147 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 11, 1860. 
PRESERVATION OF LARGE FLOWER-POTS. 
Very large flower-pots arc more likely to be broken than 
small ones, not merely by the weight of soil they contain and 
the greater force of a slight concussion, but by the vital force of 
the roots, which is much greater, and breaks more pots than 
many would think probable. Nothing will withstand this force. 
A Mushroom has been known to lift a flagstone of twenty 
pounds weight three inches in one night; and walls are often 
thrown down, and pavements thrown up, by roots of trees in 
the accumulated and persevering power of years. Pots in 
orchard-house trees are particularly liable to suffer in this way, 
and are well worth banding with iron hoops. 
The cut represents a pot so “ fixed,” which we recently saw 
at a horticultural exhibition. Holes are easily drilled through 
the pots, and rivets applied as represented. Of course, the 
hoop can be painted any colour to suit the taste of the owner.— 
(American Gardener't Monthly .) 
TWO-ACRE FARMING. 
A correspondent, who, however, gives no name, writes us as 
follows in relation to the work “ How r to Farm Two Acres Pro¬ 
fitably,” and his strictures we insert at full, with Mr. Robson’s 
comments upon them. 
Our complainant says— 
“Mr. Robson has published ‘How to Farm Two Acres 
Profitably.’ Admitting, for the sake of brevity, that the di¬ 
rections he gives in that little work are very good, yet he has 
omitted a very important matter—the point, in fact, on which 
the whole practicability of the undertaking rests. He has not 
said a word of the value of the products of the cultivation ; not 
a word of the costs of labour, manure, seeds, rent, rates, &c., 
incident to the farming ; no balance-sheet to show that it can 
be done profitably, or even without loss. Of course, no one 
example would be likely to be strictly applicable to others in its 
pecuniary results; but either Mr. Robson has experience in the 
management of such a limited extent of land, and in that case 
should have given his Dr. and Cr. account of it, or, if he has 
not that experience, then he has written very much at random, 
and the part of the title ‘profitably’ may be a misnomer, ancl 
lead astray those that might be tempted to reduce his precepts 
to practice.” 
'The somewhat sharp rebuke contained in the above would 
have been more severe had it borne the signature of some one 
well versed in rural affairs ; but as it is, I am constrained to 
suppose the writer is one of those who like everything to have 
that, smooth and straightforward appearance of ultimate success 
which quack medicines, absurd railway speculations, and South 
American mining schemes are always embellished with; a 
certain cure, or cent, per cent, for our money, is always assured 
us by the prospectuses of these undertakings. But I should 
wish our complainant to understand that I do not belong to 
this class. I should rather stop short of publishing what 1 
really do know than advance a single idea that I do not. It is 
perfectly true I could have given a considerable extent of in¬ 
formation about the value of produce, cost of cultivation, and 
the other items mentioned above, but I could not have given 
■ anything like a satisfactory return without swelling out the 
little book much beyond the size intended for it to be ; and with¬ 
out entering into a multitude of figures, which I am persuaded 
the general public would care nothing about, a balance of 
Dr. and Cr. account could not have been given that was ap¬ 
plicable to any but one locality. Take, for instance, the follow' 
ing example:—A friend of mine is paying £16 per acre rent for 
land near London, while another has land as much like it as 
possible for £1 16s. a few miles from Liverpool. I believe the 
cost of labour, or I should say labourers’ wages, are about alike 
in both places, and one of the articles of considerable value on a 
large farm—that is, hay, is much dearer in Lancashire than in 
London ; but the particular purpose to which the ground near 
London is put to enables the occupier to pay the extra rent and 
other expenses, and make his holding as profitable as the other 
does. But to enter into all this in a small work is out of the ques - 
tion, and to give a sort of tabular form to the assets and expendi¬ 
ture would have been easy enough, and it could have been made 
to assume a favourable aspect even without withholding a single 
fact, or publishing a falsehood; for, as one of our great political 
writers used to say, “ any idea whatever might be supported and 
proved correct by figures.” Have not extensive railway and bank¬ 
ing accounts been adopted, and accepted and passed by shrewd, 
keen, calculating men over and over again, and the whole in time 
found hollow ? I therefore look with much suspicion when I 
see a long array of figures added to give weight to a proposition, 
when merits were not sufficiently apparent to show themselves 
without this scholastic parade. But in our own case let us 
take another example. 
A neighbour of mine has four acres of Potatoes, which,, 
notwithstanding the high price they are selling at, will barely 
realise a little—not £5 an acre—over the expense the seed, 
cost him in the spring : out of this he has to pay for all 
cultivation, digging up, mulching, &c., making the crop of 
Potatoes a dead loss to him. Now, I ask our complainant, 
would it be fair to found a balance-sheet on an undertaking like 
this ? and yet there was no mismanagement, everything was 
done to secure a crop that a reasonable expenditure suggested. 
Potatoes to plant the piece were brought from a distance of 
150 miles or more by the cheapest routes, and bought by a 
practical man well versed in such matters, and yet the result 
was as stated. But I will give an opposite case occurring at the 
same place. 
Some years ago he sold the crop of Potatoes on the ground 
for £45 per acre, the buyer taking them up and marketing 
them within a given period. Now, to give an estimate founded 
upon this unusual occurrence is equally erroneous ; and such, 
cases may be multiplied. There are many ways in which the 
term “ profitably” may be applied as well as in pounds, shillings, 
and pence affairs ; and those who insist on reducing all things 
to the standard of current coin are not always the most eco¬ 
nomical. A fictitious ideal value is of necessity given to many 
things ; and in the case of “ Two-Acre Farming.” where the pro- 
duce is in a great measure expected to go to the table of the 
occupier, it would be unjust to tax him with £20 and odd in an 
ideal calculation for Potatoes for the present year for half an 
acre of ground, when, perhaps, he has no more really good than, 
might be consumed by a family of six or eight persons in the 
season, and that with economy in their use. The fact is, that 
the work was intended to show how a two-acre plot could be 
made to furnish the greatest possible quantity of useful produca 
at the least possible expense, leaving to the occupier to make 
what arrangements he thought proper with that produce; but 
the supposition was that most of it, probably, would be consumed 
by his household excepting the milk from the cow, and that all 
denizens of a town know the full cost of. The garden vege¬ 
tables, the fruit, the pig, and a portion of the milk, if not the 
whole, in the shape of butter—fresh and salt—we suppose might 
find their way to his table at one time or other; and might they 
not be profitably used then ? To others I leave the task of 
fixing the value of such things ; and it generally happens that 
those who undertake to appraise their own results put the figures 
pretty high, and in that case a profitable return is made out. 
Such, however, was not my view of the matter: I endeavoured, 
from practical observation and experience, to place before the 
reader the cheapest and best modes by which the greatest amount 
of useful produce would be in a series of years obtained from 
the quantity of ground named, and at the least expense in 
labour and material, and if this be done it will, in general, 
be profitable; but to assert that it will always be so, and to 
attempt to prove the same by column after column of figures, 
is just as likely to mislead the reader as Moore’s predictions of 
the weather. The crop of Potatoes this year is scarcely one-tenth 
part of what, they are in favourable seasons, and Hops are about 
one-eighth of what they were last—where is the individual that 
