Honeysuckle, 
Calycanthus florida, most of the common Bhododendrons, Andromeda 
flarcebunda, acuminata, and others; Pernettia macronata, and Vacci- 
nums, all which you can get at the Nurseries ; and all these names are 
the common nursery names by which to ask for them. 
A match for Saponaria (Sarah), —The white Sweet Alyssum is 
the only white annual that will match your pretty lace bed of Saponaria 
calabrica, and flower it out till the frost stops them both. You might 
have a crop off both beds before you planted out the autumnal crop, 
say a blue Nemophila and Eucuridium grandiflorum, a bright rosy-pink 
flower. These two might be sown next week, and they would be in 
flower by the last week in May, and continue a month ; then, by growing 
the Alyssum and Saponaria in pots, sown at the end of April, they would 
be ready to fill the beds the day you parted with the blue and pink. There 
are no new annuals fit for beds that we have not mentioned in the two 
last volumes. The little camomile-like Cenias, which we spoke of, are 
hardly yet in the trade. 
Tropceolum (Ibid).— No one can account for the roots of this plant 
not growing. It often lies twelve months dormant. Keep it a little 
moist till June, and try it again. 
South-wall (Ibid).—A good winter Pear is the most useful fruit; 
and a Wistaria sinensis the best flower for your wall with the east 
current of wind in that part of the country. Passe Colmar, Winter 
Nelis, or lieurre Ranee, are among the most suitable winter Pears. 
Boundary Belt (Fillingham).— Large common Laurels, Privets, 
Hollies, and Tree Box, arc the best to plant under large trees in a belt, 
through which you want to hide the view, but Portugal Laurels, Yews, 
Alaterums, &c., would not suffer from the drip of the large trees. With¬ 
out strict attention to two rules it is perfectly impossible to establish a 
screen of evergreens under old, large, forest trees. The first rule is, 
that the plants be not less than four feet high ; and the second is, that 
the planting be done in September, or early in October. Spring planting 
will not do were you to water the plants three times a day through the 
summer, and for this reason, the more you watered, the more you would 
encourage young roots from the foresters to rob your evergreens. When 
you plant in September, cut every root you find in the ground, make the 
hole rather larger than if there were no big trees, and plant a little- 
deeper than usual, then mulch, and the old and new plantations, or 
rather their roots, will start on more equal terms next season. 
