THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, December 20, 1856. 203 
Row, London, to take into consideration the sewage of 
London and the amalgamation of the Irish charred peat 
with it; His Royal Highness the Black Jamaica Pine 
Apple, President, in the Chair, supported on his right by 
the Black Prince Strawberry, and on the left by His Royal 
Highness the Prince of Wales, son of the former. The 
Vice Chair was filled by the noble, healthy, and luxuriant 
Mr. Cabbage, from the Fulham Fields, supported on the 
right by Mr. Black-spine Cucumber, and on the left by Mr. 
Celery, from Jamaica Level. 
The President rose, and said, “ Mr. Vice and brother 
gentlemen, this is not the first time that I have appeared 
before large assemblies; but I assure you that it is the first 
time I have ever met to discuss the present large and 
momentous question regarding more food for our now 
increasing wants (hear, hear). I wish every one of you to 
give all the information you possess to this very important 
meeting concerning liquid-manure and charred peat as a 
food for your families before we separate, as most of us 
will have to attend another large meeting in Covent Garden 
to-morrow morning (hear, hear). In the first place, I 
shall give my little experience with liquid-manure, and it 
is now just about thirty years ago since my family became 
acquainted with that splendid liquid food; and it was pretty 
strong, too, as it flowed from cow-houses, piggeries, stables, 
and the like. This was at Ashburton House, Putney Heath. 
We kept as a profound secret what we were fed upon, for 
in those days our best friends would not even shake hands 
had they known what luxurious food we lived on (great 
laughter). Until then we never weighed more than two 
pounds. Look at me now (hear, hear, and great cheering 
from Mr. Melon). Therefore I say, Brown stout for 
ever (roars of laughter). At table I often laughed when 
observations used to be made at seeing such a large, fat 
fellow. ‘ No go,’ says I, ‘I must not divulge the grand secret.’ 
I only laughed behind my crown (a significant nod from the 
Spanish Onion, with general cheers). This was the com¬ 
mencement of liquid food with my illustrious family.” 
The President then sat down with great applause, followed 
by general cries for Mr. Vice and Mr. Spanish Onion. 
Mr. Onion rose, and said that “ he had long understood 
that his friends in England throw all their best vegetable 
food down drains, while, in his country, every drop of 
liquid and every bit of solid are saved, and put on to the 
ground. The President tells us that his acquaintance with 
liquid-manure only goes back to thirty years. In my 
country we can go back to three or four hundred years. 
Every woman in our country knows the value of what you 
call filth or waste, and saves it up as if it were gold; and so 
it is—it is the soil’s gold (loud cries of hear, hear). I ask 
you, when your master gets a sovereign does he throw it 
into a waste drain? (Laughter, and “ I wish he may get it ” 
from Mr. Gherkin, of Bedfordshire.) Manure in any shape 
to the land is like gold dust to the owner. The owner 
cannot flourish without money, nor can the earth unless it 
receives a fair proportion of organic food, which, in our 
country, we call humus (hear, hear). If the land is poor in 
humus, you may expect a shabby return from it (hear, hear). 
Here am I, gentlemen, as a fair specimen of my country, 
weighing nearly four pounds (laughter). Look at my 
English brother opposite. Why, he has not arrived to 
three quarters of a pound (roars of laughter). Excuse 
my broken English, gentlemen. Did you think we are a 
different sort? Not a bit of it; dissect us both, and you 
will find just the same number of scales or envelopes, for 
he is descended from the Onions of Spain. Why, my 
brother is completely starved for want of organic matter. 
It is true we kept the thing a profound secret, not only 
because we were making a good thing of it (laughter), but, 
as the President said in his case, people would have nothing 
to do with us had they known what sort of food we were 
fed upon (great cheering). I can assure you, gentlemen, I 
feel a lively interest in this great meeting, and seeing in the 
English papers that Sir Benjamin Hall had lectured the 
board of health, and thinking that that board might be 
composed of some of the vegetable kingdom, as some 
one said they had wooden heads, I came over to 
assist my English brothers in this great undertaking (im¬ 
mense cheering); but, to my great surprise, I find that 
that board is composed of linen-drapers, tailors, shoe¬ 
makers, barbers, and the like (roars of laughter), evidently 
not the right men in the right place (tremendous cheering). 
In conclusion, I do hope that we shall be able to show to 
the world that all towns make an immense quantity of rich 
manure, whether solid or liquid, and that it ought not and 
must not be thrown into the sea” (tremendous applause). 
(To he continued .) 
IMPROVING THE TURF OF A LAWN. 
I should like to give the history of changing a very bad 
lawn into a very beautiful one, for, doubtless, there are many 
of your readers in the same predicament that I was before I 
applied to you to know what to do. 
Having stated my case I received instructions, written by 
one of your contributors, whose unerring judgment and prac¬ 
tical knowledge, when given to the world on paper, lead the 
amateur much more frequently to success than failure—at 
least, I can speak for myself. I know that such success is 
your most gratifying reward. Thus much in the way of 
thanking you. 
The directions I read are to be found in an early number 
of February last. (No. 384, p. 328.) Now to the modus 
operandi. 
Early in January I set a boy and a girl to take out all the 
daisies, plantains, and broad-leaved weeds they could put 
their eyes or fingers upon. They were each armed with a 
dinner-knife cut down to about four inches in length, and 
ground, chisel fashion, at the end; and, during the open 
weather of the first two months of the year, they managed to 
get out about (certainly not less) a cart-load of different 
sorts of weeds. The lawn contains about 1100 square yards, 
under a quarter of an acre. In March, as the weather per¬ 
mitted, I had twenty-five loads of mould wheeled on in an 
unscreened state, and after that was levelled down I had two 
loads of finely-sifted cinder-ashes equally scattered over it. 
The whole was then well raked with hay-rakes, the lumps 
all broken down, and the larger stones drawn together in 
heaps and taken away. The same thing was then done 
with fine rakes. I then had it rolled — it was at this time 
perfectly dry, the weather being very much so at that time— 
and then raked up again, after which I had twenty-one 
pounds * of fine lawn grass-seeds sown, and then it was 
gently raked, and finally rolled. 
On th e first of April hardly any grass was to be seen, and 
I think, by a good many of my friends not so well up in the 
matter as my instructor, I was looked upon as a fit and pro¬ 
per representative of that day; but on the first of May— lo, 
the change! — there was no mould to be seen. Early in 
June it was mowed, but one way only for the first time, and 
since that all has gone “ merry as a marriage-bell,” and it 
promises, with proper treatment, to be everything that can 
be desired next summer. 
I assure you that three years ago I looked upon it as a 
hopeless task to attempt to regenerate it, and, although I had 
some pretty good flowers, they were swamped by the masses 
of daisies in every direction. 
The quantity of mould and proportion of ashes were not 
in accordance with those prescribed, but my necessity com¬ 
pelled me to cut them down. 
My only object in asking you to publish this is to give 
courage to those who may feel dismayed at the appearanc e 
of their lawns.— Anti Belt,is. 
THE PEAR—ITS PROPAGATION AND 
MANAGEMENT, &c. 
There is so much resemblance between the various 
stocks for fruit-trees, as to size and general training, 
that it is needless to repeat in full detail every pro¬ 
ceeding connected with them. However, in order to 
make my directions explicit, I will slightly touch on the 
history of the stocks in each kind. 
The Pear, as our readers will mostly know, is worked 
both on the Quince stock and the wild Pear. There 
* Fourteen pounds from Messrs. Sutton, of Reading, and seven from Mr. 
Denyer, of Gracechurch-street, being coarser, for sowing under trees. 
