The Rural Life of England

by William Howitt

There is my friend, the weaver; strong desires
Reign in his breast; ’tis beauty he admires.
See! to the shady grove he wings his way,
And feels in hope the raptures of the day.
Eager he looks; and soon to his glad eyes,
From the sweet bower, by nature formed, arise
Bright troops of virgin-moths, and new-born butterflies;
Who broke that morning from their half-year’s sleep,
To fly o’er flowers where they were wont to creep.

Above the sovereign oak, a sovereign skims,
The purple Emperor, strong in wing and limbs:
There fair Camilla takes her flight serene,
Adonis blue, and Paphia, silver queen:
With every filmy fly from mead or bower,
And hungry Sphynx, who threads the honeyed flower;
She o’er the larkspurs’ bed, where sweets abound,
Views every bell, and hums the approving sound:
Poised on her busy plumes, with feelings nice,
She draws from every flower, nor tries a floret twice.

He fears no bailiff’s wrath, no baron’s blame,
His is untaxed, and undisputed game;
Nor less the place of curious plants he knows;
He both his Flora and his Fauna shows.
For him is blooming in its rich array,
The glorious flower which bore the palm away.
In vain a rival tried his utmost art,
His was the prize, and joy o’erflowed his heart.
“This, this is beauty! cast, I pray, your eyes
On this my glory! see the grace—the size!
Was ever stem so tall, so stout, so strong,
Exact in breadth, in just proportion long;
These brilliant hues are all distinct and clean,
No kindred tint, no blending streaks between;
This is no shaded, run-off, pin-eyed thing,
A king of flowers, a flower for England’s king!”

[29] So successful that they were amongst the first to raise fine flowers before floral societies and flower-shows were in existence; and the names of some of these village florists are attached to some of the finest specimens, Hufton, Barker, and Redgate, appellations which some of our finest carnations, polyanthuses, and ranunculuses bear, are those of old Derbyshire villagers, well known to me, who scarcely ever were out of their own rustic districts, but whose names are thus made familiar all the country over.

Lastly, the general pleasures of a garden form a grand item in the enjoyments of the poor man. To shew what these pleasures are, to what an extent they are enjoyed in some districts, even by town mechanics, and how much further they may be extended, I shall quote a portion of a paper published by me in November 1835, in Tait’s Magazine.

There are, in the outskirts of Nottingham, upwards of 5000 gardens, the bulk of which are occupied by the working class. A good many there are belonging to the substantial tradesmen and wealthier inhabitants; but the great mass are those of the mechanics. These lie on various sides of the town, in expanses of many acres in a place, and many of them as much as a mile and a half distant from the centre of the town. In the winter they have rather a desolate aspect, with their naked trees and hedges, and all their little summer-houses exposed, damp-looking, and forlorn; but, in spring and summer, they look exceedingly well,—in spring all starred with blossoms, all thick with leaves; and their summer-houses peeping pleasantly from among them. The advantage of these gardens to the working-class of a great manufacturing town, is beyond calculation; and I believe no town in the kingdom has so many of them in proportion to its population. It were to be desired that the example of the Nottingham artisans was imitated by those of other great towns; or rather that the taste for them was encouraged, and, in fact, created by the example of the middle classes, and by patriotic persons laying out fields for this purpose, and letting them at a reasonable rate. A wide difference in the capability of indulging in this healthful species of recreation, must of course, depend on the species of manufacture carried on. Where steam-engines abound, and are at the foundation of all the labours of a place, as in Manchester, for instance, there you will find few gardens in the possession of the mechanics. The steam-engine is a never-resting, unweariable, unpersuadable giant and despot; and will go on thumping and setting thousands of wheels and spindles in motion; and men must stand, as it were, the slaves of its unsleeping energies. O! what was the fate of the ancient genii to the fate of our modern mechanics! What was the fate of “the slaves of the lamp,” or the slaves of talismanic ring, to that of the slaves of the steam-engine! They could vanish and lie at rest till came the irresistible call; they could sport over ocean and desert, through the air and the clouds; they could speed into the depths of space and wander amid the inconceivable mysteries and miracles of unknown worlds, till the omnipotent spell recalled them to execute some temporary wish of their tyrant, and then return to a wide liberty. But the slave of the steam-engine must be at the beck of his tyrant night or day, with only such intervals as barely suffice to restore his wearied strength and faculties:—therefore you shall not see gardens flourish and summer-houses rise in the vicinity of this hurrying and tremendous power. But where it is not, or but partially predominates, there may the mechanic enjoy the real pleasures of a garden. And how many are those pleasures!

Early in spring—as soon, in fact, as the days begin to lengthen and the shrewd air to dry up the wintry moisture—you see them getting into their gardens, clearing away the dead stalks of last year’s growth, and digging up the soil; but especially on fine days in February and March are they busy. Trees are pruned, beds are dug, walks cleaned, and all the refuse and decayed vegetation piled up in heaps; and the smoke of the fires in which it is burnt, rolling up from many a garden, and sending its pungent odour to meet you afar off. It is pleasant to see, as the season advances, how busy their occupants become; bustling there with their basses in their hands and their tools on their shoulders; wheeling in manure; and clearing out their summer-houses; and what an air of daily-increasing neatness they assume, till they are one wide expanse of blossomed fruit-trees and flowering fragrance. Every garden has its summer-house; and these are of all scales and grades, from the erection of a few tub-staves, with an attempt to train a pumpkin or a wild-hop over it, to substantial brick houses with glass windows, good cellars for a deposit of choice wines, a kitchen, and all necessary apparatus, and a good pump to supply them with water. Many are very picturesque rustic huts, built with great taste, and hidden by tall hedges in a perfect little paradise of lawn and shrubbery—most delightful spots to go and read in of a summer day, or to take a dinner or tea in with a pleasant party of friends. Some of these places which belong to the substantial tradespeople have cost their occupiers from one to five hundred pounds, and the pleasure they take in them may be thence imagined; but many of the mechanics have very excellent summer-houses, and there they delight to go, and smoke a solitary pipe, as they look over the smiling face of their garden, or take a quiet stroll amongst their flowers: or to take a pipe with a friend; or to spend a Sunday afternoon, or a summer evening, with their families. The amount of enjoyment which these gardens afford to a great number of families is not easily to be calculated—and then the health and the improved taste! You meet them coming home, having been busy for hours in the freshness of the summer morning in them, and now are carrying home a bass brimful of vegetables for the house. In the evening thitherward you see groups and families going; the key which admits to the common paths that lead between them is produced; a door is opened and closed; and you feel that they are vanished into a pure and sacred retirement, such as the mechanic of a large town could not possess without these suburban gardens. And then to think of the alehouse, the drinking, noisy, politics-bawling alehouse, where a great many of these very men would most probably be, if they had not this attraction,—to think of this, and then to see the variety of sources of a beautiful and healthful interest which they create for themselves here:—what a contrast!—what a most gratifying contrast! There are the worthy couple, sitting in the open summer-house of one garden, quietly enjoying themselves, and watching their children romping on the grass-plot, or playing about the walks; in another, a social group of friends round the tea-table, or enjoying the reward of all their spring labours, picking strawberries fresh from the bed, or raspberries, gooseberries, and currants from the bush. In one you find a grower of fine apples, pears, or plums, or of large gooseberries; in another, a florist, with his show of tulips, ranunculuses, hyacinths, carnations, or other choice flowers, that claim all his leisure moments, and are a source of a thousand cares and interests. And of these cares and interests, the neat awning of white canvass, raised on its light frame of wood; the glasses, and screens of board and matting, to defend those precious objects from every rude attack of sun, wind, or rain—all these are sufficient testimonies; and tell of hours early and late, in the dawn of morning and the dusk of evening, when the happy man has been entranced in his zealous labours, and absorbed in a thousand delicious fancies, and speculations of perfection. Of late, the splendid dahlia and the pansy have become objects of attention; and I believe of the latter flower, till recently despised and overlooked, except in the old English cottage-garden, there are now more than a hundred varieties, of such brilliance and richness of hue, and many of them of such superb expanse of corolla, as merit all the value set upon them.

This is the allotment system of the manufacturing town; to the full as desirable as that for the country, and which may be facilitated, fraught as it is with abundant physical and moral good, by philanthropic individuals to a great extent. At Nottingham, as I have observed, the taste seems to have grown up originally of itself, and then, exciting the attention of speculators, has been extended to its present growth by them. The mechanics there have not their gardens at a cheap rate. They all say that they could purchase their vegetables in the market for the amount of their rent and incidental expenses; but then, they get the health and the enjoyment, and their fruit and vegetables they get so fresh.

There are, according to a personal examination made by myself, now, upwards of 5000 of these gardens, containing, as single gardens, 400 square yards each,—the general scale of a garden; though a good many are held as double, and even treble gardens. These let at from a halfpenny to three halfpence per yard; but averaged at three farthings, make a rental of 1l. 5s. per garden, or a total of 6250l. Five thousand gardens of 400 yards each of clear garden ground, independent of fences and roads, give 413 acres and about a rood. Now, if we add one-fifth for fences and roads, the total quantity of land occupied is 496 acres, or we may say, in round numbers, 500 acres. Here then, 500 acres, which at fifty shillings an acre—a good rent for ordinary purposes, would yield a rent of 1250l.; yield, by being converted into gardens, a rent of 6250l., or a clear profit of 5000l.

Thus, it is evident, that any persons willing to promote the taste for gardening in the neighbourhood of towns, might double, in many instances, the ordinary rent of the land, and yet let it in gardens at half the price of these Nottingham ones. Even where land in the vicinity of a large town is very highly rented, a halfpenny a yard, and ten gardens to the acre, fences and roads included, would produce 8l. 6s. 8d. per acre; no contemptible sum; to say nothing of the real kindness of the accommodation, and the health, pleasure, and pure taste communicated to their fellow men; whilst, against the increased risk of loss, and the increased trouble of the collection of rent, are to be set the value of the garden stock, fruit trees, shrubs, and flower roots, and the summer-houses, which enhance the value to the next tenant.