The English Gardener: Or, A Treatise on the Situation, Soil, Enclosing and Laying-out, of Kitchen Gardens, Etc. Concluding with a Kalendar, Giving Instructions Relative to the Sowings, Plantings, Prunings, and Other Labours, to be Performed in the Gardens, in Each Month of the Year

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W. Cobbett, 1829 - Gardening - 552 pages
 

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Page 2 - First, as to the saving of seed, the truest plants •should be selected ; that is to say, such as are of the most perfect shape and quality. In the cabbage, we seek small stem, well-formed loaf, few spare, or loose leaves ; in the turnip, large bulb, small neck, slenderstalked leaves, solid flesh, or pulp ; in the radish, high -colour (if red or scarlet), small neck, few and short leaves, and long top. The marks of perfection are well known, and none but perfect plants should be saved for seed....
Page 5 - The box is at once the most efficient of all possible things, and the prettiest plant that can possibly be conceived : the colour of its leaf ; the form of its leaf ; its docility as to height, width, and shape ; the compactness of its little branches ; its great durability as a plant : its thriving in all sorts of soils, and in all sorts of aspects ; its freshness under the hottest sun, and its defiance of all shade and all drip : these are beauties and qualities, which, for ages upon ages, have...
Page 7 - ... for ages upon ages, have marked it out as the chosen plant for this very important purpose. The edging ought to be clipped in the winter or very early in spring on both sides and at top; a line ought to be used to regulate the movements of the shears; it ought to be clipped again in the same manner about midsummer; and if there be a more neat and beautiful thing than this in the world, all that I can say is, that I never saw that thing.
Page 5 - Dig this manure in, and break all the earth very fine as you go. — Then take up your plants, and trim off the long roots. You will find, that every plant has offsets to it, coming up by the side of the main stem. Pull all these off, and leave only the single stem. Cut the leaves ofl so as to leave the whole plant about six inches long.
Page 3 - I have stood for hours to look at this canal, for the goodnatured manners of those days had led the proprietor to make an opening in the outer wall in order that his neighbours might enjoy the sight as well as himself; I •have stood for hours, when a little boy, looking at this object ; I have travelled far since, and have seen a great deal ; but I have never seen anything of the gardening kind so beautiful in the whole course of my life.
Page 7 - Yet, 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...
Page 11 - ... cut upward instead of downward. Then place the scion upon the stock, inserting the tongue of the scion into the tongue of the stock. Bring the four edges of the bark — that is, the two edges of the cut in the top of the stock, and the two corresponding edges of the cut in the bottom of the scion, to meet precisely ; or, if the scion be in diameter a smaller piece of wood than the stock, so that its two edges of bark cannot both meet those of the stock, then let only one meet, but be ture that...
Page 11 - ... c) . Proceed nearly in the same way with the bottom part of the scion : cut first a narrow strip of wood and bark out, but not putting the knife in horizontally as you have done with regard to the stock at fig.

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