Cottage Gardens. - We cannot say much for these in the west of Scotland. They are small, and, with the exception of some about Paisley and other manufacturing places, scarcely any thing is grown in them but borecole and potatoes: onions and beans are not uncommon, but peas and turnips are rare; and kidneybeans (one of the most profitable of summer vegetables) are scarcely ever grown. At the village of Catrine, in addition to the small gardens behind the cottages or street houses, there are several acres feued out, somewhat in the manner of the town gardens of Birmingham and Lancaster; and in these a variety of culinary vegetables, flowers, and the smaller fruits, are cultivated with care. The gardens attached to the lodges at gentlemen's seats must not be considered as included in the rude ones above alluded to. These being frequently the gardens of professional gardeners, and in all cases more or less under their eye, are generally ornamented with flowers, and the houses belonging to them with creepers. They are not, however, always very profitable gardens to the possessors, any more than the lodges which they are meant to adorn are always comfortable dwellings. That part of these lodge gardens where kitchen crops are grown is in general behind the cottage, overshaded by the branches of trees above, and impoverished by their roots beneath. Much of what looks well to a stranger, in the dwellings and appurtenances of those immediately depending on the wealthy classes, is only surface comfort; and, before any thing better can arrive, the rich man must learn to sympathise with the whole of human nature, or the poor man to protect himself.
