161 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 12, 1860. 
dence to warrant me in saying tliat I never said one-half 
of what might be said about the value of the said Sper- 
gulas, for there is more than one kind of it fit for our 
purpose, and that the Messrs. Henderson, of the Wel¬ 
lington Hoad Nursery, did not represent one quarter of 
the value of Spergula. I am deeper in it, therefore, than 
they are; and all that has been said against it has been 
mer6ly opinion w'ithout a grain of fact or evidence. There 
is nothing, therefore, heavier than chaff against it yet, or 
stronger than a haphazard opinion. 
When I was at Forest Hill in the middle of May, 1859, 
they were planting two large pieces of ground with 
Spergula pilifera, one on either side of a centre walk. 
The summer which followed, and the next winter, were the 
worst seasons for gardening since 1818, when I made the 
first observation on the weather with reference to gar¬ 
dening ; yet during last year—the worst year on record, 
probably, for such an experiment—the Spergula pilifera 
lias spread, and matted, and made a firmer tread-hold, 
than the best mixture of lawn grasses would do in two 
years of ordinary weather. At the Crystal Palace, where 
the grass came from seeds as by magic, and clean as a 
bed of Onions, they are yet afraid of people walking on 
it; but every one about the garden at Forest Hill, and 
all who called since that planting was finished, have 
walked on the Spergula-beds with, not only no hurt, but 
permanent good; for the more it is trampled under foot, 
or pressed down with the roller, the better it docs. I 
have said already how I used, for years, to make boys 
and girls dance on a patch of “ carpet grass ’’—another 
Spergula I had in a celebrated garden ; and without 
thorough good rolling once in ten days or so, the first sea¬ 
son or two, the Spergulas will not do well on light land. 
These arc bare simple facts, which all the opinions 
under heaven cannot controvert or gainsay. How “pre¬ 
posterous,” therefore, to blow the chaff of opinion against 
such practical evidence. I borrow the word “ preposte¬ 
rous” from the blower himself, as nobody now-a-days cares 
for opinions, whose opinion is worth caring for, unless 
they are supported by something which can be tested by 
figures or rules, just like measuring tiffany to a square 
inch. 
The price of plants of Spergula sufficient to plant an 
acre at present is about £15. I am old enough to re¬ 
member the time when an acre of lawn from such seeds 
as we use at present could not he sown under double 
that amount. When Mr. Sinclair wrote his “ Ilortus 
Gramineus Woburnensis,” £30 would not buy the right 
kinds of seeds for an acre of lawn ; and I am a good deal 
older than that “Hortus;” and ifanybodyhad the temerity 
then to predict that an acre of lawn could be sown down 
some day at a nominal cost of as many shillings as it 
would then require pounds to effect, there would have 
been no end of opinions upon the preposterosity of the 
assertion, if there is such a word. 
When Master George, who is now sucking his thumb, 
will be big enough, and rich enough, and sufficiently 
economical, after a rakish bout or two, to make up his 
mind to sow an acre of his own lawn with Spergula seeds, 
and finds it will just cost him 20.?., he will refer back, 
only as far as 1860, when, on the authority of The Cot¬ 
tage Gabdeneb, it would have cost nearly as many 
pounds. .But, in the meantime, it is necessary that some 
head, or heads, wiser than the rest, should take up the 
Spergulas as the Messrs. Lawson took to the promptings 
of the author of the grass book. That was the lucky 
move, in Hunter Street, Edinburgh, which has placed the 
Messrs. Lawson at the top of the tree, for I recollect the 
time when their Christmas tree was first planted. The 
Horticultural Society have the same opening now at 
Kensington Gore, to immortalise their farsightedness, as 
the Messrs. Lawson had when they opened the museum 
in Hunter Street, or Square; but will they embrace it, 
by planting the one half of the New Garden with Sper¬ 
gula, which is as certain of replacing Mr. Sinclair’s 
new grasses on British lawns, as his selections destroyed 
the influence of Tussoc and Cocksfoot grasses—the grand¬ 
fathers of our carpet lawns at present? Or will the 
Society experiment on an acre of it ? I fear not; such 
another luck as meeting with the Boyal Commissioners 
is too much to expect of a body who was never free from 
internal complaints from the cradle. Besides, Dr. Lindley 
is against such lawns, and the Council are generally 
guided in their ways and doings by his opinions; at least, 
they used to be before this lucky start. 
Mr. Summers occupies the same position now, in re¬ 
ference to carpeting our lawns with Spergulas, which 
Mr. Sinclair, then gardener to the late Duke of Bedford, 
obtained with reference to the proper kinds of grasses for 
the different kinds of land in pleasure-grounds, and he 
may have the good luck of being the first authority in 
the selections of sorts of Spergulas for the various kinds 
of soils. His nursery is now called the Crystal Palace 
Nursery, on the suggestion of the writer, for two reasons:— 
to make it to be more easily remembered in distant parts 
of the kingdom, as no one will ever forget the Crystal 
Palace Nursery, Sydenham, after once hearing of it as 
the grand depot for Spergula; and, secondly, in allusion 
to the boldness of the undertaking by a ntan who would 
employ his own mother to -gather Ferns for him to get 
prizes with. He has planted three-quarters of an acre 
of pilifera for a stock garden, to draw cuttings, offsets, 
and to gather seeds from to supply his customers, and 
the rest of his holding is under plants for sale. The sale 
is steadily increasing. For the quantity of No. 60-pots 
he sent out with Spergula plants in nine months, he paid, 
in trade price, £25, some odd. His extended experience 
has suggested several improvements in the management 
of Spergula lawns ; and next week, or very soon, I shall 
give the whole concern a thorough good sifting, for the 
good of those who will take to it. As to the croakers 
having any effect upon me, I can hold up against them 
firm as the pillars of Hercules ; but I like them, their 
“ eventualities ” are music to me—food to me, in fact. I 
could live on croakers for months together, and get fat 
upon them, too, without hurting a hair in their heads. 
Meantime I have another discovery made by Mr. 
Summers, ■which will oil over all the practically pro¬ 
fessional gardeners of this and the next generation, in 
all parts of the world, and which will be a lasting benefit 
to amateurs up to the coronet of a duke. It is just as 
simple as Spergula, as certain as electricity, and as 
effectual as a thunderstorm. The thing itself is a method 
for killing all sorts of scaly and buggy insects on house 
plants, and, probably, on any plants ; and in corroboration 
of what I saw and heard of it at Forest Hill, there is a 
letter now before me from a youthful earl’s gardener, in 
one of the best gardens in England, who says “ Such a 
boon ought to be made known to all the members of our 
craft as socn as possible.” The plan is, to touch the 
under side of the leaves, the stem, or bark, or wherever 
the insects are, or are supposed to be, with a soft very 
small brush dipped in sweet oil. The common salad oil 
of the grocers has destroyed every one of the scale 
and bug tribes to which it has been applied, without 
hurting the tenderest leaf in the stove, pit, greenhouse, 
frame, or sitting-room and conservatory. There is a little 
mug, jug, or jar of it in every plant-house in this garden, 
with a lid and a hole in the side of the lid for the handle 
of the brush, just like as for a ladle in a soup-tureen. The 
brush is of the softest camel’s hair, and small enough to 
print the title of The Cottage Gaepeneb, with a handle 
a foot long or more, and not so stout as a pen-holder—- 
just such a contrivance as you might suppose a maid of 
honour to resort to for painting her own eyebrows when 
that was the fashion; but, of course, not with sweet oil, 
or any expressed oils, but with the essence of some far¬ 
fetched thing on purpose. Animal oils have been recom¬ 
mended in plant cures before this ; but most of us think 
all fatty oils more or less dangerous to tender growth, and 
