April  2,  1S03. 
JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
289 
An  Irish  Garden:  Yuccas,  Eremuri,  Liliums.  {Vide  Note.) 
Some  Typical  Gardens. 
—  The  Cottage  Garden. 
John  Nobbs,  by  the  \va3',  is  a  fictitious  name  for  a 
character  wliO'  i.s  real,  and  his  occupation  is  that  of  a 
day  labourer.  Not  that  John  is  ashamed  of  his  calling, 
for,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  proud  of  it,  because  both 
his  father  and  grandfather  were  labourers  before  him, 
and  according  to  the  testimonj^  of  the  present  reirre- 
sentative  of  the  familj',  tliej'  managed  to  paj'  their  wa.v, 
and  died  outside  the  workhouse,  independent  of  anyone. 
The  few  rare  occasions  on  which  the  worthy’?  John 
earns  the  sum  of  twenty  shillings  in  the  course  of  one 
week  are  in  harvest-time,  and  then  he  has  to  be  at  work 
in  the  very  small  hours  of  the  morning,  and  toil  on 
through  the  whole  day,  and  as  long  as  light  lasts  in  the 
evening.  For  the  remaining  part  of  tlie  year  John’s 
weekly  income  averages  out  at  something  like  .fifteen 
shillings,  independent  of  a  few  odd  bits  he  picks  up 
outside  the  range  of  his  daily  occupation.  A  weekly 
sum  of  fifteen  shillings  would  be  verv  little  in  the  hands 
of  most  women  to  keep  house  on,  but  Mrs.  Nobbs  po.s- 
sesses  the  happy  knack  of  being  able  to  laj'  it  out  to 
the  very  best  advantage  ;  and  ungrudgingly  her  husband 
turns  over  his  wages  every  Saturday  night,  with  the 
exception  of  the  price  of  one  pint  of  beer  and  a.  quarter 
of  a  pound  of  shag  tobacco,  which,  bj'  mutual  consent, 
are  his  perquisites. 
The  habitation  of  Mr.  John  Nobbs  and  his  famil,v  is  by  no 
means  a  pretentious  affair  In  fact,  from  the  outside  it  is  a 
ramshackle  looking  structure,  standing  back  from  the  road,  half 
timber  and  half  stone,  with  a  low  rambling  roof,  windows  placed 
at  awkward  angles,  and  door  place  that  necessitates  a  good  deal 
of  bending  on  the  part  of  a  tall  man  to  get  through.  John 
Nobbs,  by  the  way,  is  not  short,  but  he  has  grown  so  used  to 
pas.sing  through  the  low  apertures  into  his  house  that  he  can 
do  it  without  the  slightest  risk  of  damage  to  his  skull.  From 
the  outside  the  habitation  has  that  picture.sque  look  about  it 
that  is  dear  to  the  heart  of  an  artist.  A  sweet  Honeysuckle 
rambles  over  the  doorwajq  a  Grape  Vine  clambers  round  the 
bedroom  windows,  and  a  big  clump  of  Hydrangea  Hortensia  (in 
John’s  parlance  it  is  a  Hj'-der-ain-jer)  threatens  to  block  up  the 
entrance,  and  when  in  full  bloom  it  is  a  sight,  worth  walking 
some  distance  to  see. 
One  gathers  the  idea  that  the  builder  must  have  been  a  little 
short  of  material  when  he  put  up  the' structure,  which  was  some 
generations  ago,  judging  from  the  bits  that  have  been  added 
on  since  from  time  to  time  ;  but  if  such  was  the  case,  land  could 
not  have  been  quite  so  valuable  as  it  is  now,  for  the  garden  round 
the  cottage  is  quite  a  quarter  of  an  acre  in  extent,  and  as  John 
aptly  remarks,  “  It  tak’s  a  bit  o’  doin’  when  one  has  no  time  except 
mornins  and  nights.”  From  the  little  wicket  gate  leading  into 
the  road  down  to  the  front  door  there  is  a  pathway  of  cobbled 
stones,  somewhat  trying  to  the  feet,  but  all  the  Nobbs’  family 
wear  thick  boots,  and  so  they  do  not  notice  it,  and  the  path  is 
ahvaj’s  clean  and  dry.  On  either  side  there  is  a  flower  border, 
the  personal  property  of  Mrs.  Nobbs,  and  the  only  thing  her 
husband  has  to  do  with  it  is  to  boast,  quite  truthfulljq  “  that  it 
ain’t  very  often  as  yer  can’t  get  a  nosegay  out  o’  that  border.” 
TIus  is  no  idle  boast,  I  can  assure  3’ou,  for  though  nothing  but 
simple,  old-fashioned  flowers  are  grown,  from  the  early  days  of 
spring  till  Jack  Frost  puts  an  end  to  the  Chi’j'santhemumsi  in  the 
autumn,  there  is  always  something  to  cut.  Pinks  and  Carna¬ 
tions,  Pansies  and  Violets,  Sweet  Williams  and  Canterbury  Bells, 
Irises  and  Paeonies,  Roses  and  Dahlias,  are  but  a  few  of  the  things 
included  in  the  border,  and  though  it  is  full  to  overflowing,  Mrs. 
Nobbs  never  has  a  “  slippin’  ”  or  a  root  of  anything  fresh  pre¬ 
sented  to  her  but  what  she  is  able  to.  find  room  for  it  somewhere. 
Before  leaving  the  floral  part  of  the  establishment  I  feel,  in 
common  fairness  to  the  ruling  spirit  inside  the  house,  that  I 
must  say  a  word  about  the  window  plants.  The  time  has  never 
been,  even  when  she  was  bringing  up  a  large  family,  when  the 
Nobbvs’s  window  was  not  ga.j’  with  flowers,  and  it  is  the  proud 
boast  of  John’s  wife  that  her  Lucy  Finis  “  Fuch.sia  tree  ”  has 
gained  first  prize  at  the  local  flower  show  for  a  good  many  jmars 
without  a  break.  Every  window,  upstairs  and  down,  is  a  minia¬ 
ture  flower  garden,  and  Mrs.  Nobbs  is  acquainted  with  the  life 
history  of  every  plant  she  grows.  The  names  she  gives  to  sofne 
of  them  are  rather  curious,  and  would  hardte  be  found  in  a 
dictionary  in  her  style  of  pronunciation,  but  then  she  under¬ 
stands  them,  .s'o  it  does  not  matter  about  anjmne  else. 
It  must  not  be  thought  that  Mrs.  Nobbs  is  the  only  florist 
in  the  family,  for  her  husband,  too,  has  a  strong  taste  for  flowers, 
and  in  a  sheltered  corner  of  the  garden  there  is  a  little  plantation 
of  standard  Briars,  over  which  the  horny-handed  labourer  maj" 
be  .seen  bending  on  summer  evenings,  engaged  in  the  intricate 
operation  of  Rose  budding.  He  can  do  it,  too,  and  in  many 
gardens  in  the  village  there  are  Rose  trees  which  testifj’  to  Joi  n 
Nobbs’s  skill  in  the  art  of  budding.  Nor  does  John  confine  him¬ 
self  to  Roses,  for  the  garden  boasts  a  nice  collection  of  fruit 
trees,  each  one  of  which  has  been  budded  or  grafted  by  the 
labourer  himself,  having  raised  the  stocks  from  seeds,  and  got 
the  buds  or  scions  from  friendly  gardeners,  in  the  district. 
Though  John  Nobbs  is  a  leading  light  in  the  village  gardening 
society,  and  has  full  confidence  in  his  own  ability,  he  is  not  a 
conceited  man,  and  when  the  vicar  arranged  for  a  course  of 
C.’ounty  Council  lectures  on  gardening,  John  took  no  notice  of  the 
loungers  who  held  up  the  wall  at  the  street  corner,  and  said 
“  they  knowed  all  about  gardenin’,”  but  was  the  first  to  put  in 
an  appearance.  Now,  John  was  a  good  gardener  before  the, 
lecturer  was  born,  but  that  did  not  matter,  so  he  listened  atten¬ 
tively,  agreed  with  the  expert  on  most  points,  shook  his  head, 
differed  with  him  on  others,  but  made  friends  with  him  all  the 
same,  and  frankly  admitted  at  the  end  of  the  course  that  he  had 
learnt  something,  even  though  at  the  outset  he  was  the  best 
cottage  gardener  in  the  village.  John  has  his  own  ideas  about 
gardening  education,  and  though  he  probably  does  not  know  the 
meaning  of  the  word  theory,  he  is  wonderfully  theoretical  in  his 
way,  and  says  that  “  gardenin’  is  like  fiddlin’,  it’s  never  mastered,” 
from  which  you  may  gather  that  John  Nobbs  is  also  a  bit  of  a 
musician,  though  how  his  hard  fingers  can  manipulate  fiddle 
strings  is  beyond  comprehemsion. 
To  say  that  the  labourer  knows  liis  garden  is  not  sufficient  : 
he  is  on  the  most  intimate  terms  with  it,  and  can  tell  te  an  inch 
the  depth  of  the  soil  in  every  part,  the  character  of  the  subsoil, 
where  to  grow  the  different  crop.s  to  the  best  advantage,  and  all 
about  it.  John  has  tremendous  faith  in  what  he  is  pleased  to 
call  “  deep  cultivation,”  and  on  moonlight  nights,  when  the  daj^s 
are  short,  he  may  frequently  be  found  engaged  in  the  opera¬ 
tion  of  trenching.  The  pigstye  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden 
supplies  most  of  the  manure,  though  the  fowl-run  also  contri¬ 
butes  its  portion;  and  John  occa.sionally  invests  a  few  shillings 
in  lime,  but  as  yet  he  has  not  learnt  to  pin  much  faith  in  “  that 
patent  stuff,”  wdiich  is  the  name  he  gives  to  artificial  fertilisers 
in  general. 
If  John  Nobbs  has  any  speciality  amongst  vegetables  it  is 
“  taturs,”  and  on  the  cultivation  of  the  noble  tuber  he  is  accepted 
as  being  a  local  authority.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  see  the  man  when 
engaged  in  lifting  his  crop.  At  the  end  of  each  row  there  is  a 
rude  label  telling  the  variety,  and  when  John  come.s  acro.ss  a 
particularly  fine  specimen  he  strokes  it,  rubs  it,  and  caresses  it 
in  an  affectionate  sort  of  way,  and  then  lays  it  gently  on  one 
side.  The  work  of  digging  over,  these  stdected  tubers  are  care¬ 
fully  wrapped  in  soft  paper  and  put  away,  only  to  be  seen  again 
when  they  appear  on  the  show  table.  John  is  a  mark  on  varieties, 
too,  and  though  he  is  not  much  of  a  reader,  he  religiously  studies 
the  pictures  in  the  spring  catalogues,  and  if  any  novelty  strikes 
his  fancy  he  generally  manages  to  find  the  money  from  sonie- 
where  for  the  purchase  of  a  pound  or  two  of  seed  tubers  to  give 
him  a  start. 
In  his  cultural  operations  one  thing  is  necessary,  Johns 
garden  has  to  show  a  profit,  and  this  it  invariably  does.  Besides 
growing  enough  produce  for  the  use  of  hi.s  family,  and,  in 
addition  to  the  nice  little  sum  he  annually  draws  from  the 
gardening  society  in  prize  money,  the  man  has  generally  got 
something  to  sell.  This  large  garden  allows  room  for  a  spacious 
spring  Cabbage  bed,  and  John  Nobbs  is  amongst  the  fimt  in  the 
district  to  be'cutting,  so  lie  has  no  trouble  about  disposing  of  the 
