157 

 GARDEN GUIDE FOR MAY. 



Kitchen Garden. — It has been a dreadful seed-time, and all sorts of things are 

 in arrear. The best advice we can give to tliose who have not yet sown all their 

 spring seeds, is to sow at once. Several good things should also be sown now for 

 succession, where things are going on well, such as a few peas, beans, spinach, and. 

 ijaladings. The best peas to sow now are Veitch's Perfection, Ne plus Ultra, Mam- 

 moth Marrow, and Stuart and Mein's Prince. Lettuces should be sown now on 

 heavily manured ground, where they are to remain, and they will be good, but if 

 transplanted, they will be no good. Sow also kidney-beans, and if not provided 

 with marrow plants, prepare the hillocks, and sow the seed upon them. It is 

 better, however, to turn out thrifty plants from pots on to beds five feet wide, made 

 with a foot depth or more of rotten dung, and six inches of good loam on the dung. 

 This mode ensures a gentle warmth to start the plants, and the beds answer well 

 for sea-kale, asparagus, or onions the following season. Another pinch of Walcheren 

 broccoli should be sown. All winter greens should be forward by this time, and 

 ready for thinning out, to make plantations of the forwardest. 



Flotver Garden. — The principal business now is bedding out. It is most impor- 

 tant to have the plants well hardened first by careful exposure to the weather, at 

 first by day only, and in the end by night as well. Choose dull dry weather for 

 bedding, if possible, and have the plants rather dry, for if recently watered, they do 

 not turn out nicely. Ttie Japanese striped maize, the various new sorghums, and 

 andropogons may be sown now to figure as ornamental grasses ; but we cannot 

 advise any one to grow them in the expectation of eating bread made from their 

 seeds. As for the maize, it is a splendid thing, and a shilling packet of seed sown 

 on the first of May will do as well as ten shillings' worth of plants bought in 

 from a nursery. But those who want plants may obtain them true from Messrs. 

 Carter and Co. 



Fruit Garden. — The quality of every kind of fruit is improved by early thinning 

 the crop, and mulching the ground with half rotten dung. 



Greenhouse. — Green-fly will be found on many plants, and, generally speaking, 

 the plants infested will now do better out of doors than imder glass, and the fly 

 will disappear soon after they are put out. If it is not advisable to put them out, 

 shut up and fumigate, having everything quite dry at the time ; syringe well next 

 morning. 



*#* Past issues of the Floral "World contain copious calendars of operations, 

 and the Garden Oracle has a complete and concise calendar, adapted for reference. 

 For these reasons the *' Garden Guide " will be on a contracted scale this year. 



jstews of the moxth. 



The Paris Exhibition was opened without ceremony on the 1st of April, 

 though then, as now, in a most unfinished state. But with all its imperfections, with 

 all its attempt to grasp more than seems possible, it is a much grander and certainly 

 a more complete aff'iiir than it has been represented. In the park and the horticul- 

 tural ground there are more things for English gardeners to see and admire than 

 they can reasonably expect to be again brought together during the term of the 

 present generation. More especially worthy of notice are the trained fruit-trees, 

 of which there are innumerable examples, exemplifying the perfection the French 

 cultivators have attained in this department. Lakes, fountains, rockeries, aquaria, 

 and conservatories, are features now full of attractions and the inner garden, which 

 is as an oasis to the visitor wearied with inspection of the courts, is now being 

 planted with the most brilliant bedding and sub-tropical plants. It is the first time 

 that horticulture has been represented at a great international exhibition, and it is 

 being so extensively represented at Paris, that we advise our readers generally to 

 provide, in their programmes of pleasure for the present season, one trip to Paris at 

 least. 



Exhibitions in London. — It is with great pleasure we record a successfiil 

 experiment by the East London Amateurs' Society, in the holding of an exhibition 



