116 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
June 
vegetables that are produced on small gardens which 
previously to the society being formed bore nothing 
but weeds.” 
We can bring a hundred testimonies to the same 
most gratifying and most important facts. Then, 
surely, the establishment of such societies requires 
no advocacy, for such results, with a trumpet tongue, 
summon every one on to aid in arranging institu¬ 
tions so fraught with benefits to those to whom we 
are more indebted for food and raiment than'to any 
other class of society. 
As examples are much more influential than pre¬ 
cept, and as for many years we have been earnest 
pleaders for the general establishment of A illage 
Horticultural Societies, we will devote our allotted 
space to-day to a history of one now flourishing at 
Pytcliley, in Northamptonshire.* 
This village society has been established 12 years, 
and is going on with abundant success. By “ success ’ 
we do not mean merely either that its funds are more 
than equal to its expenditure, or that its meetings 
are well attended by the wealthy and the gay, but 
we mean that it has secured also these gladdening 
consequences, “ The gradual improvement which has 
taken place dining the last 12 years in the comforts, 
respectability, and general habits and character of 
the cottage population of Pytchley, affords encourage¬ 
ment for the establishment of similar societies in 
other villages.” 
Pytchley is but a scattered village in an agricul¬ 
tural district; the parish contains less than three 
thousand acres, and the land “ is a mixture of good 
and bad pasturage, tillage, and copse; of gentle 
slopes, some towards the sun and some away from 
it.” The number of its inhabitants are but 611; “ it 
has no resident squire, no inhabitant who keeps a 
gardener, nor until last year (1848) any artificial 
garden-heat beyond that under a few cucumber 
frames.” Much, less has it any of Edgington’s mar¬ 
ques, or any baronial hall in which the gatherings 
of kitchen-garden stuff, orchard fruits, and border- 
flowers can be spread out for view, but “ the place 
where the shows are held (the only suitable place in 
the parish) is the village school-room, 20 feet square 
by 12 feet high.” 
Immediately after school, on the evening of the 
day before a show, the stages are raised, and the 
festoons, arches, and other devices, are decorated 
with flowers, and fixed in their places. The show 
day, of course, is a holiday to the scholars, and then 
and there are exhibited all the best that village gar¬ 
dening can produce in its season. “ Fruits and vege¬ 
tables usually grown for food,” “ Open-air flowers,” 
“ Greenhouse or Room plants,” “ Bees,” “ the Neatest 
* We recommend to all who desire a fuller account, and the 
necessary rules for regulating such a society, a little tract by the Rev. 
Abner W. Brown, and priced only twopence, entitled “The History, 
Rules, and Details of a Horticultural Society established in 1837, at 
Pytchley.” It is just published by Messrs, Wertheim, Paternoster 
Row. 
Cottage,” and “ Children’s Nosegays, of wild flowers 
only,” are among the subjects for which prizes are 
offered, and the result shall be told in a letter we 
received from the kind-spirited rector himself:— 
“ The cottagers grow twice as much cabbages, 
potatoes, and onions, from the same little patch, and 
of a quality many times superior, to what they did 
six years ago. The flowers are much more nume¬ 
rous in every cottage; the beer-house less frequented; 
the church better attended; the Sunday more de¬ 
cently kept; the cottagers more comfortable. Many 
a poor man who formerly never tasted rhubarb, for 
instance, has his rhubarb dumplings for supper now 
in May and June; he has his onions and leeks to 
his bread and cheese at lunch; he has his salad and 
radishes for Sunday dinner, and often for supper, 
and lias a large mess of kidney beans, and broad 
beans, and marrowfat peas for his children’s dinner; 
and you may usually mark the members of our 
society by their general steadiness of conduct, and 
the an of comfort in their cottages as compared with 
many of then- neighbours. The farmers, too, enjoy 
their share of the competition, and have a delight in 
promoting the comfort of tlieh poorer neighbours, 
and in leaving their prize things for sale at night. 
The people are pleased at our endeavours to do them 
good, and we generally succeed in making the day 
of competition one of happiness. You would not 
imagine what English wild flowers are, unless you 
have seen them in such nosegays as clever tasteful 
children can make up; I certainly never did. I am 
anxious not to ascribe to merely external matters 
a greater importance than they deserve, but cer¬ 
tainly such a carrying out of the parochial system 
as little village institutions of this kind afford the 
means, has the happiest effect upon the comforts, 
the character, and the morals of the poor, and is a 
powerful aid to the clergyman in his efforts for their 
improvement in more important interests.” 
And what has been the expense—what have been 
the means whereby so much of unalloyed good has 
been achieved ? The reply is before us. Dining the 
twelve years of the Society’s existence the average 
number of members has been 75, and of subscrip¬ 
tions £4 8s 8d a year. The total number of speci¬ 
mens exhibited has been 7200, and of prizes paid 
2700. The expenditure has been kept to square, on 
the whole, with the receipts, though not always year 
by year; sometimes a balance being reserved, and 
once or twice a small debt unavoidably incurred. 
The total amount of subscriptions received has been 
£53 4s 6d; of money taken for admission of visitors, 
or for fruit and vegetables given by exhibitors for 
the benefit of the Society, £36 10s 4d; and of dona¬ 
tions from non-members, £29; in all, £ 118 14s lOd. 
The expenditure has been £117 15s Od; viz., prizes 
paid, .£63 8s 5d; expenses of shows, £11 7s 8d; pur¬ 
chase of stages, plates, materials, stock, printing, &c., 
£42 17s 5d. There have been thirty shows, at which 
the average exhibition of specimens has been 240, 
and of prizes given 90 (in money, £2 2s 3d); the 
average receipts at the door, &c., about 24s; the ave¬ 
rage expenses about 7s. 
We need say no more, for after such details, and 
the unimpeachable evidence of such results, no vil- 
