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Through the back, in a fusty ill-lit room stacked high with second-hand books, I found a small, plain, green volume in the garden section.   A "momentary flick through" turned into a browse - and a couple of hours later the owner was gently mentioning that he'd like to be shutting up shop.

Best £3.50 I've spent in a long time - and I've been dipping into it regularly ever since.   It is the complete antidote to the "pretty picture/easy text" gardening books by TV "celebrities".   You know the ones - they line the shelves of Borders, and they're almost all the same!

Mr Newsham's book is packed with tightly condensed information.   Sure, some of it is simply of historical interest - but there's a also lot of information which is hard to come by nowadays.

So I've started choosing my favourite bits and adding them to the web-site - I hope you find them interesting too!


Contents

  • Chapter 1 - Weights and Measures.
    For example, in his day there were
    • the English acre (of 4 roods or 10 chains; 1 rood was 40 poles or perches; and 1 pole/perch was 625 square yards).
    • the Scottish acre (which measured 1 acre, 1 rood and 493/625 square poles)
    • the Irish acre (which measured 1 acre, 2 roods and 10/121 square poles)
    • and the Welsh acre (which measured 2 English acres)
    And there are still people hostile to decimalisation!  

    The Seasons
    Spring starts on 21st March, and lasts 92 days and 21 hours;
    Summer starts on 21st June, and lasts 93 days and 14 hours;
    Autumn starts on 23rd September, and lasts 89 days 17 3/4 hours;
    and Winter starts on 21st December, and lasts 89 days and 1 hour.
    Worth remembering, because that's the definition of seasons which we see in our gardening books and on our seed packets!   Now I know what "late spring" means!
  • Chapter 2 - Land Measuring and Mensuration.
  • Chapter 3 - Garden Formation (creating and designing a garden).
  • Chapter 4 - Horticultural Buildings.
  • Chapter 5 - Hedges, Fences and Gates.
  • Chapter 6 - Geological Formations and Soils (favourite!).
  • Chapter 7 - Chemistry of the Garden and Manures (favourite!).
  • Chapter 8 - Propagation and Seed Memoranda.
  • Chapter 9 - Fruit Culture.
  • Chapter 10 - Flower Culture.
  • Chapter 11 - Vegetable Culture.
  • Chapter 12 - Trees and Shrubs.
  • Chapter 13 - Insecticides and Fungicides.
  • Chapter 14 - Garden Meteorology.
  • Chapter 15 - Garden Recipes.