JODBNAIi OF HOETICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENEK. 



[ September 19, 1867. 



CV;<;r^.— Treated a part of our Celery as stated the other week, 

 and have not jet cleaned and tied as much as we wish, as it 

 is not pleasant working amongst it whilst it is in a wet state ; 

 and what with rains and heavy dews, it has been little dry until 

 some afternoons of late. Our Celery is healthy enough, but 

 we have seen some places, and heard of several others, where 

 the Celery is very unhealthy this season, independently of 

 good rich soil and suitable attention. This ailment is some- 

 thing very different from the fly, &c., which we are familiar with, 

 and know tolerably well how to manage or keep away, and 

 then the maggot will not come. The tops of the plants, the 

 leaves, seem to assume a hard brown-like touch and tinge, and 

 there it remains, and the plant remains too— that is, it just 

 keeps alive, but it will not grow, do what the gardener will to 

 charm it to do otherwise. Have any of our correspondents 

 noticed this ailment, and can they state the cause or the cure ? 

 The instance that came under our immediate observation was 

 at a place and under a management hitherto marked by fine 

 lusm-iant Celery, and there seemed to be nothing in position, 

 soil, or circumstances to account for it. 



Cateijnllars. — These, like weeds, are becoming very nume- 

 rous, but as yet we have suffered little in comparison with 

 others we hear of, but still we have more than usual, owing to 

 not having boj's to hunt and beat down the white-wiuged but- 

 terflies. When we did so, we were little troubled with cater- 

 pillars on Cabbages and Cauliflower in the autumn months. 

 We have heard of large breadths of vouug Cabbages on which 

 not a leaf has been left, but all is cleared off as if an army of 

 locusts had passed that way. Such caterpillars when not over- 

 numerous may be picked off, and that is the surest method, 

 but an impossible task when great breadths have to be gone 

 over. The most rapid mode of getting rid of them is to dust 

 the plants, and especially on the under side of the leaves, with 

 quickhme, or even fresh wood ashes, but the lime is the best. 

 When that is not advisable, strong clear lime water will cause 

 them at once to fall, and will generally kill them. If unar- 

 rested, and very numerous, they will leave nothing green be- 

 hind them, as they feed voraciously until they shut themselves 

 up for their winter quarters. In some cases when the butter- 

 flies are very numerous in summer an unpleasant smoke, as 

 burning rubbish, will deter them from visiting the place and 

 depositing their numerous eggs. 



Lettuci's.—Vfe have had no trouble with these until now, 

 but slugs have begun on us in earnest, and they must feed at 

 the darkest hours, as we can only know of their presence by 

 the effects produced. We shaU be under the necessity of sow- 

 ing under glass, as our late sowings in the open air have every 

 day been less visible than the day before, and that in spite of 

 sprmklings of ashes, &c. 



. FEUIT GAKDEN. 



The chief work has been collecting fruit and looking after 

 the enemies, mostly of the insect tribe. We may expect rats 

 to leave us now for a time, as they will find better feeding in 

 the stacks of the farmers. Our various contrivances had nearly 

 di-iveu them away, and not without cause were our efforts to 

 start them. In one night they found their way into a pit and 

 cut over, close to the surface of the soil, a score or two of 

 favourite Pelaraoniums, leaving the tops untouched on the 

 ground, as if they did the whole out of mischief. We had to 

 move the plants, or most likely in another morning not one 

 plant would have been left ungnawed. It is a good plan to 

 treat rats with barleymeal made into a rather stiff paste 

 with water, and then when that is eaten to follow with another 

 dose, but with arsenic mixed with it. Potatoes beaten up and 

 fried with dripping and then mixed with arsenic are also 

 yery good ; but two things in all such matters must be kept in 

 mind : First, in making and putting down such mixture, the 

 hand should never touch it; and, secondh-, the mixture must 

 be placed where no useful animal can have" access to it. 



Stmirhinics. — Those potted now require all the light they 

 can receive, aud never to suffer from want of water. Our 

 main pieces and quarters in the open ah- are rather wild, as 

 we have not yet been able to clear away the runners, which 

 ought to have been done weeks ago, but"it is rarely that one 

 can have everything done at the right time. As a general rule, 

 we let our Strawberry plants stand three years, aud then the 

 ground, when all is trenched down, is useful for Winter Greens 

 and general crops. Many possessors of small gardens, how- 

 ever, have a sort of horror of making a fresh Strawberry 

 plantation, and that chiefly for two causes. First, the dread 

 of having but a small crop the first season. This can be sur- 

 mounted by taking off the runners as early as possible, pricking 



them out 4 inches apart in rich light soil, and then lifting them 

 with good balls in autumn. Another easier plan is to take run- 

 ners now, prick out in the same way so as to take little room, 

 and take up and transplant next season. One advantage of 

 this plan is, that all the plants that do not show bloom next 

 season may be discarded, so as to make sure of fruitful plants. 

 When the most is to be made of the ground, we would plant 

 the first year in rows 1 foot apart, and 1 foot from plant to 

 plant in the row, and in the second year we would remove 

 every other row. The second objection is, that there is a 

 shrinking from the trenching, dunging, and preparing of a 

 fresh piece of ground for Strawberries, and they would rather 

 put up with their old bed. Well, in this case we can only 

 say, that in good loamy soils Strawberry plants will bear many 

 years. We have had them good for eight aud ten years, if 

 every season after bearing the runners are removed, the plants 

 themselves thinned by taking away the parts with the poorest 

 buds, aud then forking the ground an inch or two, but not 

 more in depth, and dressing with rotten dung for the winter. 

 Strawberries will flourish a long time under such treatment ; 

 but we lose the advantage of rotation of crops in a limited 

 space. 



0RX.\5IENTAL DEP-UITMEST. 



Gravel, lawn, flower-beds, cuttings, have taken up much of 

 our time, aud still there is plenty to do. Tender plants must 

 now be looked after before the nights become too cold. Even 

 on the present bedding system, much may be gained by mixing 

 more and preventing the beds having too regular and mo- 

 notonous an aspect as to height and level. We lately saw a 

 flower garden wliich we have always admired ; but the beds, well 

 filled aud well bloomed, were very large, and, standing on any 

 side, you could see only a level breadth of colouring, the grass 

 spaces though wide being too narrow for the huge beds. We 

 could not help thinking, that half of the bed-space would have 

 been more effective ; and, again, what a relief massive, loftier 

 stand-points in the beds would have been in breaking- in the 

 monotonous level, and thus, even on the fashionable mode 

 of planting, effecting a degree of light and shade. On the 

 generally-received mode of planting no beds could have been 

 done better. 



In another place we were presented with a proof of what we 

 have often alluded to, that it is better to have a small flower 

 garden, and a small lawu well kept, than a larger one of either 

 only very moderately attended to. Looked at in this light one 

 acre may be more attractive than a dozen. Here is a neat 

 lawn not altogether half an acre in extent, and .>et such nice 

 picture flower-beds, and the grass is like a Brussels carpet ; and 

 so it ought, for after the first mowings and rollings, it is run 

 over by a Green's mowing machine at least twice every week, 

 and sometimes oftener. There is another lawn aud flower gar- 

 den of at least three acres, the beds more numerous, exquisitely 

 filled, but as you pass along you see there are weeds disputing 

 with the flowers, there are as many decayed blooms in the beds 

 as fresh ones, and to get near them until the after part of the 

 day you must run the risk, from the length of the grass, of 

 having your feet wet as high as your ankles. Will mere space, 

 or quantity, or bulk, make up for the want of the tirst-rate keep- 

 ing ? For our own part, if the alternative is presented, we 

 would sooner have the rood than the acre, unless the acre could 

 be kept as well as the rood. Not a few are finding out what we 

 long since laid down as a fact, that a well-kept lawn is the 

 most expensive thing about a garden, and the expense will be 

 increased in proportion to its size ; and then at its best it merely 

 repays the labour by pleasing the eye, and thus becomes as 

 much a luxury as the keeping of fiue paintings and pictures, 

 with this difference, that the expense of thfe pictures is pretty 

 well done with when they get hanging room after being pur- 

 chased, whilst the expense of a lawn is pretty well a weekly 

 outlay. 



ITindou- Gardening. — We read lately that the authorities of a 

 town had issued their decrees that every person was to be fined 

 so much after a certain day, who kept a flower plant in a pot 

 outside his or her windows. There was no reason assigned, 

 no circumstances stated under which the window plant might 

 be retained as an ornament. We can fancy cases in which the 

 careless watering of such plants, without means for catching 

 the water, might be a nuisance to those passing beneath the 

 window; but that could be easily obviated by having a water- 

 tight vessel for the plants to stand in. We can also fancy pots 

 standing outside of a window liable to be blown down on the 

 heads of passers-by, but that could bo easily prevented by a 

 couple of iron bars fixed to the walls, behind which pots and 



