falling ili, we removed to Hackney, on account of the air, where I have been ever since, being just able to gain a livelihood, by laying out the gardens for the new buildings going on in the neighbourhood. I have often been advised to take up a public-house; but besides that my wife is against it as considering it beneath the dignity of her family, I consider that it would be degrading the profession to which I belong if I were to become a publican. Having now, Sir, given you a short history of my life, you will see what a very poor business a gardener's is, and especially a jobbing gardener's. When I first began it, I was preferred as being considered a regular gardener; but now a labourer who has, perhaps, worked a year or two with some marketgardener is just as much employed, and as well paid as myself; it is true, I have hurt myself much by going into the jobbing line; but what led to that was my vain ambition of being a nurseryman, without having the means. I need not say any thing of the prospects of an old man near 70; my wife is dead, and if the disease which shall carry me off be a lingering one, I have no other prospect than the workhouse. If you think my letter worthy of a place in your Magazine, I hope it will be a warning to gardeners when they are in good situations to keep in them, and not let discontent or ambition prey on their minds so as to make them leave their places for little faults; and, especially, not to let them give up the condition of servitude for the very uncertain one of being in business for one's self. And, especially, let them never give up any place whatever for the condition of a jobbing gardener, for that is greater slavery than being a common labourer. I am, Šir, your most obedient servant, ART. VI. On Cultivating a Collection of Grasses in Pleasuregrounds or Flower-gardens. By MR. GEORGE SINCLAIR, F.L.S., H. S., &c. Nurseryman, Author of Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis. Dear Sir, A COLLECTION of the different species of grasses arranged in a distinct compartment of the pleasure-ground or flower-garden will be found to constitute one of its most interesting features. It has been justly observed by Sir James Edward Smith in his English Flora, that the grasses afford more sustenance to man and to the larger animals than all the rest of the vegetable kingdom together; their herbage so perpetually springing, and so tenacious of life, accommodated in one instance or other to almost every climate, soil, and situation, affords to nature her most welcome clothing, and to the cultivator of the soil his chief riches. Nothing poisonous or injurious is found among them. Their farinaceous seed supplies man with the staff of life; in wheat, barley, rice, oats, maize, Holcus spicatus, Holcus cernuus, and in Poa abysinnica. The Cynosurus cristatus, which supplies a most valuable herbage for pasture, has culms too fibrous and wiry to be eaten by cattle; yet these sustain the seed of the plant until winter, and when the snow covers and conceals every other kind of food, these supply the smaller and even several of the larger birds with the means of existence. The grasses constitute one of the most perfect natural orders of plants, and although humble, and until lately, overlooked by the general observer, consist of upwards of a thousand perfectly distinct species, distinguished from each other by their specific botanical characters, by the difference which exists in the proportions of the constituents of the nutritive matter afforded by each, by the different periods at which their produce attains to perfection, and by the peculiar soils and situations to which the different species are adapted. The observation of these habits and properties, as they present themselves in the progress of growth of the plants, will be found to afford more amusing variety, and perhaps useful and instructive occupation of time, than can be obtained from the cultivation of any other distinct family of plants whatever, The flowers of the grasses are perfect, and are remarkable for the simplicity and elegance which pervades their whole structure; they will be found to want only examination to excite our admiration that so slender and simple a structure should be productive of such important ends, and capable of receiving upwards of a thousand clear specific shades of variation without in the least affecting its primary essential family character. As an example of the truth and beauty of the natural orders of plants, the grasses afford the best illustration to the young botanist. In the botanical investigation of the different species, a high interest is kept up from a consideration of the various properties and separate habits peculiar to each individual species, yet all tending to one great and important end-the support of animal life; from the moth which lives on the Way bennet (Hordeum murinum) to man himself, who, from many species, draws support directly, and, in remote consequences, from the whole tribe. Park in his travels, (Vol. i. pp. 63-75.), informs us that the Holcus spicatus and Holcus cernuus were cultivated largely in Africa by the natives, for the like purposes as wheat and barley are in Europe. The Poa abyssinica has a very small seed, and yet, as Bruce inform's us, it is cultivated extensively in Abyssinia for the manufacture of bread, (teff.) The annual species of grass have larger and heavier seeds than those which are perennial, and the creeping rooted species have lighter, and in general, less fertile seeds than the fibrous rooted. The creeping roots of the common couch grass (Triticum repens) contain a large quantity of nutritive matter; in its composition or properties approaching nearer to that of corn, than the nutritive matter afforded by the herbage of any of the other grasses. On the continent, particularly at Naples, these roots are regularly sent to market, and are there highly esteemed for the food of horses. The writer of this had some of these roots for examination sent from Naples, they proved to contain more nutritive matter than the roots of English growth. Dogs eat the leaves of this species of grass as well as those of the Holcus avenaceus, to excite vomiting. The farinaceous seeds of the annual grasses supply man with the staff of life, and the herbage of the perennial species afford to the more valuable domestic animals, that constant supply of essential food without which they could not exist in any considerable number, or for any length of time, much less be brought to furnish us with the most important articles of clothing, and some of the most important parts of food; meat, milk, butter, and cheese; wool, and leather, with all the concomitant advantages, such as labour, manure, &c. which result to the cultivator of the soil from the use of cattle, would be lost without the cultivation of the perennial grasses. The nutritive powers of the different species of pasture or hay grasses are found to be in direct proportion to the quantity of saccharine, mucilaginous, albuminous, bitter extractive, and saline matters which each affords. Not two species of grasses are found to agree in the proportions of these vegetable principles contained in each; as instances, the Elymus arenarius affords the largest proportion of sugar, the Poa compressa, var. erecta, consists almost of pure mucilage, and the Festuca pennata, or Holcus avenaceus, &c., a greater proportion of bitter, extractive, and saline matters. There are but few species which attain their height of produce at the same period of the season, consequently, scarcely a month occurs which is not the season of some particular species attaining its perfection of growth: and here, it may be ob served, that a grass-garden, where a number of different species of grasses are arranged side by side, illustrates this important point in the economy of the grasses in a clear and interesting manner. It is from this property of the natural grasses, connected with a combination of a considerable number of different species, which are always found in the most rich or fattening pastures, that the great superiority of these over artificial pastures, or of such as are formed of one or two species only, chiefly arises; and hence it is that the former, whether formed by nature in the course of many years, or by art in one, (by sowing the seeds of all the essential species, or by stocking the soil at once with a sufficiency of these plants, precluding thereby the introduction of spurious grasses or weeds,) are productive of a perpetual verdure and supply of fresh herbage unknown in artificial pastures, consisting of one or two species of plants only. (To be continued.) ART. VII. Of the best Mode of Washing Water Cresses and other Salads so as to free them from the Larva of Insects, and Worms. By MR. JAMES SIMSON, Gardener, Mussel. burgh, near Edinburgh. SIR, I RECEIVED your letter with a prospectus of the Gardener's Magazine, which work I think will be very useful to us here, who know little of what is going on in the gardens about London. I am sorry you did not mention some subject that you wanted me to write about, as I do not know what to fix on; however, as you say you must have all your papers for the first number by the end of this month, the only thing I can think of is to send you some remarks on the water cresses, and other winter salads, such as brooklime, scurvy grass, American cress, &c. I understand there has been something written on the culture of the water cress in the transactions of the London Horticultural Society. I have not seen these transactions, though my master got me to cultivate the cress in consequence of somebody's telling him how it was described in them. We grow them in a small pond behind the melon ground in the slip, and only round the margin of the pond; but what I have principally to communicate does not concern the growing but the gathering. After these cresses had been served up to breakfast for several weeks, it happened one morning that a young lady who was on a visit from Edinburgh, observed something clear and glutinous, like small snails, fixed on the backs of the leaves of the cresses; some said they were young water snails; others that they were young horse leaches, and some took them for the However that may of worms. eggs be, the whole family were disgusted with them, and it was ordered that no more should be brought to table than what were gathered in a running stream. Some days afterwards, I collected some from the tail-dam of Lasswade mill; but on 'nspecting them it was found that there was also a white gelatinous substance that would not come off with common washing, attached to the back of some of the leaves. There was now a good deal of alarm, especially as a young woman who worked in the garden, and had been in the habit of serving the kitchen and gathering the cresses, was troubled with a swelling in her stomach, accompanied with occasional loathing of food. This alarm perhaps would not have taken place, had not a poor woman in the village about a year ago, after being ill for a long time with a stomach complaint, at last one morning vomited up a small bag of caterpillars, which are supposed to have hatched in her stomach from eggs, attached to some vegetable that she had eaten. It now became a serious matter to know how to wash water cresses, and my master talked of asking Doctor who belongs to the London Horticultural Society, to write to the Secretary to know how they washed them there. However this was not done, and it occurred to me to ask some of the women who gather cresses and brook-lime from the burns about Edinburgh, and call them through the town, how they did. I found they were not very particular in washing them, and had never heard of, or seen any thing like snails or vermin on the backs of the leaves. From this I concluded that there was no danger in eating these things, whatever they might be. The idea, however, was very unpleasant, and any that were sent up to table afterwards were carefully brushed with a cellery brush by the butler. But this was too much trouble to be continued for any length of time. The cook thought of washing them with ashes, which she said she knew would kill mites in cheese. I thought of lime water, which I knew would kill snails and worms, but on these plans being mentioned by my master to Mr. Brown of Dalkeith, he suggested the idea of having a tub of salt water from the sea, and steeping them a few minutes in that. We immediately adopted his advice, and succeeded perfectly in detaching every thing of the animal kind from the leaves. My mistress was so much pleased with the thing that she has since had every kind of salad washed in this way, especially such as grow close on |