123 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 29, 1859, 
Wellington Hoad Nursery, so there is no mistake at 
all about the hardy endurance of these seedlings; and 
Mr. Shirley Hibberd, with that enthusiasm for which he 
deserves the thanks of all true lovers of their garden, 
has succeeded in forming a large band, or belt, of Spergula 
round a bed in the way of a broad verge. Still, for the 
great bulk of growers, the true and sure way for seed¬ 
lings is to plant them out the first season for nursing, 
to allow the nurslings to spread out into wide patches, 
and to divide those patches into half a dozen plants 
when they are large enough for it: and so increase the 
number till there is a sufficient quantity of them to make 
a respectable beginning on a corner of the lawn. Any 
other way, or a shorter road, is so much enthusiasm ; and 
we.all know that enthusiasts fail just as often as they 
excel: therefore, they are neither good nor sure guides. 
Three years from this time will be soon enough m the 
eyes of sound, sober practitioners to make such “ fishing” 
inquiries about this Spergula. By that time it will have 
made root and progress in the land ; and people—that is, 
the great body of amateurs, will begin to learn its use 
and its value, and its superiority over all kinds of grass. 
Yes, only be beginning to learn all about it. Some here 
and some there will be more advanced; but it requires a 
long time for any such great change and improvement to 
possess the public mind. 
Why was Tritoma uvarici advertised in our columns the 
other day at 9s. per dozen, after standing over twenty 
3 r ears at 30s. for the same number ? Why did the whole 
country and kingdom discard, in three short years, the 
thirty years’ practice of placing the glowing colours in 
the centre of all flower gardens P Or why did the Horti¬ 
cultural Society fail most complete^ to raise the wind 
for Chiswick, and got up the elements to Kensington 
Gore? Why, indeed, but because the sound, practical 
knowledge of The Cottage Gardener sets its face de¬ 
cidedly against the things as they were ? There was no 
Cottage Gardener in 1838, when the first move was made 
by your humble servant for the exhibition of fine-leaved 
and variegated plants, and when he exhibited over four 
hundred of them at one show, contrary to the feelings of 
every man at Chiswick; but the disadvantage of no 
backers, and the harmlessness of croaking and of sar¬ 
casm, could hold back the movement only for seven years. 
I had a hand in managing the first hot-water apparatus 
that ever -was erected in Scotland; and I well recollect 
that as much was said against it as against any new 
project I ever heard of; and I cannot call to mind any 
prqjeet of improvement in our line since, which did not 
first obtain its largest share of public notice from the 
grumblers who dreaded every such movement as they 
did the enemy of mankind. 
Well, then, after being so well seasoned to that sort of 
thing, and with such a practical guide as The Cottage 
Gardener at my back—if you believe me, all that can be 
said against covering our lawns with this Spergula can 
make no more impression on me than the loss of a few 
seedling Geraniums by the frost. The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener took up the subject as most promising and most 
practical when the old Horticultural and the Doctor con¬ 
fessed they knew no more about it than was given in the 
last spring seed-catalogue of the Messrs. Henderson, of 
St. John’s Wood Nursery. But the plant was not a 
stranger to many of us of The Cottage Gardener. 
When I was at Kew last summer I asked Mr. Craig, of 
the flower-garden department, to take me to Spergula 
pilifera in the botanic grounds. There it was sure 
enough—the same plant I had grown for years and years 
—under the wrong name of Sagina procumlens, but which 
we usually called the “ carpet plantand in connection 
with it I "never hear now or read of Delhi or Lucknow 
without a shudder, for fear that some of the happy school¬ 
girls from India, whom we used to allow to dance on our 
carpet plant, may have been massacred there. I have 
known one patch of it, not much over a yard square, to 
have been danced on three or four times a-day for 
months ; and all the garden men said, the more dancing 
the better the plant did. That was on the poorest and 
most sandy soil in the three kingdoms ; and at Forest 
Hill, where I next saw it, the soil was the stiffest red clay 
I ever saw. To me, therefore, it is a very old plant 
indeed; and I pledge all my feathers that in a few years 
people will be delighted with the wonderful change it 
will make about the house, and over one’s grounds, to 
say nothing of the entire expense of mowing being done 
away most completely. Nobody can conceive the full 
beauty of it without seeing it in full trim, and as to any 
crotchet or difficulty about doing it, there is none—it is 
just as plain as growing Pompones. But we cannot 
expect impossibilities from it, or that it is to spring up 
like Jonah’s Gourd. Nothing but pains and patience 
will succeed with it. The rate at winch it will increase 
after once getting established is most astonishing ; and 
except it be the strong-rooted Docks, Dandelions, and 
Cocksfoot Grass, I do not think that any of the Grass 
breeds or Daisies will have any chance to live with it. 
D. Beaton. 
HOW TO FARM TWO ACRES AND MAKE 
THE MOST OF THEM. 
(Continued from page 110.) 
third season—matters retrospective and 
PERSPECTIVE. 
It will now be time to look backward and see what has 
been done the past season, how the pre-ai’ranged plans 
of a former year had answered, what crops there had 
been, and, in fact, how the whole plan had worked; 
and if anything had failed to come up to the point 
expected of it, then another course might be adopted 
another season, this being the most favourable time for 
making such a review of things done and projected. 
Taking it for granted that the Clover that has been doing 
duty for two seasons may be now broken up, the crops 
to succeed this Clover lea must be taken into consi¬ 
deration ; and assuming the cultivation to be directed 
to the production of crops available for the cow and 
pigs—or, if not that, then a Wheat crop, or some one 
that will find a sure and ready market—it will perhaps 
be better to continue the description of cropping through 
another year in the same way as it has hitherto been 
done. In this place it is proper to remark that the 
system we have begun with cannot well be carried on 
more than four years—that is, two years each to the 
plots of Clover occupying so considerable a portion of 
the ground; this crop, as we have said before, not suc¬ 
ceeding on the same ground again in less time than a 
lapse of six or eight years. This being the case, some 
other crop must be thought of which will come into use 
to continue the succession; and the cropping, or rather 
the cultivation, must be conducted with a view to ensure 
this, which may be done in the following manner :— 
crops op the fourth season. 
The most important of these crops must be put in the 
autumn before; the portion to be operated upon being 
100 rods of Clover lea, and 20 rods that had been Potatoes. 
The Clover lea being broken up either by spade or deep 
plough the first week or so in October, or before if con¬ 
venient, and the Potato ground turned up roughly, with 
a good dressing of dung added to it as soon after the 
crop has been taken away as convenient, the future crops 
may be put in ; which we advise to be thus, enumerating 
the fixed crop of Grass and Clover for clearness each 
time:— 
GO rods Grass, the same as before. 
80 „ Clover (young), which will afford a good crop if all 
go on well. 
„ Wheat on part of old Qlover lea. 
10 
