June 13.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
155 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M 
D 
w 
D 
JUNE 13—19, 1850. 
Weather near London 
in 1849. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef.Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
13 
Tn 
Small Blue Butterflv appears. 
T. fi/°—34°. 
N.E. 
Rain. 
44 a. 3 
15 a. 8 
11 l 
3 
0 24 
164 
14 
F 
Young Swallows fledged. 
T, 72°—40°. 
N.E. 
Fine. 
44 
15 
11 36 
4 
0 11 
165 
15 
s 
Ivy casts its leaves. 
T. 70°—18°. 
E. 
Fine. 
44 
16 
morn. 
5 
0bef2 
166 
16 
Son 
3 Sun. aft. Tkin. Young Redstarts fledged. 
T. 68°—46°. 
N. 
Fine. 
44 
17 
0 6 
3 
0 14 
167 
17 
M 
St. Alban. Sweet William flowers. 
T. 72 0 — 40 °. 
N.W. 
Fine. 
44 
17 
0 33 
7 
0 27 
168 
18 
To 
Tadpole’s first feet seen. 
T. 75°—41°. 
W. 
Fine. 
44 
17 
0 57 
8 
0 40 
169 
19 
w 
Meadow Brown Butterfly seen. 
T. 6o°—43°. 
S.W. 
Rain. 
44 
18 
1 21 
9 
0 53 
170 
On the 18th of June 1835, aged about 73, died William Corbett, one 
of the most useful men who has lived during the present century. If he 
I had never written any other works than the Letters of Peter Porcupine 
' and his Political Register , however we might have admired the purity 
and power of their language, they would not have entitled him to a notice 
in our pages ; nor would his Grammars have strengthened hi3 claim to 
our notice, excellent though they are, and beneficial though they have been. 
' But he has another title to be noticed by us—he was a cultivator of the j 
' soil from childhood—wrote most attractively upon the subject—and from 
being a day labourer in Kew Gardens raised himself to the position of a 
! member of the legislature of his countr} r . His father, an agricultural 
labourer, possessed a small patch of ground near Farnham, in Surrey, and 
it was there that Cobbett was born, and passed his childhood ; and of how 
he passed it, we shall allow him to be himself the narrator. 
“ At eleven years of age my employment was clipping box-edgings and 
weeding beds of flowers in the garden of the Bishop of Winchester, at | 
the castle of Farnham, my native town. I had always been fond of beau¬ 
tiful gardens : and a gardener, who had just come from the King’s gardens 
at Kew, gave such a description of them as made me instantly resolve to 
work in these gardens. The next morning, without saying a word to any 
one, off I set with no clothes, except those upon my back, and with 
thirteen halfpence in my pocket. I found that I must go to Richmond, j 
and I accordingly went on, from place to place, inquiring my way thither. 
A long day (it was in June) brought me to Richmond in the afternoon. I 
Two-pennyworth of bread and cheese, and a pennyworth of small beer, j 
which I had on the road, and one halfpenny that I had lost somehow or . 
other, left three-pence in my pocket: with this for my whole fortune, I , 
was trudging through Richmond, in my blue smock frock and my red , 
garters tied under my knees, when staring about me, my eyes fell upon a : 
little book in a bookseller’s window, on the outside of which was written, 
‘ Tale of a Tub; price three-pence.’ The title was so odd, that my 
curiosity was excited. I had the three-pence, but then I could have no 
supper. In I went, and got the little book, which I was so impatient to 
read, that I got over into a field at the upper corner of Kew Gardens, 
where there stood a hay-stack. On the shady side of this I sat down to 
read ; the book was so different from anything that I had ever read before, 
it was something so new to my mind, that though I could not at all 
understand some of it, it delighted me beyond description ; and it pro¬ 
duced what I have always considered a sort of birth of intellect. I read 
on till it was dark, without any thought about supper or bed. When I 
could see no longer, I put my little book in my pocket, and tumbled j 
down by the side of the stack, where l slept, till the birds in Kew Gardens 
awaked me in the morning; when off I started to Kew, reading my little j 
book. The singularity of my dress, the simplicity of my manners, my 
confident and lively air, and,'doubtless, his own compassion besides, in¬ 
duced the gardener, who was a Scotsman, I remember, to give me victuals, 
find me lodging, and set me to work. And it was during the period that 
I was at Kew that the present king (George the 4th) and two of his 
brothers laughed at the oddness of my dress, while I was sweeping the 
grass-plot round the foot of the pagoda. The gardener seeing me foiid 
of books, lent me some gardening books to read; but these I could not 
relish after my ‘ Tale of a Tub,’ which I carried about me wherever I 
went; and when I, at about twenty years old, lost it in a box that fell 
overboard in the Bay of Fundy, in North America, the loss gave me 
greater pain than I have ever felt at losing thousands of pounds.’’ 
We need not touch upon the causes of that visit to America, but we 
may content ourselves by observing that he there devoted himself to the 
cultivation of the soil; and upon his return he endeavoured to introduce 
the Maize, or as it is now frequently called “ Cobbett’s Corn,” among 
our field and garden crops. He published a treatise on the subject, 
entitled Cobbett’s Corn Book , promising by its means “ to see it growing 
in every labourer’s garden, and to see every man of them once more with 
a bit of meat on his table and in liis satchell, instead of the infamous 
potato.” In this he failed, as all must fail who do not consider before 
hand whether the climate of a country agrees sufficiently with that of the 
region from which they propose to bring emigrant plants. More useful 
works were his edition of Tull’s Husbandry , of which he said, “ from 
this famous book I learned all my principles relative to farming, gar¬ 
dening, and planting ;” his English Gardener , written on the principle 
that “ every young man should be a gardener, whatever else may be his 
pursuit;” The Woodlands, “taking every tree at its seed, and carrying 
an account of it to the cutting down and converting to its uses ;” and 
Cottage Economy, of which he was justified in saying, “ beyond all 
description is the pleasure I derive from reflecting on the number of happy 
families this little book must have made.” But we are warned to conclude. 
We have said that Cobbett was a most useful man, and he was so because 
he addressed himself directly, and in strong, plain language, on strong, 
plain facts, to the common sense of his countrymen. He wrote for the 
multitude, for the multitude of his own times only, and for no other 
multitude than that of the British Isles. To these, and for these, no 
man could or did write so effectively ; and this was his strong, his only 
firm Footing, which when he left, he invariably stumbled and fell. But 
he is gone ; and it has been scarcely too strongly said— 
Now in the quiet lone churchyard, 
Beside the growing corn, 
Lies gentle nature’s stern prose bard— 
Her nfightiest peasant born ! 
For Britons honor Cobbett’s name, 
Though rashly oft he spoke ; 
And none can scorn, and few will blame, 
The low laid heart of oak. 
Meteorology of the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations 
during 23 years, the average highest and lowest temperatures of the above 
days are "3.4°, and 51°, respectively. The greatest heat, 93°, was on the 
19 th, in 1846; and the lowest, 36°, on the 15th, in 1841. On 70 days 
rain occurred, and 91 were fair. 
Natural Phenomena Indicative of Weather. —Dr. Forster 
says, that when soot takes fire 
more readily than usual on the 
back of the chimney, or on the 
outside of pots and kettles placed 
on the fire, it indicates ap¬ 
proaching rain ; that it is similarly 
foreboded if the soot falls on the 
ground after being carried into the 
air from the chimney ; or if it falls 
down the chimney into the grate. 
The last phenomenon is readily 
explained, because soot absorbs 
moisture from the damper air as 
rain approaches, and thus becom¬ 
ing heavier breaks away from its 
slender attachment to the chimney 
walls. Smoke frequently serves 
as a similar indicator. Those 
accustomed to smoke a pipe early 
in the morning observe, that when 
the smoke hangs a long while in 
the air, and smells more strongly 
than usual, rain is not far off; and 
a good hunting day always follows. 
When the smoke from a chimney 
mounts up straight into the air, it 
is a sign of settled fine weather ; 
but when it sinks towards the 
ground rain soon follows. 
RANGE OF BAROMETER—RAIN IN INCHES. 
June 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
1847. 
1848. 
1849. 
C 30.040 
30.293 
29.843 
30.003 
30.157 
30.096 
29.778 
29.919 
30.118 
13 
B. 
\ 29.944 
30.153 
29.792 
29.940 
30.106 
30.094 
29.593 
29.499 
29.927 
R. 
_ 
0.14 
— 
— 
0.03 
0.12 
0.01 
/ 30.047 
30.094 
29.974 
30.030 
30.120 
30.106 
30.068 
29.974 
30.175 
14 
\ 29.906 
30.012 
29.907 
21J.999 
30.050 
30.074 
29.509 
29.924 
30.116 
R. 
_ 
— 
0.18 
— 
— 
— 
0.24 
— 
— 
/ 30.097 
30.048 
29.969 
no.046 
30.038 
30.243 
29.721 
29.833 
29.899 
15 
B. 
\ 29.895 
29.989 
29.959 
30.009 
29.905 
30.155 
29.509 
29.770 
29-791 
R. 
0.01 
_ 
— 
— 
— 
— 
0.18 
— 
— 
J 30.208 
29-095 
29.960 
ail .197 
29-844 
30.320 
29 . 75 s 
29.822 
29776 
16 
B. 
130.111 
29 990 
29 .981 
30.168 
29.794 
30.290 
29.566 
29.748 
29750 
R. 
_ 
_ 
— 
— 
— 
0.10 
0.09 
— 
r 30.079 
30.084 
29.979 
30.153 
29.814 
30.314 
29.590 
29.800 
29.975 
17 
B. 
\ 29.875 
30.058 
29.972 
29.925 
29.771 
30.243 
29.576 
29.754 
29.924 
R. 
_ 
_ 
0.04 
0.19 
— 
0.03 
— 
— 
/ 29.788 
30.041 
29.929 
29.757 
29.857 
30.210 
29.792 
29.992 
30.066 
18 
B. 
l 29.605 
29.888 
29.823' 
29.676 
29.739 
30.145 
29.618 
29.865 
30.038 
R. 
0.24 
0.12 
0.01 
0.05 
0.05 
— 
0.09 
0.07 
— 
f 29.689 
29.769 
29.954 
30.014 
30.039 
30.106 
29.965 
30.142 
29.906 
19 
B. 
\ 29.607 
26.688 
29.824 
29.858 
29.994 
30.054 
29.879 
30.062 
29-822 
K. 
0.08 
0.34 
0.01 
0.02 
0.01 
0.02 
No. LXXXIX., You. IV. 
