195 
MOf 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. June 30, 195' 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
1 
Weather near London in 
1856. 
D 
A 
D 
W 
JUNK 30-JULY 6 , 857. 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R. X- S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day 0 1 
Year. 
] 
! 30 
Tu 
Barrenwort (Epimedium). 
30.114-29-997 
80—49 
N.W. 
_ 
48 a. 3 
18 a. 8 
11 50 
9 
3 18 
161 
1 1 
\V 
Cinquefoil (Alchemilla). 
30.202—30.178 
71—44 
N.E. 
— 
49 
18 
morn. 
10 
3 30 
182 
‘2 
Tn 
Dodder (Cuscuta). 
30.193—30.162 
72 — 3 G 
N.E. 
— 
50 
18 
0 10 
11 
3 41 
183 
1 3 
F 
Sea Lungwort (Pulmonaria). 
30.217—30.170 
73-37 
N.E. 
— 
50 
17 
0 26 
12 
3 52 
184 i 
4 
S 
Buckhean (Menyanthes). 
30.100—30.022 
78—48 
N.W. 
01 
51 
17 
0 50 
13 
4 3 
185 
5 
Sun 
4 Sunday after Trinity. 
30 014—29.993 
76—45 
W. 
— 
52 
16 
1 23 
14 
4 14 
186 
6 
hi 
Bog Pimpernel (Anagallis). 
30.002—29.913 
77-49 
W. 
02 
53 
16 
2 8 
15 
4 24 
187 
Meteorology of the Week. —AtChiswick, from observations during the last twenty-eight vears, the average highest and lowest 
temperatures of these days are 74.8°, and 52.0°, respectively. The greatest heat, 97°, occurred on the 5th, 
on the 3rd, in 1849. During the period 115 days were fine, and on 81 rain fell. 
in 1852 ; 
and the lowest cold, 35°, 
| In the burial place called “ The Poors Ground,” in the 
| Hackney Road, may be read this memorial :— 
“ Mr. Thomas Fairchild, 
Of Hoxton, Gardener, 
Who departed this life 
On the 10th of October, 1729, 
In the Cord year of his age.” 
| An inscription not likely to attract attention, yet 
; marking the resting-place of the body of no common 
member of “ those whose talk is of grafting and digging, 
who smell of bast mat, and who tuck one corner of their 
blue apron through its waist-tye.” 
Mr. Fairchild was one of the few gardeners of bis 
time who united a love of science with the practice of 
his art. He was a nurseryman and florist residing at 
Hoxton, where his establishments, known as “ The City 
Gardens,” were the most extensive and best near London, 
and were greatly frequented, not only for their agreeable 
situation, but for the variety, rarity, and excellence of 
their productions. He was also one of the latest 
English cultivators of a vineyard, for he had one there 
; as late as 1722. Long residence in the vicinity of the 
; metropolis made him painfully conscious how, by 
degrees, plants ceased to be eultivatable there which 
had flourished amid its houses in his younger days. To 
enable the citizens to contend against this growing 
plant mortality, he published, in \722, The City Gar¬ 
dener, containing the most experienced method of culti¬ 
vating and ordering such evergreens, fruit trees, flowering 
shrubs,flowers, exotick plants, dc., as will be ornamental 
and thrive best in the London Gardens. In its preface 
he says: “ I have for upwards of thirty years been 
placed near London, on a spot of ground where I have 
raised several thousand plants, both from foreign coun- 
I tries and of the English growth, and in that time, and 
from observation I have made in the London practice 
of gardening, I find that everything will not prosper in 
London, either because the smoke of the sea-coal does 
hurt to some plants, or else because those people who 
| have little gardens in London do not kuow how to 
manage their plants when they have got them. Yet one 
may guess at the general love my fellow-citizens have 
for gardening, in the midst of their toil and labour, by 
observing how much use they make of every favourable 
glance of the sun to come abroad, and of their furnishing 
their rooms or chambers with basins of flowers, or 
bough- pots, rather than not have something of a garden 
before them.” 
As Mr. Fairchild was alarmed by the gradual ex¬ 
tinction of plants, so we, on the other hand, are now 
astonished to find such statements of what still flourished 
in his time within the city’s bounds as are contained in 
these extracts :—- 
“ Pears bear very good fruit, as may be observed in 
j very close places and confined alleys about Barbican and 
j other places about Aldersgate Street, JJishopsgate Street, 
j &c.” “ To these we may add the Vine, which will do very 
! well in London, either against walls or without them. 
| In Leicester Fields there is a Vine that bears good grapes 
; every year.” 
“ Figs prosper extremely in the city, and the smoke 
has no ill effect upon them. The Reverend Mr. Bennet 
j has some of them in his garden at Cripplegate. They 
have ripened very well in the Rolls Garden in Chancery 
Lane!' 
“ There are now two very large Mulberry trees grow¬ 
ing in a little square yard, about 1G foot square, at Sam’s 
Coffee House in Ludgate Street” 
Besides the work we have mentioned, Mr. Fairchild 
communicated a paper to the Royal Society, On the 
different and sometimes contrary motion of the sap in 
Plants (Phil. Trans., No. 384, 1724), and the following 
extracts will show his thoughts and experiments relative 
to subjects which still interest the gardener and botanist. 
He grafted Laureola, an evergreen, upon Mezereon, a 
deciduous shrub, and Evergreen Oak of Virginia upon 
the common English Oak, yet both retained their leaves 
and flourished, “ which plainly shows that the juices rise 
upwards in winter.” Mr. Fairchild adds, that “ the Crab 
stock makes the wood of the Apple tree (grafted on it) 
more firm and lasting than that on the Apple stock, and 
Peaches and Almonds budded on Plums are more lasting 
than those on Peach trees.” “ I inarched a Pear tree upon 
two Pear stocks in March, 1721-2, which is now in a 
good flourishing condition, with a branch in blossom, 
and receiveth no nourishment but by the two inarched 
branches, the roots being out of the ground, and though 
it was done above two years ago it is now shooting 
suckers out of the roots, which proveth that the branches 
| are as useful to support the roots as the roots the branches, 
and it is, therefore, no wonder that so mauy trees mis- 
! carry in planting, when there are no branches left on 
j the head.” 
Hoxton is in the parish of Shoreditch, and when 
Mr. Fairchild died he gave, by his will, the sum of <£25, 
| to the trustees of the Charity School and the church* 
l 
1 
1 
No ? CCCCLVII. Von. XVIII. 
