April 24.1 THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 43 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M 
D 
w 
D 
APRIL 24—30, 1851. 
Weather 
Barometer. 
near London 
Thermo. (Wind. 
N 1850. 
Rain in In. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of | 
Year 
24 
T 11 
Wild Cherry blooms. 
29.894—29.704 
56—43 
N. 
—. 
48 a. 4 
8 a. 7 
2 34 
23 
1 53 
114 
25 
F 
St. Mark. Princess Alice b. 1843. 
29.745 — 29.728 
62—44 
W. 
0.03 
46 
10 
3 3 
24 
2 4 
115 
26 
S 
[Duchess of Gloucester b. 1776. 
129.836 — 29.724 
60—29 
N.W. 
0.01 
44 
11 
3 26 
25 
2 14 
116 
27 
Son 
1st. aft. East.— Low Sunday. 
129.838 — 29-650 
61—40 
S. 
0.04 
42 
13 
3 48 
26 
2 24 
117 
28 
M 
Cabbage Butterfly seen. 
30.000 — 29.681 
59—32 
w. 
0.28 
40 
15 
4 8 
27 
2 34 
118 
29 
To 
Large Tortoiseshell Butterfly seen. 
30.260 — 30.176 
68—45 
s.w. 
— 
38 
Id 
4 28 
28 
2 43 
119 
[30| W 
Oxford and Cambridge Term begins. 
(30.284 — 30.208 
66—35 
E. 
— 
36 
1_ 
18 
4 48 
29 
2 51 
120 
So rare are the instances of more than one in a family attaining to ex¬ 
cellence, by the exercise of his mental powers, that the commentary— 
“ One child runs away with all the wit of the family,” is almost estab¬ 
lished as a proverb. But it is a rule to which many splendid exceptions 
might be cited, and among them are the Knights of Downton. Last 
week we gave a brief memoir of Richard Payne Knight, and to-day we 
will pay a similar tribute to his brother, Thomas Andrew Knight, to 
whom, more than to any son of the current century, gardening is in¬ 
debted for its elevation into a science. There was a glimmering of know¬ 
ledge in the earliest ages, that the seed of fruit might be injured by its 
being grown in neighbourship with that of a worse quality ( Jeremiah ii. 
21 ; Dent. xxii. 9); and, passing over the dreams of the intermediate cen¬ 
turies, in 1626 , we find Lawson in his New Orchard and Garden, recom¬ 
mending “ the kernels of the best and soundest apples and pears to be 
sown, and to save the likeliest plants ; ” yet, anything approaching to an 
enlightened attempt at an improvement of varieties by inter-impregnation, 
never entered the mind of man, until Mr. Knight addressed himself to 
the pursuit. In a letter he wrote to us in 1828, he says :—“ I was early 
led to ask whence the varieties of fruit I saw came, and how they were 
produced; I could obtain no satisfactory answer, and was thence first 
led to commence experiments, in which through a long life of scarcely in¬ 
terrupted health, I have persevered, and probably shall persevere as long 
as I possess the power.” 
How well he succeeded, and how much we are indebted to his labours, 
appears from the following list of the new varieties of fruits and vegetables 
raised by Mr. Knight, which he considered worth preserving:— Apples — 
Spring-grove Codling, Downton Lemon Pippin, Herefordshire Gilly¬ 
flower, Grange Apple, Sec. Cherries —Elton, Waterloo, and Black Eagle. 
Strawberries —Elton and Downton. A large and long-keeping Red 
Currant. Plums —Ickwortli Imperatrice, and two improved Damsons, 
Nectarines —Imperatrice, Ickworth, Downton, and Althorp. Pears — 
Monarch, Althorp Cressane, Rouse Level, Winter Cressane, Belmont, 
and many others. Many excellent and productive varieties of Potatoes, 
of which the only one named is the Downton Yam. The Knight Pea, 
and improved varieties of Cabbage. 
The originator of these great additions to our garden harvests was 
born at Wormsley Grange, on the 12th of August, 1759, and was but 
five years old at the time of his father’s death; and his early education, 
like that of his brother, was much neglected. However, after a little 
tuition at Ludlow, he was removed to a school of considerable reputation 
at Chiswick, then kept by Dr. Crawford. He was afterwards entered of 
Baliol College, Oxford, where the late eminent physician, Dr. Baillie, was 
his contemporary : who used to say of him, “ that he managed to acquire 
as much Latin and Greek as most of his fellow-students, though he spent 
less time about it, and much less than he devoted to field sports.” He 
was at this period, and continued for many years afterwards, to be an 
eager sportsman, and an excellent shot; but with him, even in his boy¬ 
hood, killing the game was only a secondary consideration to the oppor¬ 
tunities which his long rambles with his gun afforded him for studying 
nature ; and from the facts and incidents collected at this early period he 
laid in a fund of information which formed the b^sis of many of his sub¬ 
sequent investigations. He was at this time painfully shy, and it was 
difficult to draw him out; but he was remarkable for the steadiness with 
which he resisted all attempts, whether by persuasion or raillery, to join 
in the intemperate habits then so common in the Universities. 
In 1/91, Mr. Knight married Frances, the younget daughter of the late 
Humphrey Felton, Esq., of Woodhall, near Shrewsbury. The gentle¬ 
ness of her disposition, and her unceasing endeavours to promote his 
comfort and happiness during the forty-six years they were permitted to 
spend together, secured to her the affections of a heart so calculated for 
the reception of the endearing ties of domestic life, as that of Mr. Knight; 
and the pain of separation was softened to her by a recollection of the 
uninterrupted harmony in which this long interval was passed. On his 
marriage, Mr. Knight established himself at Elton, in the immediate 
vicinity of his mother’s and brother’s residences; the acquisition of a 
hothouse and a farm now enabled him to prosecute his experiments in 
horticulture and agriculture with more advantage than heretofore. His 
income, as a younger brother, was at this time limited, and it was asto¬ 
nishing how much he did to advance the science of horticulture, with a 
garden and an establishment of the least expensive description ; but one 
of his peculiarities was, the readiness by which, with his own hands, and 
the assistance of a common carpenter or blacksmith, he would construct 
all the machinery he required for conducting his most elaborate experi¬ 
ments. About this time Mr. Knight became acquainted with Sir Joseph 
Banks ; and this introduction had so important an influence on his future 
proceedings, that it should not pass unnoticed. It occurred in the 
following manner:—The Board of Agriculture had drawn up a set of 
queries, to which they desired to obtain answers from different districts ; 
and an application had been made to Sir Joseph Banks, to recommend 
persons properly qualified, to whom the queries should be addressed. 
Sir Joseph referred to Mr. Payne Knight to recommend some one for this 
purpose in Herefordshire ; who mentioned his brother, as more likely 
than any one he knew to fulfil the object in view, from his practical 
knowledge of the agricultural operations of that part of England, as 
well as from the attention he had given to its natural history. This in¬ 
troduction to Sir Joseph gave wings to his advancement through that 
realm of science whither he directed his course. At Sir Joseph’s house 
he had occasionally opportunities of [comparing his own observations and 
theories with those of many of the most celebrated naturalists of all 
countries ; and it would probably have been advantageous to him had 
those interchanges of information and opportunities for discussion been 
more frequent, for it would have saved him trouble in working out facts 
which cost all the labour and time of original discoveries, and which 
labour would have been more profitably employed in building on the sub¬ 
structure already laid by other hands. He for some years purposely 
avoided to read the works of his precursors in the field of vegetable 
physiology, from an idea that, by the study of nature, unbiassed by the 
opinions of others, he should be most likely to arrive at truth; but he 
was at length induced to deviate from this course by the advice of his 
friend Sir Joseph. Mr. Knight’s first communication to the Royal 
Society, was a paper “ Upon the inheritance of decay among fruit-trees, 
and the propagation of debility by grafting,” read April 30, 1795; and, 
in 179 7 , he published a “Treatise on the culture of the apple and pear, 
and on the manufacture of cyder and perry.” In this work he repeated 
the same opinions which he had advanced in his paper, viz., that vege¬ 
table, like animal life, has its fixed periods of duration ; and that, how¬ 
ever, the existence of a variety of a fruit-tree may be protracted beyond 
the natural life of the original seedling plant, by grafting, or by unusually 
favourable circumstances of soil or situation, still there is a period beyond 
which the debility incident to old age cannot be stimulated ; and to this 
he attributed the cankered and diseased state of most of the trees of the 
old varieties of cyder apples in the orchards of Herefordshire. In the 
year 1805, Mr. Knight was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and on 
the 4th of November, 1806, the Copley Medal was voted to him for his 
papers on vegetable physiology, and presented at the anniversary meeting 
on the 1st of December following, when Sir Joseph Banks delivered an 
address expressive of the sense the society entertained of the value of his 
discoveries. But the time and attention he devoted to scientific pursuits 
did not divert him from the prosecution of objects which, though less cal¬ 
culated to secure him an eminent rank among philosophers, were gaining 
him the still more enviable distinction of a benefactor of his country. He 
had by this time become well known as a practical agriculturist, and an 
improver of the breed of Herefordshire cattle. The stock of this countv 
had been long distinguished for its superior quality; the origin of this 
superiority he had taken some pains to discover, and the result of his 
inquiries led him to attribute it to the introduction from Flanders* of a 
breed of cattle by Lord Scudamore, who died in 1671 , to whom the 
orchards of Herefordshire were also indebted for the introduction of many 
of their best apples. In 1804, was established the London Horticultural 
Society. John Wedgewood, Esq., was the first projector, and on the 
Society being constituted on the 14th of March, 1804, the rules and re¬ 
gulations which had been suggested by Mr. Wedgewood, were adopted. 
On the 30th of March, a meeting was held for the appointment of an 
annual council and officers, when the Earl of Dartmouth was elected Pre¬ 
sident, Mr. Wedgewood, Secretary, &c. The first part of the Transac¬ 
tions was published in 1 807 . It opens with an introductory paper written 
by Mr. Knight, and also contains another paper from his pen, “ On 
Raising New and Early Fruits;” read November 4, 1806. From this 
time every succeeding part of the Society’s Transactions contain several 
communications from him. In order to put the Society upon a more firm 
foundation, and to give it a higher character, both in this and foreign 
countries, it was determined to obtain a charter, which was granted in j 
April, 1808, and on Lord Dartmouth dying, about the end of the year, j 
1810, Mr. Knight was elected President on the 1 st of January, 1811, and 
continued to fill that office during the remainder of his life. His resi¬ 
dence in the country prevented, indeed, his usually taking a part in the 
deliberations of the council; but it enabled him more effectually to ' 
promote the objects of the Society, by the prosecution of his investiga- | 
iions; and on every occasion where his time or his purse could be made 
available to its interests, his assistance was always most liberally given. 
With one or two exceptions, he was present at the anniversary meetings 
on the 1 st of May, till the last year of his life. At the period when Mr. 
Knight became President, the Society had made little progress ; and its 
rapid increase afterwards, is, in a great measure, to be attributed to Mr. 
Sabine, who became a member about the same time, and afterwards 1 
accepted the office of Secretary, and whose zeal and activity, supported j 
by the reputation of the President, gave a new impulse to its exertions, 
and enlisted among its supporters not only men of science and practical j 
gardeners, but nearly all the rank and wealth of the kingdom. With the 1 
ample means thus placed at the disposal of the Society, information and ; 
produce were collected from all parts of the world, and were distributed j 
with unsparing liberality; and by the sound physiological principles ! 
caught by the President, and the unceasing activity of the Secretary, a 1 
complete revolution was effected in the science and practice of gardening, 
and a great public benefit was conferred throughout the kingdom, by in- 1 
ducing many in every class of life to employ their leisure hours in an 
innocent arid healthy pursuit. The Society first established a small ex¬ 
perimental garden at Kensington, in the commencement of the year 1818 j ■ 
but this being found too limited, and too much within the influence of 
the London atmosphere, it was determined to select another site, and the j 
present garden of thirty-three acres was taken a few years afterwards, 
and the stock finally removed there in the early part of the year 1822. 
The great expence attending the establishment, and keeping up of so large 
* In Cuyp’s pictures the cattle are usually represented of the Hereford¬ 
shire colour, with white faces. 
No. CXXXIV., Vol. VI 
