THE PLEASURES OF GARDENING.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 53, 4 March 1868, Page 3

THE PLEASURES OF GARDENING.

To the Editor op the Nelson Evening Mail. You brag, methinks, somewhat too much of late, Of your lamp-lit philosophy^ One bite Of a mad cat (no more than, kills a tailoi), Will put an end tot and your dreams together.— Barry Cornwall. Sir — Your correspondent of last week, although a 'Lover of Gardening' and evidently desirous to stimulate enquiry as to the best method of tilling the land, does not tell your readers how he succeeded in coaxing his turnips into a fitting state for the table 'within six: weeks from the day of sowing.' Did he do with them as I know a farmer in Sussex once did as an experiment — go forth with unlaced boots every morning before breakfast, and shake each turnip in three long rows of a bed of turnips in his garden, doubtless reasoning from analogy, that whereas turnips always do best in windy weather, so he would try to 'assist nature' by an artificial movement to promote the growth of this vegetable? Or did he freely use bone dust, or guano, or some other powerful stimulant? The farmer who looked anxiously for ' six months' for a crop, must surely have miserably miscalculated the proper season for sowing, or left the plauts ' too thick to thrive.' I trust your correspondent will not leave the public uninformed about this matter. Yours &c. An Inquirer.