Mr. Corbett has just published a useful little volume, entitled the
_English Gardener_, which is, perhaps, one of the most practical
books ever printed. At present we must confine our extracts to a few
useful passages; but we purpose a more extended notice of this very
interesting volume.
_Laying out Gardens._
In the work of laying-out, great care ought to be taken with regard to
straightness and distances, and particularly as to the squareness of every
part. To make lines perpendicular, and perfectly so, is, indeed, no
difficult matter when one knows how to do it; but one must know how to do
it, before one can do it at all. If the _gardener_ understand this
much of geometry, he will do it without any difficulty; but if he only
pretend to understand the matter, and begin to walk backward and forward,
stretching out lines and cocking his eye, make no bones with him; send for
a bricklayer, and see the stumps driven into the ground yourself. The four
outside lines being laid down with perfect truth, it must be a bungling
fellow indeed that cannot do the rest; but if they be only a little
_askew_, you have a botch in your eye for the rest of your life, and
a botch of your own making too. Gardeners seldom want for confidence in
their own abilities; but this affair of raising perpendiculars upon a
given line is a thing settled in a moment: you have nothing to do but to
say to the gardener, "Come, let us see how you do it." He has but one way
in which he can do it; and, if he do not immediately begin to work in that
way, pack him off to get a bricklayer, even a botch in which trade will
perform the work to the truth of a hair.
_Seeds._
I incline to the opinion, that we should try seeds as our ancestors tried
witches; not by fire, but by water; and that, following up their practice,
we should reprobate and destroy all that do not _readily_ sink.
_Melons._
It is a received opinion, a thing taken for granted, an axiom in
horticulture, that _melon_ seed is the _better_ for being
_old_. Mr. Marshall says, that it ought to be "_about four years
old_, though some prefer it _much older_." And he afterwards
observes, that "if new seed only _can be had_, it should be carried a
week or two in the breeches-pocket, to dry away some of the more watery
particles!" If _age_ be a recommendation in rules as well as in
melon-seed, this rule has it; for English authors published it, and French
authors _laughed at it_, more than a _century past!_
Those who can afford to have melons raised in their gardens, can afford to
keep a _conjuror_ to raise them; and a conjuror will hardly
condescend to follow _common sense_ in his practice. This would be
lowering the profession in the eyes of the vulgar, and, which would be
very dangerous, in the eyes of his employer. However, a great deal of this
_stuff_ is traditionary; and how are we to find the conscience to
blame a gardener for errors inculcated by gentlemen of erudition!
_Sowing Seeds._
I do hope that it is unnecessary for me to say, that sowing according to
the _moon_ is wholly absurd and ridiculous; and that it arose solely
out of the circumstance, that our forefathers, who could not read, had
neither almanack nor calendar to guide them, and who counted by moons and
festivals, instead of by months, and days of months.
_Brussels Sprouts._
It is, most likely, owing to negligence that we hardly ever see such a
thing as real Brussels sprouts in England; and it is said that it is
pretty nearly the same in France, the proper care being taken nowhere,
apparently, but in the neighbourhood of Brussels.
_Horse-Radish._
After horse-radish has borne seed once or twice, its root becomes hard,
brown on the outside, not juicy when it is scraped, and eats more like
little chips than like a garden vegetable; so that, at taverns and
eating-houses, there frequently seems to be a rivalship on the point of
toughness between the horse-radish and the beef-steak; and it would be
well if this inconvenient rivalship never discovered itself any where
else.
_Eating Mushrooms._
I once ate about three spoonsful at table at Mr. Timothy Brown's, at
Peckham, which had been cooked, I suppose, in the usual way; but I had not
long eaten them before my whole body, face, hands, and all, was covered
with red spots or pimples, and to such a degree, and coming on so fast,
that the doctor who attended the family was sent for. He thought nothing
of it, gave me a little draught of some sort, and the pimples went away;
but I attributed it then to the mushrooms. The next year, I had mushrooms
in my own garden at Botley, and I determined to try the experiment whether
they would have the same effect again; but, not liking to run any risk, I
took only a teaspoonful, or, rather, a French coffee-spoonful, which is
larger than a common teaspoon. They had just the same effect, both as to
sensation and outward appearance! From that day to this, I have never
touched mushrooms, for I conclude that there must be something poisonous
in that which will so quickly produce the effects that I have described,
and on a healthy and hale body like mine; and, therefore, I do not advise
any one to cultivate these things.
_Peas._
The late king, George the Third, reigned so long, that his birthday formed
a sort of season with gardeners; and, ever since I became a man, I can
recollect that it was always deemed rather a sign of bad gardening if
there were not green peas in the garden fit to gather on the fourth of
June. It is curious that green peas are to be had as early in Long Island,
and in the seaboard part of the state of New Jersey, as in England, though
not sowed there, observe, until very late in April, while ours, to be very
early, must be sowed in the month of December or January. It is still more
curious, that, such is the effect of habit and tradition, that, even when
I was last in America (1819), people talked just as familiarly as in
England about having green peas on the _king's birth-day_, and were
just as ambitious for accomplishing the object; and I remember a gentleman
who had been a republican officer during the revolutionary war, who told
me that he always got in his garden green peas fit to eat on old _Uncle
George's birth-day_.
_Cider._
Mr. Platt had a curious mode of making strong cider in America. In the
month of January or February, he placed a number of hogsheads of cider
upon stands out of doors. The frost turned to ice the upper part of the
contents of the hogshead, and a tap drew off from the bottom the part
which was not frozen. This was the spirituous part, and was as strong as
the very strongest of beer that can be made. The frost had no power over
this part; but the lighter part which was at the top it froze into ice.
This, when thawed, was weak cider. This method of getting strong cider
would not do in a country like this, where the frosts are never
sufficiently severe.
_Keeping Apples._
When there is frost, all that you have to do, is to keep the apples in a
state of total darkness until some days after a complete thaw has come. In
America they are frequently frozen as hard as stones; if they thaw in the
_light_, they rot; but if they thaw in darkness, they not only do not
rot, but lose very little of their original flavour. This may be new to
the English reader; but he may depend upon it that the statement is
correct.
_To Keep Chestnuts._
To preserve chestnuts, so as to have them to sow in the spring, or to eat
through the winter, you must make them perfectly dry after they come out
of their green husk; then put them into a box or a barrel mixed with, and
covered over by, fine and dry sand, three gallons of sand to one gallon of
chestnuts. If there be maggots in any of the chestnuts, they will come out
of the chestnuts and work up through the sand to get to the air; and thus
you have your chestnuts sweet and sound and fresh.
_Plums._
The _Magnum Bonums_ are fit for nothing but tarts and sweetmeats.
_Magnum_ is right enough; but as to _bonum_, the word has seldom
been so completely misapplied.
_British Wines._
That which we call currant wine, is neither more nor less than
red-looking, weak rum, the strength coming from the sugar; and gooseberry
wine is a thing of the same character, and, if the fruit were of no other
use than this, one might wish them to be extirpated. People deceive
themselves. The thing is called _wine_, but it is _rum_; that is
to say, an extract from sugar.
_Birds._
The wild pigeons in America live, for about a month, entirely upon the
buds of the sugar-maple, and are killed by hundreds of thousands, by
persons who erect bough-houses, and remain in a maple wood with guns and
powder and shot for that purpose. If we open the craw of one of these
little birds, we find in it green stuff of various descriptions, and,
generally, more or less of grass, and, therefore, it is a little too much
to believe, that, in taking away our buds, they merely relieve us from the
insects that would, in time, eat us up. Birds are exceedingly cunning in
their generation; but, luckily for us gardeners, they do not know how to
distinguish between the report of a gun loaded with powder and shot, and
one that is only loaded with powder. Very frequent firing with powder will
alarm them so that they will quit the spot, or, at least, be so timid as
to become comparatively little mischievous.
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