274 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ October 10, 1867. 



the shoots from the perpendicular, as in fan-training, the eyes 

 of such as in an erect position would be dormant, would break. 

 I suppose the Dutch hoe is the best implement to clean the 

 ground among pegged-down Hoses. No doubt, Roses may be 

 pegged down, so a» to strike on their own roots. — \V. F. Ead- 



CALCEOLARIA CULTURE. 



Mr. LucKnuRST (page 235), gives me credit for advocating a 

 robust and vigorous growth as a remedy for Calceolaria failures ; 

 but I wish it to be understood that I consider a medium good 

 growth partly a remedy, though not altogether so. I think, 

 that because the Calceolaria will bear a large amount of rough 

 treatment, it very often receives more of such usage than is 

 good for it. 



I am aware that every gardener has not enough pots to hold 

 all his bedding plants in spring, and he must therefore resort 

 to such makeshifts as planting in a cold pit or frame. Only 

 two years ago I found myself short of pots, and was obliged to 

 adopt in the case of part of my C:ilceolarias the very plan that 

 Mr. Luckhurst has detailed. I planted out a two-light frame- 

 ful in early spring, kept them stopped, watered, &n. ; and at 

 plauting-out time they were fine plants, such as your corre- 

 spondent describes. They were lifted with due care, and placed 

 in the centres of the beds, where the tallest plants were wanted, 

 and the outsides of the beds were filled with pot plant.s ; but 

 plant as we would, the centres of the beds could not be made 

 to look well nnd tidy, for the plants were too large, and, the 

 weather being dry, it was long before the roots took hold of the 

 soil. The pot plants, on the contrary, did well from the first, 

 and never seemed to sustain any check whatever. 



I was so much disappointed with the i>lants taken from the 

 frame, that I determined never to adopt the same plan again 

 BO long as I could obtain pots for them. It was not till after 

 midsummer that the bed looked well, and the pot plants were 

 in no wise behind the frame jilants, but rather a little before 

 them when in bloom. I consider that the growth of plants 

 in pots is better consolidated and more sturdy than is the case 

 with those planted out in pits or frames ; but by no means do 

 I advocate a stunted growth. There is a medium which I like 

 to see. 



I think that if people would pay as much attention to the 

 Calceolaria as they do to Verbenas and otiier bedding plants, 

 there would be less ct-^mplaints about its dying off. I quite 

 agi*ee with your correspondent that he can oljtain fine vigorous 

 plants by his mode of treatnifnt, and I know it is praciised in 

 most places ; but I do not like their being covered up nearly 

 a fortnight at a time from the light, neither do I like the use 

 of leaf mould for them ; it is too light, and may contain the 

 germs of fungus. I have employed it in many different ways 

 and for many purposes, but now I never use any. 



I cannot say that I plant Calceolarias by the thousand, but 

 I plant out a few hundreds in a season, and as yet I have not 

 lost a single plant this year. As I have before remarked, 

 there is nothing new in my treatment, but rather the reverse. 

 • — Robin Rove. 



" Robin Txovs " seems to advocate not using leaf mould, but 

 in that I disagree with him. I prefer leaf mould one year 

 old to using manure. I agree with Mr. Luckhurst in liking 

 plants which have never been in pots, and with Mr. Osborne 

 as to not allowing them to become dry and in keeping them well 

 stopped. 



I do not claim originality for my mode of culture, but for 

 fourteen years I have grown many thousands of Calceolarias 

 yearly both for private gardens and for sale. 



I always strike some thousands of cuttings both in autumn 

 and spring ; and I have a favour for the spring-struck ones if 

 there exist conveniences to keep them growing, for I never like 

 to see Calceolarias exhibiting the slightest tendency to become 

 pot-bound and to flag. If they do, you may take them to the 

 rubbish-heap, for they will to a certainty be infested with 

 aphides sooner or later, and will never make good plants. 



Spring cuttings I generally prepare in the following manner. 

 In October I pot some of the healthiest plants, but do not cut 

 them, stand them in a cool pit on ashes, and keep close for 

 a few days, sprinkling them twice a-day ; they will soon stiike 

 fresh root, and I then give them air, gradually increasing 

 the amount till that is as great as possible. The soil I use is 

 leaf mould, loam, rotten turf, and sand. I keep them in the 

 pits without protecting mateiial over the glass as long as the 



severity of the frost is not too great, in order that they may 

 not be covered up many days in the dark. About the be- 

 ginning of January I put the plants in a gradually increasing 

 heat, and by the end of the month they begin to grow. In the 

 beginning of February I have a bed made up with leaves and 

 a little manure, so as to afford a moderate heat, and insert 

 nice little cuttings in pans 10 or 12 inches square, which are 

 tben packed in the frame. In a few days the cuttings will 

 indicate by their growth that they are rooted, and will require 

 the growing points to be very carefully pinched out. Let them 

 remain a few days and break, and they will then be strong 

 little plants. 



Next prepare turf pits as recommended, or frames, and partly 

 fill them with leaves, just to afford a little bottom heat to keep 

 the young plants growing well ; and lay the soil a few inches 

 thick all over the leaves to form a good rooting surface. The 

 soil employed for this purpose should be composed in the pro- 

 portion of one barrowload of leaf mould to one of good loam 

 and one of rotted turf, with the addition of one peck of sand 

 run through a coarse sieve and well mixed. Keep it a day or 

 so in the frame to become just warm, then take the plants very 

 carefully from the pans, and plant them about 4 or G inches 

 apart as room will admit. After planting sprinkle them regu- 

 larly, and keep the frame closed for a few days ; then gradually 

 give them air. 



During April the plants will require to be stopped twice, and 

 by the middle of May they will be good, strong, bushy plants, 

 ready to be planted out in the beds, previously prepared by 

 taking from them a little of the sour soil and replacing it with 

 some leaf mould, sand, and loam. Give a good watering just 

 to settle the soil about them, and no aphides will attack them, 

 and very rarely will you lose a plant. 



The later plants are struck in autumn the better, but if they 

 are potted at all I never like potting them before the spring. 

 If they are potted in the winter, which is too often the case, 

 they get starved and dry, and grow poor brown-leaved skeletons, 

 never again to acquire that green robust habit so needful in 

 Calceolarias. In March and April they are excited to a little 

 growth, then in May are planted out, and dwindle along with 

 the dry hard wood they have made, and become blighted. 

 Some die at once, others flower a little, but are seldom of long 

 duration or beauty ; but if spring-potted, or not potted as 

 Mr. Luckhurst and Mr. Osborne recommend, they will be far 

 better than the others. — Charles Osman, Sutton, Su7re>j. 



ROSES AND OTHER GARDEN PRODUCE IN 

 ILLINOIS. 



I OBSERVE in your pages considerable discussion about Mare- 

 chal Niel Rose. We have had it two years, and find it of its 

 class unrivalled ; the plant healthy, vigorous, free-blooming, 

 whether on its own roots or budded on Manetti or Russell's 

 Cottage, a stock we prefer to the Manetti. Its flower-bud is 

 large and showy ; the flower opens well, is very double, and has 

 a superb yellow centre, and a most delicious perfume of the 

 Magnolia order. 



From fifty small plants set last spring in the open grotmd, 

 with no special care, both budded and on their own roots, we 

 have removed, for the sake of shoots for budding, at least one 

 hundred flower-buds, besides scores of buds and blooms all 

 through the season. The weather this season has here been 

 decidedly dry, and yet in vigour and free-blooming the character 

 of MaiCehal Niel has been unimpeachable. No mildewed leaf 

 has ever appeared on it, though in the east I have heard fault 

 found with it in that respect. 



Isabella Gray is nearest Marechal Niel in colour ; the bnd 

 and tint rather a deeper yellow, but the flower is much smaller, 

 and the habit quite shy, though we get a moderate bloom of it 

 on young plants in the open ground. In wet weather, however, 

 Isabella Gray does not open so well. Chromatella, in the open 

 ground here, proves more shy than either of the above. Lati- 

 tude about that of Philadelphia, and 1200 miles inland ; soil 

 dark, deep alluvial prairie, fine-textured sandy clay, or clayey 

 sand. 



Tbe season here on the whole has been very pleasant. Frnit 

 crops have been equal to the average ; Apples have been our 

 poorest fruit crop, as the trees bore very heavily last year. 

 Peaches are mostly brought from one hundred to two hundred 

 miles south, and I would say that not less than fifteen thousand 

 boxes of one-third of a bushel have been sold in our little city 

 of fifteen thousand inhabitants, at an average price of 1 dollar 



