THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
1 
October 2 . 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
1 
M W 
D D 
1 
OCTOBER 2—8, 1851. 
Weather near London i 
Barometer. Thermo. Wind. 
N 1850. 
Rain in In. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
| 
2 Th 
Walnut-leaves fall. 
29.870—29.799 
58—43 
N. 
02 
3 a. 5 
36 a. 5 
10 33 
3 
10 
31 
275 
3 f F 
Jack Snipe seen. 
29.877 —29-874 
56—44 
E. 
02 
5 
34 
II 31 
8 
10 
49 
276 
4 s 
Swallows last seen. 
29-886 — 29.798 
60—33 
S.W. 
— 
7 
31 
morn. 
9 
1 
8 
2 77 
5 Sun 
16 Sunday after Trinity. 
29.771 — 29.734 
61—28 
W. 
— 
8 
29 
0 34 
10 
1 
26 
278 
6 M 
Buntings flock. 
29 . 746 — 29.427 
59—44 
S.W. 
15 
10 
27 
1 38 
11 
1 
44 
279 
7 Tu 
Wheat sowing. 
29.544 — 29.377 
59—42 
S.W. 
— 
12 
25 
2 43 
12 
2 
i 
280 
8 W 
Cherry-leaves fall. 
29.779 — 29.557 60—31 
S.W. 
— 
13 
22 
3 49 
13 
12 
18 
281 
“ Reason hath deceived me so many times, that I will trust reason 
no more, unless the point in question he confirmed and made manifest hy 
experience—without which no knowledge in husbandry is perfect; for 
experience admitteth no imposture.” So wrote one of the most intelli¬ 
gent men of the 17 th century, yet that man died from absolute want 
in the streets of London. He was Gabriel Plattes ; and this almost 
only fragment of his biography we find thus recorded. 
In the British Museum is a volume, published in 1639 , entitled, A 
Discovery of Subterrane.al Treasure, written by Gabriel Plattes; and 
a contemporary of the author has written on a fly-leaf of that volume, 
“The author of this book died of meer want, in the year 1()14, at London. 
Mr. Hartlib hath many of his best papers and notes, which are worth 
the getting; for Mr. Samuel Hartlib told me he was a rare man for feats 
of husbandry, chemistry, &c.” In other words, Plattes was an alchemist 
as well as a cultivator of the soil; but he was no blind groper in the 
crucible. Yet alchemy was one of the prevailing delusions of his age, 
influencing all classes, and so prevalent as to call forth Ben Jonson’s 
well-known satire, “The Alchemist.” Even such a contemporary of 
Plattes as Evelyn saw no absurdity in the pursuit, for he tells us in 1/05, 
“ I went to sec Dr. Dickinson, the famous chemist. We had a long 
conversation about the philosopher’s elixir, which he believed attainable, 
and had seen projection himself by one who went under the name of Mun- 
danus, who sometimes came among the adepts, but was unknown as to 
his country or abode; of this the Doctor has written a treatise in Latin 
full of very astonishing relations. He is a very learned person, formerly 
a Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford, in which city he practised 
physic.” It seems extraordinary that no one seems to have asked, “ If 
these men can make gold, why arc they all so miserably poor?” In the 
work of Plattes, of which we have given the title, there are some extra¬ 
ordinary recipes, but it is not consonant with our purpose to enter into 
its metallurgical tests and researches, although one chapter has such a 
tempting title as “ How true and perfect gold may be made by artand 
we are the less inclined to do so, because we perceive that the crucible, 
like California, had one result in common ; for Plattes says, “ If any one 
doubt the truth of alchemy, he may be satisfied by this trial; but, instead 
of gain, he shall pay for his learning, by going away with loss.” 
In the same year, 1639, in his Discovery of infinite treasure hidden 
since the World's beginning, whereunto all men arc friendly invited to 
be sharers with the discoverer, Plattes begins with this most true 
apothegm—an apothegm even more applicable to the 19 th century than 
to that in which lie wrote—“There is no approved medicine but this in 
an over-peopled commonwealth—to wit, good improvements of the 
earth;” and we recommend it to the consideration of both the pro¬ 
tectionists and free-traders of the present day. We have abundant 
evidence in this work to sustain Mr. Hartlib’s declaration, that Plattes 
was “ a rare man in husbandry;” for although there is in it much of 
surplusage and inflated eloquence, there are also intermingled many 
such truthful passages as this—“ When a planter settetli his small trees, 
at the first, let him ratn down the earth solid below, and lighter towards 
the surface, that so the roots may spread through all the points of the 
compass, and may not point downwards towards the barren earth, but 
spread in the rich mould.” His views as to the mixture of soils, irri¬ 
gation, and the preservation of the drainage from dunghills, are equally 
sound. “ I have seen,” he says, “ much oversight committed by many 
husbandmen, in letting out the putrified and coloured water from their 
moats and dunghill pools ; whereas, all the water that was high-coloured 
might have been improved in such frugal manner, by a little industry, 
that it would have produced such an increase of barley as would have 
made as much good drink for the husbandman’s provision as the coloured 
water which was lost.” 
In the May of 1664, the year of his death, he induced Mr. Hartlib to 
publish for him—for he appears to have had neither funds nor credit— 
The Profitable Intelligencer, which is no more than an advertisement of 
eight pages, proposing to publish a larger work, entitled, The Treasure 
House of Nature unlocked, and set wide open to the world . He says, 
“ I intend, as soon as it shall be printed, that in Westminster Hall, and 
elsewhere, at certain signs then to be set up, the said book shall be sold 
for five shillings, or lent for two-pence per week, to every one that shall i 
leave the money, or put in security to return it to the owner.” West¬ 
minster Hall was no extraordinary place in which to establish this first : 
suggestion of a circulating library, for in those days seedsmen, book¬ 
sellers, and other's, had stalls in that Hall for vending their wares. Plattes 
was evidently a practical man, for we have seen what he says about ex¬ 
perience as opposed to mere reasoning ; and Walter Blith, in the preface 
to his English Improver, speaks of Plattes’ “ corn-setting engine,” 
which he applauds, and which was evidently the embryo idea of our 
modern drills. 
Yet of such a man no memorials exist. All that we gather is that he 
probably began his observations in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth’s 
reign, continued them through the reigns of James and Charles the 1st, 
as well as during the first three years of the Commonwealth. The llcv. 
Walter Harte, who must have conversed with those who had seen Plattes, 
says of him :— 
“ As great a genius as this writer was, the public allowed him to drop 
down dead in London streets with hunger only ; nor had he a shirt upon 
his back when he died. He bequeathed his papers to S. Hartlib : Whom 
a cotemporary author addresses in this manner: ‘None (but yourself, 
who want not an enlarged heart, but a fuller hand to supply the world’s 
defects) being found, with some few others, to administer any relief to a 
man of so great merit.’ Letter to Hartlib from Flanders, 1650. 
“ Another friend of Hartlib’s gives Plattes the following character: 
‘ Certainly that man had as excellent a genius in agriculture as any that 
ever lived in this nation before him, and was the most faithful seeker of 
his ungrateful country’s good. I never think of the great judgment, 
pure zeal, and faithful intentions of that man, and withal of his strange 
sufferings and manner of death, but am struck with amazement that such 
a man should be suffered to fall down dead in the streets for want of food, 
whose studies tended to no less than providing and preserving food for 
whole nations, and that too as with much skill and industry, so without 
pride or arrogance towards God or man.’ C. D. in a Letter to Hartlib, 
1653. Legacy, p. 133, 134.— Hartlib, as far as can be learnt, published 
but few posthumous papers of Gabriel Plattes; and indeed an author, so 
extremely poor as this unfortunate person was, would in all probability 
have sold his writings to the booksellers, had they beeu so far finished as 
to deserve publication. The pieces already published are these which 
follow: Practical Husbandry improved, or. A Discovery of infinite 
Treasure, 4°, containing 120 pages, 1656 . A Discovery of subterranean 
Treasure, 4to, 1638. About three sheets. Mermrius Laitificans, Ito, 
1644. 'Twelve pages. Observations and Improvements in Husbandry , 
accompanied with twenty Experiments, imparted to S. Hartlib by Gab. 
Plattes. 32 pages, 4to, 1653.—This author had a bold adventurous cast 
of mind, and seems to have preferred the faulty sublime, in matters of 
invention, to the faultless mediocrity. As to his MS. intitled Art’s 
mistress containing a series of observations and experiments in agriculture 
for fifty years, and in all probability the most valuable in matter, as well 
as most considerable in size, of all his writing, we have spoken. In a 
letter to Hartlib, May 14, 1644, he mentions a work of his, called The 
Treasure-house of Nature unlocked, and set wide open to the World, &c. 
Whether this performance was ever printed is more than 1 know, or 
whether it be not the tract first mentioned in this list, which 1 am partly 
inclined to believe.” 
Meteorology of the Week. — At Chiswick, from observations 
during the last twenty-four years, the average highest and lowest tem¬ 
peratures of these days are 62 . 8 ° and 44.1° respectively. The greatest 
heat, 80°, occurred on the 5th, in 1834, and the lowest cold, 29°, on tin. 
3rd, in 1836. During the period, 83 days were fine, and on 85 rain 
fell. 
We will now conclude our comments on the gardening 
implements at the World’s Exhibition :— 
219 . —Smith’s Enamelled Garden Labels 
Are made of iron and bronze, with a frame or space at 
the top for the enamel, which, being white, shows the 
ink or paint, which may be used for writing the name 
of the plant or tree very clearly, and the enamel can be 
easily cleaned. The labels might be made neater, and 
of more tasteful designs for conservatories. They will 
be found both durable, and of more utility than most 
of the labels in use in gardens at the present time. 
Smith’s Hyacinth Glass and Glass Supporter.— 
This glass is fitted with a glass support for steadying 
the flowers, and is fixed on the top of the glass by 
means of a small zinc tube, with a piece of zinc from tiro 1 
side bent so as to fit over the edge of the vase, the j 
support passing through the tube. The contrivance is 
very simple, but the design is not good, being the 
same as the old-fashioned hyacinth glass. 
The Strawberry-tile, exhibited also by Smith, will 
be expensive, and the utility of such-like things is much 
questioned. For a wet season, they may be useful in | 
No. CLVTI., Vol VII 
