March 6. THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 439 
THE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES AT THE 
LAST SHOW OF THE HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY. 
Will you allow me to write a few words in explanation 
of tlae seeming difference between my report of the meeting 
of the Horticultural Society, on the 6th of last February, 
and the remarks made on that meeting by “ A Market- 
Gardener,” at page 398. The difference in most of the 
forced vegetables which are sent to Covent Garden Market, 
from those sent to the tables of the high nobility in the 
country, is as much as the state of the market stand in 
London is from a flower-garden ; so that which is best for 
the one or the other, is only a relative or negative compa¬ 
rison, if you will, and not which is the best of the two. If 
I were to embark my capital in market - gardening, the 
chances are that I should figure in the Bankruptcy Court in 
two or three years. Nevertheless, I am quite sure that 
r, and other private gardeners, know how to judge, how to 
force, how to cook, how to dish, and how to report on forced 
vegetables and fruits, as they are best relished by the higher 
classes in this country, as well as any man who ever stood 
in Covent Garden market, or any other market in this 
country. Let us now rub noses. You say— 
“Mr. Tillyard’s Pears bore the same comparison to com¬ 
mon Pears, as the beasts at Baker-street Cattle Show do to 
common cattle.” To be sure they did, if you allow “ com¬ 
mon Pears ” to be what is common in Covent Garden ; but 
let the comparison extend to the fruit-rooms of the nobility, 
and you are as far wrong as the Poles are asunder. 
“ A few good Pines, but nothing extra,” is the next 
remark,in order; and I answer by a question—Did you ever 
see a better, or a more regularly-swelled Pine in February, 
than one of the kinds which was called Charlotte Rothschild ? 
The rest of the Tines were good for the season, hut not 
extra goad, as you said. Of the Grapes, you say some were 
“ very good ; ” but were they not all very good ? Or if they 
were not very good, who sent the bad ones ? Did you ever 
see any Grapes so good, as the worst of them, in Covent 
Garden market after Christmas ? I have been in the market, 
occasionally, for the last five-and-twenty years, but I did not 
see any so good there, even before Christmas ; hut seeing 
that you mistook early for late Grapes, I hold you not to be 
a judge of Grapes at all; and what you say about the Bar- 
barossa Grapes, must, therefore, count for nothing. I hold 
with you, that some of the Sea-hale was not good, hut there 
was some Sea-kale there which you never could have 
matched in the market for goodness, at any season of the 
year; without mentioning names, I allude to that which 
was exhibited in a wooden-box. As to Asparagus, gardeners 
have long since made up their minds, that your Covent 
Garden “ grass," is more fit for producing fibre for the 
paper manufacturer, than for the tables of the nobility; 
however, it “ takes,” and you are right to supply it as you 
do, hut that does not qualify any of you for judging good 
Asparagus. The same remarks apply to the Mushrooms, 
and ditto to Celery and Rhubarb. It is not for size or for 
weight that such articles are so much esteemed in the 
country; but if you can “ heat gentlemen’s gardeners by 
odds ” next winter, with colour, flavour, and succulency, in 
your fruit and forced vegetables, I shall feel proud in 
handing you over the heads and shoulders of the whole 
fraternity. D. Beaton. 
COPROLITES. 
It may not he generally known what Coprolites are. 
They are the excrement of fishes, and are small brown or 
black rounded nodules, lying in beds, or dispersed through¬ 
out the shell deposit, locally called “ crag,” on the coast of 
Suffolk. This deposit extends along the sea-line from 
Walton-on-the-Naze, in Essex, to Lowestoft, and portions of 
it are met with on the Norfolk coast. In some places it 
shoots out ten or twelve miles inland. Usually, the crag is 
covered with a stratum of gravel, at other times it appears 
on the surface, and the plough, as it passes through the soil, 
turns up the shells and other marine fossils. 
Of late, Coprolites have been sought for by our farmers, 
and made a profitable source of revenue. Within a short 
distance from my residence, as many as between 200 and 300 
persons are employed in digging for them ; these are mostly 
labourers out of work. One farmer has just set on six fresh 
hands, and another has obtained leave from his landlord to 
break up and turn over five acres to get out the treasure. 
The men work in couples, one digging up the crag and filling 
the sieve held by the other to separate the shells and sand. 
The Coprolites are then thrown into a heap, and when a 
sufficient quantity are obtained are shipped for London, 
where they are manufactured into manure. It then re¬ 
sembles, in colour and texture, Scotch snuff, and is admirably 
adapted for mixing with guano, to which purpose there is but 
little doubt that it is often applied, the almost only per¬ 
ceptible difference being that the guano gives out a strong 
effluvia of ammonia, whilst the Coprolites yield little, or none. 
The price obtained by our farmers is i‘4 per ton, delivered 
on board the vessel. 
Coprolites, as I have remarked, are rounded nodules; they 
range from the size of boys’ marbles to those of Turlsies’ 
eggs; many are oval shaped, and a few cylindrical. When 
broken with a hammer, they are fotmd to contain small 
fishes and Crustacea. If the Coprolites were lying in uniform 
strata, the digging for them would he a greater advantage to 
the farmer, by the regular turning over of his land ; but this 
is not the case, they are found oftener in detached beds, as 
if the spots were the favourite resorts of the fish when 
living. 
There are two deposits of the crag, one the coralline or 
white crag, which is the oldest and lowest, and it appears to 
have tranquilly settled down; in this, the Coprolites are 
seldom found, but the shells and fossils are more numerous, 
and in a higher state of preservation. Here corals exist, some 
branching upwards, others lying horizontally; the latter re¬ 
semble a kind of tv fa, and it is often so hard, that it has to 
be separated by crowbars, when it comes off in flakes or 
lamina; (clinkers, the workmen call them), and a clinker, two 
or three feet in diameter, will exhibit on its surface, perhaps 
fifty varieties of fossil shells, mostly standing out in relief 
upon it; and these clinkers furnish a good example of the 
strata, and are worthy of a place in every geological collection 
or musoum. This coralline formation will probably be turned, 
one day, to a more profitable account, in making of lime or 
cement; at present, it is used for mixing with manure-heaps, 
as top-dressing to clay lands, and as an alterative to soils. 
The upper or red crag is more easily worked. It contains 
most of the fossils found in the lower beds, and has, ap¬ 
parently, been much disturbed and tossed about, as its 
component parts are more comminuted and water-worn. 
It is a favourite amusement with our young geologists, 
ladies as well as gentlemen, to go out for what they term “a 
day's cragging,” that is, to form small pic-nic parties to some 
favourite locality in search of fossils, and few are more eager 
or persevering in their pursuits; they work till pleasure 
becomes a toil, and usually return home delighted and weary, 
and not the cleaner for their day’s excursion. 
Thus we have hidden riches still in our soil, and which 
are placed there by a bountiful Providence to reward the 
labours of men of industry, and the researches of men of 
science.—S.P., Rushmere. 
[The addition of Coprolites to our list of manures is one 
of the most interesting of the contributions of modem science 
to the cultivation of the soil. The dung of fish destroyed by 
the Deluge are now collected, and are fertilizing our fields. 
That they are valuable as a manure has now been fully 
proved, and they are valuable, because they contain much 
phosphate of lime, the same salt which renders bones so 
beneficial when employed to our own crops. 
The Coprolites are evidently the dung of some fish of the 
shark species, and the phosphate of lime is the remains of 
the fish the shark had preyed upon. They are very like 
pebbles, but less cold to the touch, and when broken the 
difference is still more apparent. The Coprolites inside are 
of a chocolate-brown colour, and when rubbed very strongly 
on a bal’d surface emit a smell difficult to describe. Mr. 
Potter states that they are composed of 
Phosphates of lime and magnesia.56 
Carbonate of lime .15 
Matter insoluble in dilute muriatic acid .. .. 19 
Organic matter and water, inseparable at 400° 1 
Water.2 
100 
