THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
I September 4. 
350 
many of our honest, yet slow-moving, agricultural friends 
are enabled to appreciate them. But they must be appre¬ 
ciated, or there, it is fair to assume, they would not be; 
nevertheless, we shall studiously eschew them, as they are 
beyond the range of our comprehension. And we shall 
serve the multitude of churns, racks, mangers, spades, forks, 
&c., &c., in the same way: go ye that want them, say we, 
and pick and choose, for there is choice in abundance, and 
fastidious, indeed, must they be who cannot please them¬ 
selves. Machines are now getting so perfect in almost 
every direction of human labour, that but a small amount of 
bodily exertion seems necessary to satisfy our wants, as com¬ 
pared to the preceding condition of things ; the only wonder 
is how we managed to get on so decently as we have done 
without them, so essential, so indispensable, do most of 
them appear to a comfortable existence. We feed our 
horses and fatten our cattle with the aid of improved ma¬ 
chinery, to the greater comfort, no doubt, of the poor beasts, 
and with greater economy to ourselves; for we are now-a- 
days literally killing them with kindness, which is true in 
more senses than one. Look at that iron crib for an ox to 
feed out of, and that “Archimedean Root-crusher,” which 
prepares the food for the delicate creature; how comfortably 
he must spend his days, although they may be numbered 
a little more exactly than those of his lordly master. The 
god of the Egyptians never thrust his nose into so well- 
shapen an eating-vessel as that, highly prized and dearly- 
cherished as he must have been ; and as to saying that “the 
ox knowetli his master’s crib,” according to the old proverb, 
or something like it, we defy a country quadruped, fresh 
from the strawyard or his native fields, to “smell out” the 
meaning of one of the newly-invented cribs, in the event of 
his master placing liis food therein. Again, there is the 
“ Patent Improved Pig Trough,” and the “ Circular Iron Pig 
Trough,” both of which are ingeniously devised to teach the 
well-bred grunter to eat his food in a decent manner, and at 
the same time to economize the cost of his hide. Every¬ 
thing, in fine, is intended to improve everything that comes 
within the sphere of its operations. 
We may now pass on to a continuation of our re¬ 
porter’s remarks on what is intended “ to improve every¬ 
thing” in gardening. 
158 . —Hall’s Garden Net. 
This net is made of cotton thread; the meshes are of 
different sizes. The usefulness of nets are unquestion¬ 
able for gardening purposes; and the value of this, or 
the extent to which it will be used, depends very much 
on the price at which it is sold, as it will not he so 
durable as twine netting, and we do not consider it 
nearly so good for protecting wall-fruit from the ravages 
of insects as the well-known Nottingham net made by 
Haythorn. 
186 , —Bates’s Instrument to Facilitate the Removal 
of Plants in Pots. 
This instrument consists of a long pole, six feet in length, 
with a pair of forceps with long circular blades, at the 
end, one of these blades being fixed to the pole, the 
other is made to open and close by means of two lines, 
placed on each side of the pole, worked by a small 
handle fixed to the pole about four feet from the forceps, 
and where the operator stands. The forceps are placed 
at an angle from the pole. In using the instrument, 
the blades of the forceps must be introduced round, or 
into the ball of the plant, and held tight by the string ; 
the pole is used for a lever, with the edge of the pot for 
the fulcrum. 
This is, at best, a very useless instrument; for, in the 
first place, great injury may he done to the roots of a 
plant by inserting the blades into the ball; and it 
would require a much stronger instrument than the i 
one exhibited to be of any use in shifting a large plant. I 
The old-fashioned method of turning up a plant, and ! 
knocking it out by a tap on the edge of the pot on the 
potting-table, is much preferable. 
192 . —Smith’s Horticultural Hot-water Gas Stove, j 
This is a hot-water apparatus heated by gas-burners. 
The burners are simply holes pierced in a coil of pipe 
below the boiler; the heated air and gases from the 
burners pass up a tube through the boiler, which is 
made with pipes crossing the tube or chimney ; so that 
the arrangement of the heating power appears to be 
very good, and no doubt may answer very well where 
gas is applicable. 
208 . —Restell’s Garden and Conservatory Metallic 
Labels, Flexible and Adjusting wall-tree 
Holders,Rose-tree Girths, and Loop-labels. 
Warranted not to Corrode. 
These things will be found very useful for the purposes 
for which they are designed, and they have a neat 
appearance, especially the holders. These are a loop, 
one end of which passes round the branch and through 
the other, where it is held in its place by a nail driven 
into the wall, and being flexible and adjusting, it allows 
the branch to grow; another advantage is that they will 
not harbour insects. 
210 . —Toby and Son : Model of a Greenhouse. 
This is a lean-to house, with potting-slied, fruit-room, 
and boiler-house behind, ventilated by the top lights 
sliding down, and the front lights opening; it has also 
shutters at both back and front, the aperture being 
covered with perforated zinc; the house is heated by 
hot water. 
The house is well enough for places where there is | 
only one house; but for the purpose of high cultivation 
span-roofed houses are much better, though they cost 
more to erect them than a lean-to house after the plan 
of the model. 
215 . —Padwick’s Hand-drill for depositing garden 
and other seeds, adopted for patching 
where seed has failed, for allotments or 
rough uneven ground. 
The drill consists of a box made of wood, with a handle 
and coulter fixed to one side of it, set at proper angles, 
for the man to walk who guides it. At the other side 
is the wheel, which works a wheel or plate, on its axle 
within the box set with small cups which take up the 
seed from the bottom of the box, and as the cups go 
round, discharge the seeds into a hopper, where they 
pass down the hollow coulter. 
This is a simple and useful little drill for the purposes 
mentioned above. 
Padwick’s Planting Line. —This has a bar of wood, 
pins at each end to fix it in the ground; on the top of 
this is another bar of wood, hinged to the middle of the 
other, working either way. This has pegs set at a dis¬ 
tance of six inches from the centre, and three inches 
