3‘,'G 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 30, 1850. 
knows. But these substances, although powerful decompos [ 
ing agents, and often sufficiently so to answer the purpose, are 
not in the truly caustic state, but may he rendered so by the 
addition of freshly-slacked stone lime, and they will show a 
greatly increased power when applied to the hotbeds. In 
mixing, add one part and a half of lime to one part of potash, 
or equal parts of lime and lye. The chemical laws and pro¬ 
cesses by which this result is obtained I will not take space to 
describe. 
Carbonate of soda, washing soda, or soda ash, may be used 
in place of potash, with precisely the same effect and equal 
success, by mixing freshly-slacked lime with the soda in the 
same way as with potash. 
If you wish a very quick and powerful heat, add to the hot 
solution of potash or soda fluid glue or distillery swill, blood, 
animal offal, or Peruvian guano, say one quart of solution of glue, 
or animal offal, or one pound of guano to the gallon of potash, or 
soda mixture, or equal parts of potash or soda mixture and 
swill. After applying the mixture, add plenty of boiling water. 
The hotter all the solutions are the better. 
The potash or soda alone, I think, will prove more powerful 
than the solution of glue, and will continue its effects for a 
longer time; but with the addition of glue, animal matter, swill, 
or guano, will meet the utmost requirements of the gardener in 
the coldest seasons. 
In using potash or soda as advised, these substances are not 
lost, but will be retained by the bed of manure, and will be 
worth their cost as fertilisers in the garden. — (American Gar¬ 
dener's Monthly.) 
THE MAEKET GAEDENSABOUND LONDON. 
The gveatest wonder, perhaps, to a countryman on approach¬ 
ing London, is the vast extent of land under fruit and vegetable 
cultivation, computed at not less than 200,000 acres, the average 
rental of which is more than £9 per acre per annum, and 10s. 
per acre taxes. The most successful cultivators allow about one 
load of manure to every thirty square feet of land, the cost of 
which is about £12 per acre. The number of hands employed 
is, on an average, about fifty women and twenty men to every 
hundred acres. The wages the receive varies from 5s. to 10s. 
per week for women, and from 15?. to 20?. for the men ; hut as 
the greater portion of the work is done by contract, their earnings 
vary according to their skill and application. As spadesmen, 
they are unrivalled. By far the greatest portion of them are 
from Ireland. The principal vegetable crops are Asparagus, 
Rhubarb, Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Lettuce, Onions, Sea- 
kale and Radishes ; but every known vegetable of best descrip¬ 
tions only are grown. The greater part of their stocks of seeds 
arc grown amongst themselves, so that they can at all times rely j 
upon the crop being true to the root they require. 
Perhaps the least profitable crop at the present time is Rhu¬ 
barb, once the best paying of any. There are still several hundred 
acres grown, particularly in the neighbourhood of Deptford, 
where the first plants were grown by Mr. Myatt, about forty 
years ago. This gentleman has raised most of the approved 
varieties now in general cultivation. 
Asparagus, from the large quantity grown, appears to he a 
profitable crop, and always meets with a ready sale. To describe 
the cultivation of each article would occupy a large book (and 
a valuable one it would be). I will content by giving a descrip¬ 
tion of two or three of the leading articles, which will suffice to 
give an idea of the general method of cropping, beginning with 
Asparagus, a crop which succeeds well in the vale of the 
Thames. The ground is naturally light and sandy, well pul¬ 
verised by continually stirring and cropping, and only needs 
to be liberally manured to prepare it for the seed; which is 
sown in drills in April, two drills to each bed of three feet wide, 
allowing two feet more for alleys, which are planted with 
Cauliflower, Spring Cabbage, or a little later with French Beans. 
On the beds, between the rows of Asparagus, are sown Lettuce, 
Radishes, &c. This same system of cropping is continued for 
three years—the length of time considered necessary—before | 
commencing to cut the grass. The distance allowed from plant 
to plant is six inches (in the lines). In the spring of the third 
year the beds are prepared for cutting a light crop, care being 
taken not to exhaust the plants too much the first season. 
Early in March, should the weather be favourable, the beds are 
lined off, and the alleys turned upon the beds to the depth of 
about nine inches. 
It is a peculiar fancy of the London consumers to have the 
grass grow about twelve inches long, blanched within one inch of 
the (op. As this small portion only is consumed, it nppears 
ridiculous that so much waste should be grown for so little of 
utility, when the whole might be grown for consumption, and 
with less trouble. In answer to an inquiry from a grower how 
this was, his reply was, “Why, bless ye, they wouldn’t look at it 
in the market. It would only sell for sprue if grown green.” 
An instrument like a saw at the end of a long handle is used for 
cutting the grass. It is then very neatly tied in bundles with 
small willows, each bundle containing fifty or one hundred 
grass. At the end of the season, and when the uncut grass has 
ripened, it is cut down close to the surface. The beds are then 
forked over, and the soil levelled from the beds to the alley, 
which are well manured and planted with winter greens, or, 
as is generally called, Collets, for winter and spring supply.— 
(American Gardener's Monthly.) 
VARIETIES. 
Walter Savage Landob, one of the most accomplished and 
most highly endowed both by nature and by fortune of our living 
men of letters, has done, or rather has tried to do, almost as 
much for his country in the way of enriching its collections of 
noble trees as Evelyn himself. lie laid out £70,000 on the 
improvement of an estate in Monmouthshire, where lie planted 
and fenced half a million of trees, and had a million more ready 
to plant, when the conduct of some of his tenants, who spitefully 
uprooted them and destroyed the whole plantation, so disgusted 
him with the place, that he razed to the ground the house which 
had cost him £8000, and left the country. He then purchased 
a beautiful estate in Italy, which is still in the possession of his 
family. He himself has long since returned to his native land. 
Landor loves Italy, but he loves England better. In one of his 
“Imaginary Conversations” lie tells an Italian nobleman:— 
“ The English are more zealous of introducing new fruits, shrubs, 
and plants, than other nations ; you Italians are less so than any 
civilized one. Better fruit is eaten in Scotland than in the most 
fertile and cultivated ports of your peninsula. As for flowers, 
there is a greater variety in the worst of our fields than in the 
best of your gardens. As for shrubs, I have rarely seen a Lilac, 
a Laburnum, a Mezereon, in any of them, and yet they flourish 
before almost every cottage in our poorest villages. We wonder 
in England, when we hear it related by travellers, that Peaches 
in Italy are left under the trees for swine ; hut, when wc our¬ 
selves come into the country, our wonder is rather that the swine 
do not leave them for animals less nice.”—( Flowers and Flower 
Gardens by Richardson.) 
Poets as Gaedenees. —Most poets have a painter’s eye for 
the disposition of forms and colours. Kent’s practice as a painter 
no doubt helped to make him what he was as a landscape- 
gardener. When an architect was consulted about laying out 
the grounds at Blenheim, he replied “you must send for a land¬ 
scape-painter : ” lie might have added—“ or a poet.” Our late 
Laureate, William Wordsworth, exhibited great taste in his small 
garden at Rydal Mount. He said of himself—very truly, though 
not very modestly perhaps,—but modesty was never Words¬ 
worth’s weakness—that Nature seemed to have fitted him for 
three callings—that of the poet, the critic on works of art, 
and the landscape-gardener. The poet’s nest—(Mrs. Hemans 
calls it “a lovely cottage-like building”)—is almost hidden in a 
rich profusion of Roses, and Ivy, and Jessamine, and Virginia 
Creeper. Wordsworth, though he passionately admired the 
shapes and hues of flowers, knew nothing of their fragrance. In 
this respect knowledge at ono entrance was quite shut out. He 
had possessed at no time of liis life the sense of smell. To make 
up for this cleficeucy,Jie is said (by De Quincey) to have had “ a 
peculiar depth of organic sensibility of form and colour.” Mr. 
Justice Coleridge tells us that Wordsworth dealt with shrubs, 
flower-beds and lawns with the readiness of a practised landscape- 
gardener, and that it was curious to observe how lie had imparted 
a portion of his taste to his servant, James Dixon. In fact, 
honest James regarded himself as a sort of arbiter eleyantiarum. 
The master and his servant often discussed together a question 
of taste. Wordsworth communicated to Mr. Justice Coleridge 
how “he and James” were once “in a puzzle” about certain dis¬ 
coloured spots upon the lawn. “ Cover them with soap-lees,” 
said the master. “That will make the green there darker than 
the rest,” said the gardener. “ Then we must cover the whole.” 
