water-cress, and five in the parsnip, are also an obvious distinction. If they are in seed the parsnip has capsules, the water-cress pods.

The water-cress has become an object of cultivation; and the demand of the metropolis and of other large towns for this favourite vegetable will, probably, render the natural products of our brooks less and less in request. Few wild plants are the same under cultivation; but even when their qualities are not changed by the care of man, the cultivated sort soon supersedes the uncultivated. The cost of rearing them at will is less than that of searching for them under the difficulties which attend all spontaneous produce.

In a pretty valley called Springhead, situated in Kent, at a short distance from Gravesend, watercresses are grown on a very extensive scale. The plants, neatly trimmed, growing in regular rows, and appearing under a limpid stream of purest water, give the idea of careful cultivation; and present themselves under a more pleasing form to be plucked for the table, than when found the inhabitants of ditches. For the purpose of this culture a clayey soil is selected, in which shallow beds scarcely a foot deep are made, having a slight inclination from one end to the other, and into which a small stream of water is introduced. At the bottom of these beds the cress is planted in rows, at about half a foot apart. Dams of six inches high are made at intervals across each bed, their number and frequency being regulated by the length of the bed and its degree of inclination, in such sort, that when these dams are full, the water may rise at least three inches over all the plants of each compartment. The water will thus circulate throughout, and the plants, if not allowed to flower, will furnish an abundant succession of young tops throughout the spring,

$

summer, and autumn. "A stream of water no larger than what will fill a pipe of one inch bore will, if not absorbed by the soil, suffice to irrigate in this way an eighth of an acre."

SAMPHIRE -Crithomum maritimum-is almost the only wild plant, with the exception of water-cress and laver, which is gathered for the supply of the demands of luxury. Samphire, as is well known, grows on the rocky cliffs of our southern shores; and even in the time of Shakspeare it was a profitable occupation to gather it.

"How fearful

And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low!

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire; dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head *."

A few pungent vegetables, and the aromatics of our fields, probably seasoned the homely dishes of our forefathers, before garden cultivation was understood, or commerce brought the spices of the East, at a cheap rate, to our doors. The mint and thyme and marjoram of the downs gave zest to the barley-broth of the poor cottager;-and the mustard and horse-radish seasoned his salted meat. Several wild species of cress also answered the same purpose; amongst which was Dittander, a species found chiefly in salt marshes and near the sea. The leaves of this plant are remarkably hot and acrid, and when pepper

was so

dear that to promise a saint yearly a pound of it was considered as a liberal bequest," these leaves were no bad substitute for giving pungency to food. They were frequently used by the peasants for this purpose, whence the plant has obtained the name of “ pcor man's pepper."

The FUNGI are the most abundant of spontaneous esculent vegetables; but they may be more couveniently noticed in another portion of this volume.

CHAPTER IX.

ON VEGETABLE GARDENING.

In the rudest states of society men depend for sup plies of food upon the spontaneous products of uncultivated wilds. An acre of vegetation will not then suffice for a single meal. It is a great step in advance when shepherd tribes convert the pastures, which grow without any human care, into milk and meat. When agriculture is established, civilization has advanced some distance on its journey. But gardening is a much later stage; commerce precedes it. There are few native plants, at least in the more northern parts of Europe, as we have seen, that can be rendered wholesome and agreeable by cultivation. The inhabitants have received them from distant soils. When a nation has commercial intercourse with the uttermost ends of the earth, it soon makes all the valuable products of other places its own-soon, in comparison with the length of time it takes to build up a flourishing, because active and intelligent community. The Dutch were great gardeners, but they were previously great merchants. The Dutch, too, in the height of their prosperity, enjoyed free institutions. Gardening may, to a certain extent, prevail in despotic countries. There may be splendid retreats of luxury-bowers and fountains and conservatories-for the great; but the cottages have no pretty patches of rich soil, in which the owner has raised the vegetables of almost every clime. This power of the most humble to partake of the same class of enjoyments with the most exalted in station, is the best indication

of a prosperous and happy people. It has been well observed, by a popular writer on gardening, who has perhaps done more than any other individual of our own times for the advancement of horticultural objects, that Louis XIV., who set the fashion of ornamental gardening, not only in France, but in Europe, 66 never, in all probability, added a foot of ground to the garden of a single cottager, or placed an additional cabbage or potato on his table *"

When a country is depopulated by despotism or civil war, each producing insecurity of property, gardening makes little progress; but when comforts become diffused by profitable industry, and a middleclass is created, the advantages of horticulture are very generally spread. Harrison has a passage in his Description of England,' which is particularly illustrative of this principle:-" Such herbes, fruits, and roots also, as grow yeerlie out of the ground of seed, have been verie plentiful in this land in the time of the First Edward and after his daies; but in processe of time they grew also to be neglected, so that from Henrie the Fourth, till the latter end of Henrie the Seventh, and beginning of Henrie the Eighth, there was little or no use of them in England, but they remained either unknowne, or supposed as food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to feed upon than mankind: whereas in my time their use is not onelie resumed among the poore commons, I meane of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirrets, parsneps, carrets, cabbages, navews, turnips, and all kinds of salad herbs; but also fed upon daintie dishes at the tables of delicate merchants, gentlemen, and the nobilitie, who make their provision yearlie for new seeds out of strange countries, from whence they have them aboundantlie."

* Loudon's Encyclopædia of Gardening, p. 112.