1372. ] 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
143 
GARDEN GOSSIP. 
•^EITHER Vegetables nor Salads should be washed until they are just about 
to be cooked or eaten. Potatos, Carrots, Turnips—all lose flavour 
quickly after being washed ; while in summer, water in contact with 
^ Cauliflowers and Cabbages speedily becomes tainted, and thus destroys 
their freshness and flavour. Salads suffer still more. If washed at all, it should be done only 
just before they are dressed, and they should be dried immediately. Lettuces if quite 
clean, are best left unwashed; if washed, the operation should be done quickly, and the 
water instantly shaken out, and the leaves dried with a clean cloth. Instead of this, they are 
too often cut and w'ashed in the morning, and pitched into water, in the scullery sink, until 
wanted. The best plan of gathering vegetables, is simply to remove superfluous earth by 
scraping or rubbing, and the rough tops or leaves by cutting ; enough tender leaves may still 
be left on Cauliflowers and Broccoli to overlap the flowers. Salad should be sent in from the 
garden with most of the outside leaves and main root on ; for the tender leaves are easily 
tainted and injured by exposure, and if the main root is cut off sharp, much of the juice oozes 
out at the wound. 
-£t lias been proposed in a contemporary, by Mr. G. Deal, to convert 
Garden Edgings into Watering Apparatus. The arrangements proposed are 
these :—To fix in an obscure corner of the garden a large open tank, elevated 
upon iron columns, or brick piers, of sufficient height to cause the water to flow freely and 
with force to any required part of the garden. The pipes charged with the disposition of the 
water to be of cast-iron, fixed above the ground surface, and around the whole or such 
portions of the respective beds, in such a manner as to form an edging. The diameter of the 
pipes to be about inches, and the design a plain round of the ordinary type, or cable, 
octagon, square, or triangular, in lengths of about 6 feet, with a flange, either plain or perfor¬ 
ated, for partly sinking into the earth, so as to form a proper separation between the garden 
soil and the gravel of the walk. Each length to be connected together by means of a 
separately-formed socket-joint standard, surmounted by a finial ball or other device for 
ornament. Every fifth or sixth of these standards, as may be convenient, to be fitted with a 
screw nozzle hydrant cock suited to receive elastic hose for distributing the water. Such of 
those pipes as are used under the crossings or junctions of the walks to connect the edging 
pipes into one complete system may be of ordinary wrought iron, and the whole of the pipes 
galvanized, for the prevention of oxidation. Mr. Deal sets down the following as the advantages 
of this plan :—(1.) A simple and economical mode of constructing a durable garden edging, 
combined with an efficient apparatus for watering. (2.) A great saving of time and labour, 
also facilities for increased daily watering without extra hands. (3.) The aeration of the water 
by exposure in the open tank, while that in the apparatus would become tepid by the 
influence of the sun upon the iron-pipe edging. (4.) The apparatus can be converted into a 
liquid manure-distributor. To prevent injury by frost, the pipes need only be allowed to run 
themselves empty at the end of the ‘ watering season.’ 
- 5£he disposal of Town Sewage may probably be looked upon as a 
settled question. General Scott, the architect of the Albert Hall, and the 
secretary of the International Exhibition, has discovered a means of converting 
it into cement. The process is now being carried on at Ealing. A mixture of eight parts of 
lime and one of clay is thrown into the sewer near one end of the town, and is allowed to run 
down -with the sewage to a piece of land about half a mile distant, -where it passes into a long tank, 
and the solid matter having been deposited, the water passes off almost clear and free from 
smell. The deposited sewage, which looks like mud, is taken from the tank to a drying 
place, not unlike those used in the Cornish china-clay works; there it is dried by a flue, is 
then pugged in a pugging-mill, and passed through a brick machine. The bricks are finally 
placed in a kiln and calcined, and the result is a hydraulic cement, equal to any Portland 
cement in the market, and saleable at a considerably lower price. By a little alteration in 
the precipitating ingredients, other cements may be obtained. It has been found that the 
sewage contains such a large quantity of hair, rag, straw, and other combustible substances, 
that it supplies to a large extent its o-wn fuel, and coke and inferior coal may be used in the 
kiln. It is expected that means will be found to extract the ammonia which passes off in the 
water. 
