COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
May 8. 
97 
blue Crocus is quite the other way; however, you never met 
with a plant which would not grow very well in some few 
places. The Cloth of Gold Roue, on its own roots, or on the 
wild Rose, will grow as freely against your house as the 
Grape Vine ; but, in truth, it is not worth nails and shreds, 
and we would advise you to have nothing to do with it; there 
are at least five hundred kinds of Roses which are better in 
any part of England than the Cloth of Gold. But for a 
a Camellia-house, or an Azalea-house, or a Itose-house, or 
an Orchard-house, it would come in as one of the best 
climbers; it would also do and look well in the Crystal 
Palace. 
The Stauntonia has been recommended for a particular 
purpose, that is, as the best evergreen twiner we have, but 
not for its flowers. A fliree-year-old plant of it stood with 
us this winter, but we would recommend protection to it for 
the first half-dozen years, and to be cut down in April,during 
that time, to near the surface of the ground, but to have its 
own way after the sixth year. 
The Scarlet Passion Flou-er is one of the finest stove 
climbers we have, the easiest to grow, and the easiest to 
bloom; indeed, we never knew it miss ; but 50° is about the 
lowest temperature for it in winter, and it ought to be pruned 
in the spring just like a Grape Vine, or like all the Passion 
Flowers. You ought to get a very good Stauntonia under 
5s. by this time; but you surely do not mean that we should 
recommend one nursery before another in a public journal. 
Asparagus. —We really do not know the price of Asparagus 
(generally about -‘Is. per 100); but you are now too late for 
planting a bed. Some of our best gardeners could manage 
to make and plant an Asparagus bed in May ; but you may 
just as well throw the cost to the Crimea as make the 
attempt. 
Pompone Chrysanthemums , to flower this year, ought to 
have been sown and up months ago. They will not flower 
the same year from May sowings. 
The Cedars and Araucarias stood out on the bleak moors, 
in the north of Scotland, with nothing over them but the 
snow.] 
POULTRY. 
SITTING versus SETTING. 
“ The present era is an extraordinary one for fowls. I 
see, in The Cottage Gardener, a writer who talks of his 
hens sitting ; modern authors of duodecimo vols. do the 
same thing. I have abundance of fowls, and I see abun¬ 
dance ; but all our heus, during incubation, set in the old- 
fashioned way. As one of the old school, I should, from 
curiosity, like to know how these gentlemens’ fowls succeed 
in hatching, by squatting themselves on their eggs a pos¬ 
teriori. 
“ Doctor Johnson says, man sits, —birds set. Either the 
language of our vernacular tongue is altered, or these lucru- 
bators on fowls forget the proprieties of the Queen’s English. 
—W. Mason." 
[We answered a similar letter some twelvemonths since, 
and can only assure Mr. Mason now as we assured a 
Lieutenant-Colonel then, that he is quite mistaken. Dr. 
Johnson in no work that we know of says that “ birds set.” 
In the folio edition of his Dictionary, now open before us, 
he says— 
“ To Sit. —To brood ; to incubate. 
“As the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them 
not, &c.— Jer. xvii. 11. 
“She mistakes a piece of chalk for au egg and sits upon it 
in the same manner.— Addison.’’ 
“ Sitter. —A bird that broods. 
“ The oldest hens are reckoned the best sitters .— 
Mortimer.” 
“ Sitting. —Incubation. 
“Whilst the hen is covering her eggs the male bird 
amuses her with his songs during the whole time of her 
sitting. — Addison." 
Our correspondent will find, if he refers to later authorities, 
such as Walker and Webster, that they all agree with Dr. 
Johnson, and that the verb sit applies to hens, and the verb 
set to plauts.] 
WERE MONKS EVER USEFUL ? 
“ At a recent meeting of our Mechanic’s Institute a 
dispute arose as to whether at any period in England the 
benefits conferred by monastic institutions outbalanced the 
evils of which they were the origin. They founded vine¬ 
yards, but they drank deep of its wines. They were hos¬ 
pitable, but they were ambitious. They furnished Dunstans 
and Thomas a Beckets, as well as Williams of Wyckham, of 
Malmsbury, and of Westminster. It was determined to ask 
the opinion of the Editor of The Cottage Gardener, as 
the parties contended without either convincing the other.— 
-, Secretary.” 
[The question is far too wide for full discussion in our 
pages, but we must state that we think no one who lias 
studied the history of the Middle Ages, that is, of the cen¬ 
turies between the arrival of William the 1st, and the 
accession of Henry the 8tli, but will have the conviction 
forced upon him that Monasteries were then our only 
schools of literature and of the arts of civilisation. The 
Monks were our only - historians, architects, and gardeners. 
It is scarcely too much to say, that none but they could 
either read or write throughout England. Not a noble 
could sign his name ; and so gross was the ignorance, that 
to bite the seal of a deed with his “ w r ang tooth,” was one 
of the best signs of assent to its contents that a Baron 
could give. In times such as those, tlxe establishment of 
Monasteries was the establishment of so many storehouses 
and centres of civilisation; the only places where the 
treasures of literature, and of the arts could be preserved 
from the consequences of the laborious idleness of war and 
hunting, to which all other classes but Monks were devoted. 
If you wish for fuller demonstrations of what we have 
advanced, refer to Turner’s History of the Middle Ayes, or to 
Merryweather’s excellent volume, Glimmerings in the Dark. 
From the latter we will extract what is most appropriate to 
our pages:— 
“ The effects of monastic institutions upon agriculture 
deserve particular mention ; in the early days the monks by 
: their own labor converted sterile wastes into fertile and 
I productive lands; soil which had been undisturbed for a 
| thousand years produced a golden harvest; and forests of 
I primeval growth were felled, and brought a rich revenue to 
| the house of God. We learn from Bede, that Esterwine, 
Abbot of Wearmouth, used to assist his monks in their 
j rural labors; he employed himself in guiding the plough, 
| winnowing the corn, and even forged instruments of hus- 
I bandry at the anvil; in fact the abbot gloried in the humility 
of the monk. Even Thomas a Becket, with all his 
haughtiness and pride, did not refuse to participate in such 
labors; it is said, that after he was made Archbishop of 
Canterbury, he would go into the fields and help the monks 
reap corn and make hay. Michael, of Ambresbury, Abbot 
of Glastonbury, in the year 1235, applied himself especially 
to the tilling of the abbey lands ; we learn from monk John, 
that he repaired all the ploughs that had been spoilt in 
the time of his predecessor, and provided sixteen new 
ones. The lands which had been alienated from the old 
abbey, but which he obtained back again by vigorous 
efforts, he had tilled and cultivated for the benefit of 
the monastery. It must have been a pleasing scene of 
rural industry, the labors of those busy monks, with two 
score ploughs at work; with fields glorying in their abundant 
crops, lands crowded with luscious fruits, and vines bending 
beneath the weight of grapes; with droves of near nine 
thousand head of cattle; fine fish-ponds, busy mills 
and barns, overflowing with gathered fruits; we cannot 
accuse the monks of sloth, or entertain many fears, that 
poverty and starvation were heard to raise their dismal 
cry at the gates of Glastonbury in vain. The ecclesiastics 
were also agriculturists, manured their lands and brought 
them to a high state of cultivation. Richard, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, and successor of Thomas a Becket, was very 
industrious in farming the church lands; he enriched the 
soil with dung and chalk, which Peter of Blois intimates 
was a common practice among the bishops. Indeed, by 
these labors, England became so celebrated for its fertility, 
that William of Poitiers calls it a storehouse of Ceres, from 
the richness and abundance of its corn. 
“ Besides this application to the labors of the field, the 
