THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
320 
brings milk from as far as eighty miles, makes up the 
deficiency. The Eastern Counties line conveyed last year to 
London 3,174,179 quarts, the North-Western 144,000 quarts, 
the Great Western. 23,400 quarts, the Brighton and South 
Coast 100 tons, and the Great Northern as much perhaps 
as the North-Western. The milk is collected from the 
farmers by agents in the country, who sell it to the milkmen, 
of whom there are 1347, to distribute it over the town. In 
course of time it is possible that town dairies may entirely 
disappear. Cowsheds, often narrow and low, in thickly 
populated localities, cannot be as healthy for the animals 
as a purer atmosphere ; and though experiment has shown 
that they thrive admirably when stalled, the food they get 
in these urban prisons can hardly be as wholesome as that 
provided by the verdant pastures of the farm. The milk 
which comes by railway has, however, this disadvantage, 
that it will not keep nearly so long as the indigenous pro¬ 
duce of the metropolitan dairies. The different companies 
have constructed waggons lightly hung on springs, but the 
churning effect of sudden joltings cannot be altogether got 
rid of. 
Of the vegetables and fruit that are brought into the 
various markets of the capital, but especially to Covent 
Garden, a very large quantity is grown in the immediate 
neighbourhood. From whatever quarter the railway traveller 
approaches London, he perceives that the cultivation of the 
land gradually heightens, until he arrives at those suburban 
residences which form the advanced guards of the metro¬ 
polis. The fields give place to hedgeless gardens, in which, 
to use a phrase of Washington Irving, “ the furrows seem 
finished rather with the pencil than the plough.” Acre after 
acre flashes with hand-glasses, streaks of verdure are ruled 
in close parallel lines across the soil with mathematical 
precision, interspersed here and there with patches as sharp 
cut at the edges as though they were pieces of green baize— 
these are the far-famed market-gardens. They are princi¬ 
pally situated in the long level tracts of land that must 
once have been overflowed by the Thames—such as the flat 
alluvial soil known as the Jerusalem Level, extending 
between London Bridge and Greenwich—and the grounds 
about Fulham, Battersea, Chelsea, Putney, and Brentford. 
Mr. Cuthill, who is perhaps the best authority on this 
subject, estimates that there are 12,000 acres under cultiva¬ 
tion for the supply of vegetables and 5000 for fruit-trees. 
This seems an insufficient area for the supply of so many 
mouths, but manure and active spade husbandry compensate 
for lack of space. By these agencies fltiur and sometimes 
five crops are extracted from the land in the course of the 
year. The old-fashioned farmer, accustomed to the restric¬ 
tions of old-fashioned leases, would stare at such a statement, 
and ask how long it would last. But his surprise would bo 
still greater at being told that after every clearance the 
ground is deeply trenched, and its powers restored with a 
load of manure to every thirty square feet of ground. This 
is the secret of the splendid return, and it could be effected 
nowhere but in the neighbourhood of such cities as Loudon, 
where the produce of the fertilizer is sufficiently great to 
keep down its price. And here we have a striking example 
of town and country reciprocation. The same waggon that 
in the morning brings a load of cabbages, is seen returning 
a few hours later filled with dung. An exact balance as far 
as it goes is thus kept up, and the manure, instead of re¬ 
maining to fester among human beings, is carted away to 
make vegetables. What a pity we cannot extend the system, 
and turn the whole sewerage by drain-pipes entirely into the 
rural districts, to feed the land, instead of allowing it, as we 
do, to run into the Thames, and pollute the water to be used 
in our dwellings. 
The care and attention bestowed by our market-gardeners 
is incredible to those who have not witnessed it; every inch 
of ground is taken advantage of—cultivation runs between 
the fruit-trees : storming-parties of cabbages and cauliflowers 
swarm up to the very trunks of apple-trees: raspberry- 
bushes are surrounded and cut off by young seedlings. If 
you see an acre of celery growing in ridges, be sure that on 
a narrow inspection you will find long files of young peas 
picking their ways along the furrows. Everything flourishes 
here except weeds, and you may go over a 150-acre piece of 
ground without discovering a single one. Quality, even more 
than quantity, is attended to by the best growers; and they 
January 23. 
nurse their plants as they would children. The visitor will 
sometimes see “ the heads of an acre of cauliflowers one by 
one folded up in their own leaves as carefully as an anxious 
wife wraps up an asthmatic husband on a November night; 
and if rain should fall, attendants run to cover them up, as 
quickly as they cover up the zoological specimens at the 
Crystal Palace when the watering-pots are set to work. 
Insects and blight are also banished as strictly as from 
the court of Oberon. To such a pitch is vigilance carried, 
that, according to a writer in “ Household Words,” blight 
and fungi are searched after with a microscope, wood-lice 
exterminated by bantams dressed in socks to prevent too 
much scratching, and other destructive insects despatched 
by the aid of batches of toads, purchased at the rate of six 
shillings a dozen ! 
(To be continued.) 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
*+* We request that no one will write to the departmental writers of 
The Cottage Gardener, It gives them unjustifiable trouble and 
expense. All communications should be addressed “ To the Editor of 
The Cottage Gardener, 2, Amen Corner, Paternoster Row, London .” 
Plants for Windows (Flora), —Sec our article to-day by Mr. Fish. 
Erecting Greenhouses (M. F. G.) —Will be attended to; the sub¬ 
ject is rather large for a correspondent’s column. 
Impatiens Jk ft don i. a (F. F.). —Few manage this so well as Mr. 
Veitch ; he does wonders with it, but you will see what can be done. 
Mr. Appleby has given some directions for its culture to-day. 
Nutmeg in Common Stove (F, F.). — We fear you will not succeed, 
unless you can command from twelve to twenty feet of head room, and 
a strong moist heat. 
Vines breaking late (A Top Sawyer).— Do not be alarmed; do not 
hurry them. If they grow so long, or even if they have much hardened 
in the wood, they will require more time to break. Keep the tempera¬ 
ture rather under than above C0°, until they get leaves, and keep the 
house moist. See that the roots are not starving. 
Cochin-China Fowls. — A Subscriber wishingforsome “really short¬ 
legged birds with good breasts” had better write for them to G, W. 
Johnson, Esq., West Highlands, Winchester. 
Messrs. Weeks and Co.’s Advertisement (Amateur). —They 
are too respectable a firm to make any false statements. If you write to 
them they will give you any information you require. 
Preserving Specimens of Birds (C. T. S.).— Our correspondent 
will be obliged by directions for inserting the wires and mounting these. 
The Arsenical Soap, for which we gave the receipt, is to rub into the 
inside of the skins, &c., to preserve them. Our correspondent also 
wishes to know how foreign birds’ skins, imported in a dry, hard state, 
are to be softened. 
Discorea Battata (A Plymothian). —This is not the same as the 
Diseorea saliva, or Yam of the West Indies. The latter will not thrive 
in England in the open air. 
Work on Plant-culture (A Reader).—“ The Cottage Gardeners’ 
Dictionary,” published by W. S. Orr and Co., Amen Corner, price8s. 6d., 
will suit you. Your list of plants shall be attended to. 
Index to Cottage Gardener (Rev. G. P.).—' This is published in 
two of our January numbers. You need not bind up the four pages of 
advertisements. 
Birmingham Rabbit Club (TV. B. Y.).—Any one giving some in¬ 
formation as to who is secretary of this club will oblige our correspondent. 
Our First Volume (H. TV. Wright). —“The last two pages” of our 
No. 8 were printed separately, to substitute for two erroneous pages in 
the third number. Your copy, we presume, was so corrected. 
Pine ArrLES (D. P.). —We are not aware that Mr. Fleming ever pub¬ 
lished a separate work on this fruit. 
London : Printed by Hugh Barclay, Winchester High-street, in 
the Parish of Saint Mary Kalendar; and Published by William 
Somerville Orr, of Church Hill, Walthamstow, in the County of 
Essex, at the Office, No. 2 , Amen Corner, in the Parish of Christ¬ 
church, City of London.—January 23, 1855. 
