292 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[August 8. 
preserved on account of their beautiful colour, tlieir 
transparency, and peculiar flavour. 
Asparagus, may still he encouraged by moderate ap¬ 
plications of salt sown in showery weather. 
Cabbage. —Sowing for the main crop should be well 
attended to up to the 12th of August; and one sowing 
should be made for the last time about the 20tli to 
stand all the winter in the seed bed. The early sown 
plants should be pricked as soon as they can be handled. 
Chervil. —A» sowing should now be made in a shel¬ 
tered corner for standing the winter. 
Onions may be sown to stand the winter in the seed 
*bed from the 18th to the end of August. If intended 
for use as young onions throughout the autumn and 
winter, they should be sown about the 12th. Onions 
now approaching maturity should have their tops gently 
pressed down. The back of a wooden rake is a very 
good article for this purpose, but it may also be very 
well performed with a pole, or a light soft broom. 
Those put for storing should not stay longer on the 
ground than actually needful. Our practice is (and it 
is ono that seems to answer very well) to provide our¬ 
selves with ties of the proper length, either willow 
shoots or yarn, and set to work pulling and bunch¬ 
ing, cleariug and binding or tying, into moderate 
sized bunches; each onion gets a twist round, as it is 
drawn, in order that it may rise clean; and they are 
then at once conveyed under shelter, and hung up in 
open sheds or dry lofts, where they dry gradually, main¬ 
taining their silvery colour and natural flavour through¬ 
out the season. Any infected ones are at all times 
easily observed. A wet day, after the onions have been 
nicely dried, is chosen for handling and cleaning them 
over, when a little of the outside skin will fall off, 
causing them to look clean and shining, and to feel 
firm. We do not approve of their being exposed out of 
doors, or in the sun, after being ripe and drawn; for 
even if no rain falls on thorn, the dews of night and the 
hot sun by day discolours them, and causes their fla¬ 
vour to be hot and rancid. 
Winter Spinach, as previously advised, should be 
well prepared for, and tlie main crop sown, by the 12th, 
but not later, as even one day or two later makes so much 
difference in the strength of this vegetable for winter 
and early spring production. Another sowing may be 
made later by a week or ten days, the produce of which 
will be but trifling until the spring, but which will not 
start to seed so soon as the main crop. 
Potatoes. —Of the early varieties now taking up, the 
middling-sized ones may be advantageously put by for 
seed. We place such on the floor of lofts to harden 
aud green. There can be but little doubt that after the 
late hasty rains and sultry close atmosphere, the foggy 
nights and some slight frosty mornings, that there will 
be again a general outcry about the progress and ra¬ 
vages of disease—more particularly amongst the late 
planted potatoes. As to people stating that it comes 
upon them all at once, that they examined their crops 
last week, or only a few days since, and could not ob¬ 
serve any disease, which may be very true, but it shows, 
at the same time, a great blindness; and a good deal of 
nonsense no doubt is, and will be, uttered upon the 
occasion, as in former years; but we have never been 
able to discover, throughout the season, any one’s po¬ 
tatoes that were entirely free from the old enemy—over 
which we have so long observed the sudden fluctuations 
of atmospheric changes to have so much influence. 
Those who insist on planting late, will, as a natural 
matter of course, have the most to complain of through 
their own folly. In this locality (Devonshire), through 
the general early planting for this last year or two, the 
disease lias affected the potatoes but very slightly, parti¬ 
cularly during the last season, when the crop was most 
abundant, of veiy good quality. All the early and half- 
early varieties, too, that were planted early this season 
are also producing an abundant crop of good quality. 
We have a piece of the old Devonshire lied, a variety 
almost lost in this locality, as strong and healthy as 
they were previous to the first appearance of the dis¬ 
ease, which have bloomed and produced a fine crop of 
berries. 
James Barnes. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
OUR VILLAGE WALKS. 
By the Authoress of“ My Flowers.” 
There is something inexpressibly striking and interesting 
in the white cliffs that bound and characterize our dear old 
Island Home ! They gave to her her most ancient name ; 
they have been the theme of song from the earliest days— 
and “ The white cliffs of Albion ” will, to the end of time, 
be dear and lovely in her children’s eyes. There is beauty, 
too, in the swelling undulations that separate the restless 
ocean from the fertile plains and valleys that distinguish our 
happy land, especially in those we know by the name of 
Southdowns. Range after range of these soft, grassy hills 
stretch along our southern coast, covered with sweet herbage 
for innumerable flocks, and forming a bold and beautiful 
barrier against the storms that sweep along the shore. As 
we travel from the inland districts towards the coast we 
perceive a gradual change taking place in the aspect of the 
country: the trees first lessen in size, and become inelegant 
in their forms, from the prevalence of the strong sea breezes 
that pass over them so much in one particular direction as 
to give them a kind of hump-backed shape, never observable 
hut in such situations; then succeeds an air of wildness, and 
an occasional appearance of bleakness, mingling with the 
rich pastoral scenery, announcing the near neighbourhood 
of a new and formidable feature in the world’s amazing 
structure! At length we perceive the quiet swell of “ the 
hills that encircle the sea,” with their deep chalky chasms 
and bluff headlands, and the innumerable windmills that 
mark the presence of towns lying low in the snug valleys ; 
and what an indescribable feeling arises when we reflect that 
the ocean—the restl^k roaring, mysterious ocean—stretches 
itself at their feet! The first sight of the sea, which some¬ 
times meets the eye like a silver edging to the horizon, 
and sometimes bursts upon it in all its glittering expansive¬ 
ness, is always interesting and affecting, whether we view it 
for the first time or after a lengthened absence. It is such 
a wonderful portion of the earth’s surface that it is impos¬ 
sible to contemplate it in any of its moods without deep awe, 
it is so beautiful—so terrible—so unquiet! Stretching from 
east to west—from north to south—covering so large a 
portion of the globe—playing so vast a part in the service 
of God aud man—governed by such wondrous laws—and 
restrained by such mighty power! Can any natural object 
address our hearts more forcibly ’? Can anything speak 
more loudly and impressively of God ? Does not every wave 
that breaks upon the sounding shore, as it advances farther 
and farther on its appointed way, declare His might? Why 
should that wide-spreading body of irresistible force advance 
and recede with so much methodical exactness ? Why 
should it not rush onwards with overwhelming force and 
sweep away all before it ? Why should not the gale dash 
the mountainous waves over hill and valley, engulphing the 
whole earth ? Why should it suddenly, yet steadily, refuse 
to advance another step, even one little inch, amid all its 
