2 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
OcTOBKR 7. 
I be The Cott.\ge Gaudenek, but with its usefulness 
again increased. In testimony of this, and we have 
other new stores of infoi’mation placed at our disposal, 
we offer the present number as the best of evidence. 
i 
! 
In our last number we stated our conviction that the 
days of the Potato are not yet brought to a close, but 
that we look forward with confidence to a recurrence of 
that state of health in the plant, when uninurrained 
t crops will be usual, and murrained crops rare. We 
stated, also, our reasons for thus hoping, and one of 
those reasons is, that, even in the worst murrained of 
years, we find many instances of crops entirely exempt 
from the disease. This exemption is not of rare occur¬ 
rence, and though the circumstances occasioning such 
exemption are not with certainty known, yet the ex¬ 
emption demonstrates that such circumstances exist. 
If they exist, they can be ascertained ; and, when 
ascertained, the days of safety to the potato will be 
restored. 
One such instance of exemption has been commu¬ 
nicated to us by one of the best practical borticulturists 
we know—Mr. Weaver, gardener to the Warden of 
Winchester College. He says—“ Early this spring I 
received thirteen very handsome potatoes from a gentle¬ 
man of this neighbourhood, who is fond of having good 
potatoes at his table every day. They are called the 
Dalmahoy Seedling, being raised by Lord Morton’s 
steward, at bis lordship’s seat, Dalmahoy, near Edin¬ 
burgh. They were all very sizeable—from 3 inches to 
3^ inches, the widest way of them—and I determined 
to plant them whole. But where could I plant them ? 
was the next question, as nearly every inch of our 
ground was under crop at the time. At last, finding a 
small plot alongside some globe artichokes, a line being 
set down about five feet wide from the artichokes, here 
I planted the sets, two feet six inches from set to set in 
the row. This was done on the 13th of March. The 
row stood clear of everything excepting a few weeds; 
the plants were not earthed up.at all, and IfTelieve 
nothing was ever done to them from the time they were 
planted until they were taken up about the middle of 
August. On taking up the first root, seeing the tubers so 
numerous, induced me to count them. The following is 
the number found at each root:—58, 62, 47, 33, 54, 41, 
i 45, 48, 29, 30, 32, 57, 47. I took them up myself, 
I and, I believe, every one of them : the sample very fine 
! for the season. After they were taken up about six or 
eight days, they were looked over, and all diseased ones 
removed, which was nearly one-third of the bulk. This 
has been found the case in all our general crops that 
were in the ground so late as the middle of August. 
“ One kind, which we call the Herefordshire Early 
Purple, is a kind which we generally begin taking up 
for use about the second week in July, having done so 
for many years. Wanting the quarter for another pur¬ 
pose, these were all taken up by the 20tb of the month, 
and stored away in the potato bouse, where most of 
them are at this time. In these we have not seen a 
diseased potato at all this season, from the first to the ' 
present time. j 
“ Another favotirite, called Heigh's Norhury Seedling, | 
a beautiful potato, allied to Walnut-leaved Kidney, and 
a great bearer, was taken up on the 1st of August, and 1 
scarcely any diseased ones have been found among 
these from first to last. The same observation applies i 
to Rylott's Flourhall —scarcely any diseased, and taken 
up at the same time. Lukers Oxonian, taken up at the 
same time, nearly one-third diseased. Forty-folds, about \ 
four bushels of which were taken up at this time, were 
much more free from disease than those which remained I 
in the ground to the middle of August. Among these | 
last taken up, full one-third were diseased. And in a 
quarter of York Regents, which were somewhat shaded \ 
by trees, upwards of two-thirds were diseased.” j 
We may add, that Mr. Weaver entirely coincides with | 
us in recommending planting none but early kinds, I 
planting whole sets, and planting early. i 
COVENT GARDEN. j 
There were many fine gardens in Loudon once; but I 
what Mr. Dickens calls “'The Great Invasion” has so \ 
squeezed and circumscribed them, that, yielding to “ the 
pressure from without,” there is nothing left of them 
now but their names. We can imagine in our own 
minds what these old gardens were like, with their trim 
hedges, clipped “ greens,” and “ allies artly devised in 
the same; ” to say nothing of “ the proper knots,” as 
flower-beds, which would have supplied, with credit, 
designs for any “ Knitting, Netting, and Crochet Book,” 
even of the present day. We can imagine, too, what 
the old gardeners were like, with their long beards, 
Elizabethan ruffles, and high conical hats. These are 
what some people call “ the good old times;” but they 
have alt passed and gone, and with them the good old 
gardens, and the good old gai-deners, of London, leaving j 
scarcely even a trace of where this one “ grafifed all 
sortes of trees,” or that other practised “ the right 
ordering of all delectable and rare flowers.” 
The only place of this kind, bearing the name and 
aspect of what it once was, is Covent-Garben ; and, as 
if unwilling to be banished from their former haunts, it 
would seem as if the ghosts of these old times still 
met and held their midnight revels there—for during | 
the time that mortals sleep, there are produced, in this | 
once fertile spot, such fruits, and flowers, and esculent : 
plants, as would excite the incredulity of those who have 
not seen them. It would astonish some of our country j 
friends who have never witnessed such a sight as is 1 
there exhibited every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday 
morning, to see the ponderous cabbages, the unmeasure- ; 
able carrots, the enormous celery, the gigantic rhubarb, 
the snowy turnips, and the curly parsley ! produced as 
if by fairy power, or coming from, we hardly know 
where. 
It is of Covent Garden that we intend weekly to 
furnish the readers of The Cottage Gardener with a \ 
report. Our object shall be to notice everything as it : 
