224 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



Chives. — Countryman. — People who allow any onion flavour to enter into a 

 salad usually prefer chives, and at all events no herb garden can be considered com- 

 plete without this useful vegetable. It will grow in any soil, but a rich yellow bed 

 is best for it. Plant now in rows a foot apart every way, using about a dozen bulbs 

 in each patch. 



Berks.— Ivy Barr and Sugden, 12, King Street, Covent Garden, London, W. C. 



M. Gallwey. — We cannot prepare a plan for your garden or for any particular 

 garden. We have, however, published many plans in former issues, some one of 

 which may suit you. 



Propagating Gold and Silver Zonal Pelargoniums. — Inquirer. — Take off 

 at once the young shoots that are moderately firm, and insert them in some light 

 sandy stuff on a south border. If the soil is naturally heavy, add a dressing of soil 

 from the potting bench. Water if the weather is very dry ; if not, leave them alone 

 until they are rooted, and then take up and pot. 



Heating a Greenhouse — Bulbs for the Antipodes. — Will you oblige me 

 by advice upon the following points : — 1. What is the cheapest and most effective 

 stove for a small house, bearing in mind that the most economical fuel available 

 here is coke at twenty shillings a ton ? As I am my own gardener, it is essential 

 that the stove shall not want trimming during the night. Please also oblige me 

 with price, and maker from whom to order it. 2. Can you advise me as to the best 

 mode of transmitting small bulbs through the post, remembering that our mails 

 come in bags (not boxes), and that parcels are liable to a good deal of rough treat- 

 ment. I have imported from several of the leading nurserymen of England, but 

 have only been successful once. In that case Messrs. Carter, of High Holborn, 

 sent me some Achimenes (certainly among the most manageable of bulbs), each 

 variety in sand in a separate paper, and the several packages so prepared put into 

 a bag of coarse brown paper, among seeds from a tin case. Transmission in boxes 

 as freight, per mail steamer, is too expensive, as I have further freight and agency 

 charges at the Australian end. On the other hand, a long voyage by sailing vessel 

 has its obvious disadvantages. — An Amateur at the Antipodes, Brisbane, Queens- 

 land, Feb. 25, 1869. [To query 1, we might give a voluminous reply, but we 

 prefer to restrict ourselves to a choice of three kinds of heating apparatus. The 

 test system always is hot water, and the most perfect furnace we know of for a 

 small house is the "upright conical boiler" made by Lynch White, of Upper 

 Ground Street, Blackfriars, London, S. The furnace would require to be 

 properly set in bricks, and as a figure of the mode of setting is sent with the appa- 

 ratus, a skilled bricklayer in any part of the world could put it up. There is no 

 necessity for cementing the joints of the pipes, as india-rubber rings put on inside 

 the sockets answer perfectly. Our next recommendation is Riddell's Slow Com- 

 bustion Boiler. This requires no setting. The pipes used with it are small, and 

 elastic joints are supplied with them. The cost will be about the same as the last. 

 The maker is J. H. Riddell, 155, Cheapside, London, E.C. In case you prefer a 

 stove inside the house, without pipes, then there is nothing to equal Musgrave's 

 Slow Combustion Stove, made by Musgrave Brothers, High Street, Belfast. The 

 size charged £6 is best for general purposes. To query No. 2 we must refer you to 

 a reply to An Antipodean in the June number. As a rule, bulbs cannot he sent 

 safely in bags of any kind.] 



Green Ginger. — The best way to grow a small supply is in pots. Plant the 

 sets in February, in a mixture of fibry peat and fresh silky hazel loam, using 6-inch 

 pots for each division of the root. Plunge the pots in a bark-bed, or in a dung-bed, 

 newly made up as if for cucumbers, but surfaced with tan. Give no water for a few 

 days, then but little, and gradually increase the supply as the plants progress. Give 

 air in hot weather, and keep well supplied with water till September, when you will 

 have a fine stock of roots fur the preparation of a delicious sweetmeat. The ginger is a 

 stove herbaceous plant, with red flowers. It is propagated by root division, winters 

 at 45°, and requires a summer temperature of 65° to 85', and may be grown by all 

 who can manage melons. 



