July 18 .] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
233 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
M W 
D D 
JULY 18—24, 1850. 
Weather near London 
in 1849. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R.&S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
bef. Sun. 
Day of 
Year. 
18'Th 
Wliitethroat’s song ceases. [Moth seen. 
T. 73°—50°. S.W. Rain. 
5 a. 4 
0 15 
Q 
19 F 
Sun’s declination, 20° 53' n. Humming Bird 
T. 73°—44°. S.W. Rain. 
7 
5 
0 43 
10 
5 55 
20 S 
Margaret. Goat Moth seen. 
T. 73°—47°. S.W. Rain. 
8 
4 
1 16 
1 1 
21,Sun 
8 Sun. aft. Trinity. Musk Beetle seen. 
T. 69°—44°. W. Fine. 
9 
3 
1 52 
12 
6 2 
22 M 
Magd. Sedge Warbler’s song ceases. 
T. 69 0 — 5 fi°. S.E. Fine. 
11 
2 
2 34 
13 
6 5 
23 Td 
iTurtle Dove last heard. 
T. 6/°-48°. S. Rain. 
12 
0 
3 24 
14 
6 7 
204 
24 W 
Swallow-tail Moth seen. 
T. 67 0 — 46 °. S.W. Rain. 
13 
VII. 
rises. 
© 
6 9 
205 
On the 25th of July, 1804, at the residence attached to his office of chief 
superintendant of Kensington Gardens, died William Forsyth, who 
merited much for his acquirements as a horticulturist, but whose good 
fame, we think, is more than jeopardized by his pretensions to a dis¬ 
covery and a reward to which he was not entitled. He was born some 
time in 1 737, at old Meldrum, in Aberdeenshire, and was there early 
initiated in the horticultural arts, but completed his pupilage by being 
placed, during 1 763 , under Philip Miller, at the Chelsea Garden of the 
Apothecaries’ Company. At Miller’s recommendation, he obtained the 
head gardenership to the Duke of Northumberland, at Sion House—a 
situation which he resigned in 1769 to succeed his old master in the 
curatorship of the Chelsea Garden. He retained this appointment until 
1/84, and then resigned it upon succeeding Mr. T. Robinson in the office 
of the Royal Gardener at Kensington and St. James’s. He held this 
appointment until his death, publishing during the tenure of his office, 
“ Observations on the Diseases, Defects, and Injuries in all kinds of Fruit 
and Forest Trees, with an account of a particular method of cure invented 
and practised by the author,” 1791 ; and “A Treatise on the Culture and 
Management of Fruit Trees,” 1802. In 1804 we have seen he died; and 
but for one circumstance, the testimony of his friends that he was “ bene¬ 
volent, unaffected, modest, and worthy,” might have been inscribed 
without comment beneath his portrait. We are told that from the year 
1768 down to 1789 he devoted much time to the cultivation of fruit and 
forest trees, but especially toward the discovery of some composition to 
remedy their incidental diseases and injuries. He laid claim to success 
in his research after this sanitative composition ; for we have seen that he 
published “ an account of a method of cure invented and practised” by 
himself ; and government gave him ^1500 for the discovery. They pro¬ 
posed to double the sum upon certain facts being established by him; 
but in the meantime Mr. Knight, the late president of the Horticultural 
Society, stept forth in the discharge of a distasteful public duty—to dis¬ 
pute Mr. Forsyth’s title to any reward. We have had occasion to examine 
minutely into the merits of the contest, and regret to have arrived dt the 
conclusion, that the composition Mr. Forsyth employed was borrowed 
from Hitt, and other writers upon the cultivation of trees ; and that the 
cures he alleged to have effected were not of the extent or importance 
certified. Mr. Forsyth’s plaister for healing the wounds and restoring 
to vigour decayed trees, was as follows :—One bushel of fresh dolvdufig; 
half a bushel of lime rubbishy that from ceilings of rooms is preferable, 
or powdered chalk; half a bushel of wood ashes; one-sixteenth of a 
bushel of sand: the three last to be sifted fine. The whole to be mixed 
and beaten together until they forma fine plaister. Now, there is nothing 
in this compound sufficiently differing from others recommended by his 
contemporaries and predecessors to entitle him to call it his invention ; 
but supposing that an arbitrary difference in the proportions of the con¬ 
stituents suffices to sustain such claim, still what can be said in defence 
of his assertion, that that composition has filled with young wood the 
hollow trunks ol timber trees, and that he had in his possession parts of 
the trunk of a tree in which the new wood, by the efficacious power of his 
P 00r tree’s plaister,” had been made to incorporate with the old ; and 
that trees so cured were rendered as fit for the navy as though they had 
never been injured ? Every gardener, every physiologist, knows that this 
ccruld not be true. New wood and new bark may be induced to grow over 
old wood, but no power, no application, will induce them to unite to it. 
It is quite true that Dr. Lettsom, Dr. Anderson, and others, who ought to 
have been more circumspect, certified that Mr. Forsyth’s statements 
contained “ nothing more than the truth;” but they afterwards either 
acknowledged that they did so on evidence that ought not to have been 
deemed sufficient, or that they meant no more than to testify in favour of 
“the utility” of Mr. Forsyth’s plaister. Of this there can be no doubt, 
because every application excluding the rain and air from a tree’s wound 
is of great “ utility.” It is also quite true that Mr. Forsyth received a 
parliamentary grant of monej% but it was granted upon inconclusive evi¬ 
dence ; and, as Mr. Knight observes, affords a much better proof that he 
was paid for an important discovery than that he made one. The whole 
of the correspondence on the subject, between Mr. Knight and Dr. Lett¬ 
som, can be referred to in the 74th and 75th volumes of The Gentleman's 
Magazine , and may be read as a warning how literary controversy should 
?wt be conducted. Dr. Lettsom had rashly attested to the truth of that 
of which he was not a competent judge, and had not the noble candour 
to seek a fair examination ; whilst Mr. Knight poured forth insinuations 
and charges in a wrathful tone, very unbefitting either a philosopher or a 
gentleman. 
Meteorology of the Week. —During the last twenty-three years, 
from qbservations at Chiswick, it appears that the average highest and 
lowest temperatures of these seven days are 72.1° and 52°, respectively. 
The greatest cold observed during the time, 40°, was on the 24th in 1838. 
There were 82 fine days, and 79 days on which rain fell, during the 
period. 
Insects.—W henever surveying 
the works of his species—from the 
minute perfection of the chrono¬ 
meter, marking with faultless regu- 
RANGE OF BAROMETER—RAIN IN INCHES. 
July 
1841. 
1842. 
1843. 
1844. 
1845. 
1846. 
1847. 
1848. 
1849. 
' 18 
B. 
129.742 
\ 29.634 
29.993 
29 . 8 J 2 
29.975 
29-784 
29.752 
29-718 
30.091 
30.086 
29.450 
29.294 
30.038 
30.027 
30*088 
29.913 
29.741 
29.622 
R. 
— 
0.02 
0.50 
— 
— 
0.22 
— 
0.06 
19 
B. 
r 29 .813 
129.795 
29.842 
29754 
29.753 
29.709 
29.891 
29.723 
30.058 
30.030 
29 828 
29.574 
29-938 
29.853 
29.776 
29499 
29.603 
29.591 
R, 
0.07 
0.01 
0.02 
0.39 
— 
0.05 
0.01 
0.22 
: 20 
B. 
129.699 
20.735 
29 . 75 G 
30.174 
30.041 
29.995 
29.870 
29.512 
29.677 
129.493 
29.690 
29.690 
30.067 
29.955 
29-828 
29.866 
29.299 
29.526 
R. 
0.29 
0.12 
0.01 
— 
0.24 
— 
— 
0.07 
0.14 
21 
B. 
z 29.665 
1 . 29.469 
29.864 
29.718 
29.818 
29.682 
30.275 
30.227 
29.921 
29 . 90 s 
29.905 
29.883 
29.873 
29.867 
29758 
29.677 
29.982 
29.821 
R. 
0.10 
0.01 
— 
— 
— 
0.04 
— 
0*21 
— 
22 
B. 
f 29.828 
30.128 
29.808 
30.190 
29.935 
29.923 
30.167 
29.836 
30.055 
1 29724 
29.695 
29.613 
30.044 
29.921 
29.873 
30.020 
29.812 
29.959 
R. 
— 
0.02 
0.08 
— 
0.05 
— 
— 
— 
23 
B. 
r 29.999 
30.197 
29-781 
29.999 
29.910 
29.888 
30.228 
29.854 
29.768 
1 29.915 
30.153 
29.457 
29.910 
29 . 90 .} 
29.825 
30.193 
29.819 
29.556 
R, 
0.01 
— 
0.08 
— 
0.05 
— 
— 
0.38 
0.40 
24 
B. 
r30.133 
30; 118 
30.128 
29.948 
29.924 
29.793 
30.149 
29.903 
29.519 
l 30.085 
29.927 
30.016 
29.916 
29.905 
29.425 
30.016 
29.863 
29-438 
R. 
0.32 
0.08 
1.16 
larity the progress of time, to the flying leviathan of the railroad, which 
almost keeps pace with that progress rendering neighbourship nearly 
universal—a man inclines to feel elevated with a consciousness of the 
power of his species, we know of no bptter antidote than to direct his 
thoughts to the almost invisible Acaridoe , by which his property, his 
health, and even his life, are destroyed. The Acaridoe, or Mites, are 
everywhere around and about us. The Harvest Bug (Leptus autumnalis ) 
is a mite that will soon be afflicting us with an irritation scarcely less 
tormenting than that suffered by those who are infected with the itch. 
This disease is also caused by a mite (Acarus scabiei ), represented in our 
wood-cut, and of which the very aspect is demoniacal. We might enu¬ 
merate many other similar pests ; but we will conclude our notice of this 
class by observing, that with death by dysentery is associated another 
mite, Acarus di/se7iterioe. Our property is even more subject than our 
persons to be injured and destroyed by these minute creatures. The Red 
Spider, so destructive to our plants, and figured in a former volume, is a 
mite (Acarus tcllarius ); flour is apt to become uneatable from the in¬ 
roads of another [Acarus farina :); the straw¬ 
berry is infested by the Gamasus baccarum ; 
our cabinets of specimens fall a prey to one of 
the same tribe; and even our old cheeses are 
consumed by the well-known Acarus siro, re¬ 
presented, as magnified, in the annexed outline 
figure. What ground for boasting, then, has he 
whom the very mites prey upon and subdue ? 
No. XCIV., Vol. IV. 
