May 20. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
147 
gardens, not only for the ice itself, bnt as a storehouse 
for preserving fruits and vegetables, the health, unless 
due precautions are taken, is sure to he injured. The 
evil arises from the partial operation of heat and cold. 
One part of the body is heated or cooled sooner 
than another—the circulation and perspiration are 
unequal, and the whole system put out of order. 
Various distressing diseases are the consequences, such 
as ague, fever, costiveuess, erysipelas, rheumatism, stiff 
joints, &c. The greater number of pensioners on that 
! excellent institution, The Gardener’s Benevolent Society, 
are, in consequence of such maladies, suffering the 
penalties, I fear, in many cases, of want of care (in the 
exercise of their profession) in not guarding the body 
from such extreme changes. 
Whenever a cold is caught, it should be immediately 
attended to by opening the bowels gently, and 
restoring by a warm bath the natural circulation of 
the fluids in the body, so as to open the pores of 
the skin and allow free perspiration. The wearing 
of flannel next the skin is a great preventive of 
catching cold. I have worn it ever since I was : 
twenty years of age, and though I have worked in 
Pineries and Orchid-houses nearly all my life, I have j 
never had a serious illness all the time. Colds 1 have 
had, but by due attention to them as soon as caught, 
I I got rid of them. In addition to flannel, when : 
syringing, steaming, turning bark-pits, and such like 
extreme heat and moisture operations, I always wore 
a pair of wooden-soled shoes, vulgarly called clogs. 
These were used as protections against change from 
heat to cold, and are no less useful as protectors against 
the change from cold to heat. In winter there is 
pruning and nailing to be done. These operations do 
not allow of sufficient bodily exercise to excite warmth 
in the limbs, such as digging, hacking, or wheeling 
would give; hence, the hands and the feet become 
benumbed, and these parts of the body are much colder 
i than the rest. In such a state, if the gardener has to 
j go into the Pinery, Orchid-house, or any other highly- 
| heated forcing-house, the circulation of the blood is , 
greatly accelerated, and the numbed parts become very j 
i painful, because the vessels are contracted with the cold, 
and cannot allow the volume of blood to pass ; hence, I 
they (the parts) become diseased, and stiff joints and 
rheumatism takes place. 
If these circumstances occur often, and are neg¬ 
lected, the whole system, in time, will be disordered: 
—opening medicines, and, probably, the doctor, will 
be requisite, and many months of suffering from 
the acute pains of such fell diseases will have to be 
endured; and in many cases, some of which I know 
in this neighbourhood, the limbs are diseased for 
the remainder of life. I state these matters strongly, 
and do most earnestly press them upon the serious 
consideration of my young friends. I would advise 
them, above all things, to be careful of sudden changes. 
A man may endure cold or heat with impunity, and have 
good health. I have a son in Demerara, by no means a 
strong constitutioned youth, but he endures the excessive 
1 heat, and enjoys excellent health; though on a recent 
visit to England he told me that he frequently had to 
change his linen three times in a day, and always 
twice. We well know that the West Indies ore as hot a 
climate as any part of the world, yet men live there to 
i the usual term of human existence. Then, again, in 
I cold countries, such as Siberia and Lapland, the human 
being exists, and has good health; but if these 
inhabitants of the coldest and the hottest regions of the 
earth could be transported from one to the other every 
day, or even twice a day, what could we expect but 
| shattered constitutions, diseased limbs, and wasted 
lungs. Yet the gardener in large forcing establishments 
I is, in a measure, in the same predicament as a man 
would be who lived one day in Demerara, under a 
temperature of 80° or 90°, and the next in the cold 
regions of the north in a temperature twenty or more 
degrees below the freezing point. Therefore, again, 1 
say to the gardener, take great care of yourself in such 
changes, and let the change be as gradual as possible; 
that is, if you wish to pass the evening of your days in 
tolerable ease and health. 
Never rush out into the open air, especially in 
winter, without wiping yourself previously perfectly 
dry, and putting on warmer clothing; and never go 
into the hothouse with numbed fingers, or feet, 
without severe friction of the benumbed parts, to 
restore the force and natural circulation before going 
into the higher temperature of the hothouse. Many 
persons, when their feet or hands are very cold, hold 
them to the fire, a most injudicious practice, and almost 
sure to bring on chapped hands and chilblains, if not 
worse diseases. A far better plan is to immerse the 
parts in cold water, or, in extreme cases, to rub the 
numbed parts with snow, if any is on the ground, then 
wipe them dry, and rub with flannel, or rough towels, 
thus the limbs gradually become warmed, and ill 
effects of the change are prevented. However, in 
many cases the work in the hothouse may be so ar¬ 
ranged as to be performed altogether and finished 
in the evening. The out-doors work may be done 
also for an entire day, so that the changes from 
high to low temperatures will not be so sudden. 
Indeed, the natural feelings of the gardener will suggest 
this method to his mind in winter, but in spring and 
summer the change will not be so perceptible, and is 
then liable to be disregarded, and less precautions 
taken. Hence, many take cold even at such seasons 
more than in winter. I advise this—take equal care of 
your health all the year round, and let that care be one 
of the rules of your conduct never to be neglected. 
This, then, is one of the golden rules to be deeply 
impressed upon your memory. Take care of your 
health. I do not suppose for a moment that a well- 
informed gardener will injure his health by late hours 
spent in drinking, or ale-house society ; I consider that 
his mind is so trained as to the fitness of things, as to 
be entirely above such degrading, miscalled pleasures 
of low society. The next grand rule is,—Take care of 
your money. But my allotted space is full, and, there¬ 
fore, I must defer that important rule to the next 
opportunity. T. Appleby. 
{To be continued.) 
THINNING IN TIME. 
There are few things in which the public taste has 
undergone more changes than in the article of flowers; 
the patience with which our ancestors pursued the 
calling of florists and botanists has but few parallels 
at the present day. The Tulip, Ranunculus, and 
Auricula, which, at best, do not increase quickly, were by 
them sedulously cultivated, and many other things 
received a care at their hands which we have too hastily 
abandoned, but which the last few years has, in some 
measure, restored again. Now, it is not my purpose here 
to compare the past with the present in the flower¬ 
gardening line, but to compare certain rules laid down 
in the code of laws which legislators have laid down for 
the observance of the flower-gardener of the present 
day, as compared with what is expected to be done in 
the kitchen-garden at the same time. 
The bedding-out flower-gardener plants his various 
favourites as thickly and closely together as his means 
will allow, while the admirer of show Carnations, Tulips, 
Dahlias, and of a host of other flowers, plants them out 
at wide distances apart, and if he contemplates any of 
