October 24, 18C7. J 



JOURNAXi OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



319 



HoujBs (H. 7".).— Apply to any of the nursorymon who advertlso in 

 our Jouruiil, telliu<^ thum what you need. 



EXCHANOE OF CcTTINOK (.( Constant Subicribcr).—T:iie trouble and 

 time arc more than wo am spare for auch truubactions. 



Pbsserviso Twine {IK. H. O.).— We know ot no bettor mode than 

 soakiiiR it in n strong decoction of Oak bark ; but wo do not know the 

 recipe you uientluu. 



Tttlcoi.nn PF.i.inooNlcst (Alpha Tau).— Your Pelargonium ia of flrst- 

 rate iiniilitv. There are some very like it, l)ut tho deep yollow margin is 

 distinct. Vour best way of testing its merits is to oxIiiMl it at tho next 

 special Tricolor e:ihibilion, which will bo held in May next. When there 

 are so ninny closely rcsemblini; each other, the only way to arrive at their 

 roHpectivo merits is by compariscm. 



Salt tor MisiiRoosi-nims (W. A. O.l.— Wo have used it in the propor- 

 tion ot an ounce to four gallons, making holes, and preventing the water 

 running on the surface of tho bed, and sometimes it diil good in bringing 

 on another giitheriug. Wo used it chiefly when there were in tho bed 

 small worms that found their way to the surface and made it rough and 

 uneven. More salt wo have used, but with no good result. At alt times 

 the salt water should bo kept oil' any Mushroom, however small. Instead 

 of "sing salt, at all we would recommend a peek of sheep-droppings, 

 soaked in ten gallons of water; the water to be poured on and stin-ed 

 when hot, an.l allotved to stanil until clear and milk warm. This w-ill 

 often do good to an old bed; but if the spawn is run out uo such doctor- 

 ing will be of any avail. 



CoTTiNii DowH Uf.ddino PEi.AROoNiUMa LATE (H«m).— Yon may os- 

 capo all Ijlecding and rotting of tho stems by merely allowing your plants 

 to become r;ither dr>* before you prune them, and then with a brush or 

 vour fingers you may, for additional security, though you will hardly find 

 it necessary, daub the cut parts with a powder of oijual parts lime and 

 charcoal dust, or with Thomson's styptic. 



Stove-he.itixo a Greekhocse (An Old Suiurrfftcr).— By having an 

 iron stove beneath your house, taking a pipe or flue from it through 

 the floor, and allowing the heat and smoke from the coke, &c., to diffuse 

 itself in your house, as you propose, you would soon not have a plant 

 alive. Drviug malt with coke, and heating a Iduso filled with living 

 plants froiu what is nothing else than an open coke tire, without a flue 

 to take off the products of combustion, are very different. With a waste 

 of heat you m.iy have your stove as proposed, but tho pipe must not 

 only lead into tho house, it must go rouud part, and lead out of it into 

 tho open air. Your simplest plan is to place your stove on the floor of 

 the house, and take a pipe from it through tho roof, and tho best way to 

 do that is to take out a squore of glass and substitute a square of zinc 

 or plate iron, with a hole cut in it to suit the pipe. Tho less you have of 

 a horizontil pipe the better will tho stove act. Mr. Fish described some- 

 time ago the working of a stove that excluded frost from an open lean-to 

 more than live times the size of yours. A small iron stove would do for 

 your house if placed inside of it ;'but tho following are great helps to com- 

 plete snccef 3 :— The flrc-box should stand free, say from 1 j to 2 inches from 

 the sides of the stove, and then tho sides never become so hot as to bum 

 tho air near tbem, which is so prejudicial to plants and men too. Drj- 

 materials should be used in lighting the fire. A little water should bo put 

 <m the ashes when cleaning it out, and the draught should be regulated 

 by air in the ashpit door. When once lieated, a slit. 1 inch long and one- 

 eighth of an inch wide, will keep up a slow regular combustion. 



Disn OF Apples iT. Lfnno.ri.— By "a dish ot Apples" is intended such 

 a dish as would bo placed upon table for dessert. Six Apples make a 

 handsome pyramidal dish — five as the base, and one above in the middle. 

 Write to Mr. lUchanls, Assistant Secretary, Royal Horticultural Society, 

 SoQtb Kensington, for the schedule. 



Planting Bulbs in Beds (Oar-r/«or Sa^j)tcri6(?r).— Wo do not think we 

 can do better than direct your attention to the answer respecting plant- 

 ing bnlba at page aol. You will there see how the one will succeed the 

 other; and you may pliint your beds and borders with the Narcissus, 

 Hyacinths, and other bulbs', to succeed Crocuses, tho Narcissus. Ac, in 

 the centre, as they relieve blue, white, and red Hyacinths ; or you may 

 make each bed of a particular l>ulh. It is easy to mnko pleasing combina- 

 tions with c'rocusos and other bulbs. For instance, take a circle, lay 

 out a lover's knot, till the scroll lines with double rows of purple, the 

 spaces enclosed with white, tlie outside spaces with yellow, and one or two 

 lines round the outside with blue ; but you will do it better than we can 

 tcU you. 



CooKiNO A New Vegetable (F. H.'. — How can wo possibly tell how 

 to cook it, as you do not say what it is ? 



Hats'3 Patent Stove.— --I Devonshire licctor would bo glad to know 

 •* whether 'Hays's Patent Stove,' so much spoken of last year, has 

 answered tho oxpcctatious ot those who have tried it ? Will it keep frost 

 out of an ordinary-sized greenhimso or orchard-house '? Is the patent 

 fuel, which ahme it will bui-n, always procurable and always good 'i The 

 stove is not advertised this season. Why '.' " 



Fldeless Stoves (T. H.). — Unless with flues, neither of the inventions 

 you name ought to bo admitted among plants. 



Planting Vines Inside (Fred). — We would decidedly plant tho Vines 

 inside, in your two-feet wide border. Y'ou say that is well drained, if so, 

 have t> inches of rubble at the bottom, and 2 feet of fibrj- soil above it. 

 It mntters not how high above tho floor of your house this border is, pro- 

 vided, whatever the height, that height shall be higher by 2 or 3 inches 

 than the top of the border outside tho house. If that outside border 

 slopes to the front all tho better. The pots on the trellis over the border 

 will do it no harm ; but wheu these plants want much water, it would be 

 as well to set the pots in saucers as otherwise the surface of tho border 

 might be wet and tho bottom dry, and tho soil become sonr and cankered. 



CireRRV Tree Lifting (Amntriir).—'Thc host and only plan you can 

 adopt is to mulch rouud the stem and for a yard from it with 3 inches of 

 littery mannre, and await the result of the severe root-pruning your tree 

 has undergone. Probably all will be well. We do cot expect any part of 

 the branches will die, at least not unless some are damaged, 



Cottino Down a Hollv Hedge (R. /!.i.— The Holly hedge planted 

 lust spring should not be headed or cut down to the ground now ; but 

 towards the close of March or early in April next year. In cutting, 

 leave as uiuch young wooU as you can ; at any rate, do not cot tho plants 

 in to hare stumps. 



Heating a Vinery (J. M., Dartmoor).— Vfe see that you have a lean-to 

 range of glass, consisting of three divisions ; tho two end ones, 26 feet 

 by 15, and the central one 12 feet by 15, and in the central one there ia a 

 tiink at the back, Irom which bv means of plugs a flow-pipe is taken and 

 a return brought back from each of the houses, but that enough of heat 

 cannot be obtained. This you attribute to tho si/.o of the pi pes, position 

 and size of the tanks at the ends, &c., of which hereafter. What puzzles 

 us is the question, •' If a boiler cannot be substituted for the tank, and tho 

 large tanks at each end removed ?" Now, we should suppose this tank in 

 the middle house to be heated already by a boiler. If not, with what' 

 If so, why want a boiler instead of tho tank '/ That tank is not too lorgo 

 if connected directly with a boiler, as it allows room for expansion, and, 

 in general, you need never have it above half full of water, if tho flow- 

 pipes proceed, as they generally do, from tho bottom. Aj-o we correct in 

 supposing that the flow-pipes only are connected with this tank, and tho 

 return terminates at the bottom of the boiler'.' If not, tho circulation 

 will be languid. Wo presume that tho tank at the end of each house is 

 on the same level as this supply tank in tho middle house, otherwise tho 

 water would run over at each end. The tanks at the farther end of each 

 house, intended chiefly, we presume, to give access to air and to connect 

 tho flow and return pipes, do seem large, 48 inches long, 10 wide, and 



20 deep, and with tho sir.o of tho flow-pipe, 12 inches wide and r> deep, 

 present a large body of water to bo heated. For early forcing, we think 

 you have scarcely enough of piping, and more especially if y.)ur return 

 round pipe of 5 inches in diameter is much lower than the flow-pipe. 

 To obtain earlv what heat you want, do away with the tank, or merely 

 leave it for water, and from the end of your flat pipe, after inserting 

 an nir-pipe, bring hack two four-inch returns, or your present return-pipo 

 and another, but on tho same level as the flow-pipe until you come to tho 

 near end, and then join these in one and take it to tho boiler. Mean- 

 while, you may prove to yourself how much may bo done by at onco 

 lessening the qu.antityof water to bo heated. You may stick a stone, a 

 block of heavy wood, ic, into tho tank at tho farther end, so as to leave 

 room for 2 inches or so of water round it. Then lessen the water in 

 vour flve.inch-deep flow-pipe, 12 inches wide. Be satisfied with from 

 2 to 21 or 3 inches at tho most ; 2( inches will bo ample, and with that 

 amount in the bottom of the flat pipe, you will have heat sooner and 

 more of it than you can ever obtain from your deep pipes. Tho heat 

 will rise, you cannot keep it down. 



Greenhouse Vinery (E. Brownton).—V/e have no donbt that yon will 

 succeed with your greenhouse vinery, according to the plan proposed, 

 and more especially as you will bo likely to make yourowu idea tho most 

 successful. The success, however, will, to a great extent, depend on not 

 expecting too much and not growing too many things in the house. For 

 instance, you will not do much with greenhouse plants if you attempt 

 early Grapes, as may be your aim, when you speak not only of the plenty 

 of ventilation, and hot and cold air at will, but also having plenty of heat 

 at command. The house is a hipped lean-to. the front rafters 12 feet 

 long, and the hip 5 feet ; the width of the house about 15 feet, and the 

 length 10 feet. In front there is 2} feet glass, and beneath that a wall. 

 Inside of that wall and separated from the floor of the house, is a border 



21 Jeet wide, and 2J feet deep, with rubble for drainage beneath that, and 

 the rubble, again, separated from an air-chamber beneath it heated by a 

 flue. It is proposed to plant Vines in this well-prepared but narrow border, 

 and as they decline in strength to take them out and put in fresh ones, 

 and also to have Vines in pots against the back wall, and tho question put 

 is. How many Vines shall bo planted in this border? Now, to obtain 

 much from this border as soon as possible, we would plant from eight to 

 ten Vines, and from the heat almost any Vino would flourish, and with 

 rich top dressings they will bear for several years. With this thick 

 planting, however, the roof will be so covered that after the first year or 

 two you will do no good with Vines against the back wall, in pots or other- 

 wise. For the first two vears or so, you could have box-shelves fixed 

 a feet or so from the top of your back wall, and in these boxes pack your 

 Vines in pots, and train them up and under the hip roof and down- 

 wards ; but even these will not do much after tho front roof is covered, 

 but you might allow each set of Vines only a portion of tho roof, and 

 then' both sets would do well. Wo merely wish you to hear in mind, that 

 when once the roof is covered, no light to he of much use will reach the 

 back wall. Plants well ripened, as to their wood, will fruit there, bnt tho 

 wood will not be matured for another season. If you wished to give even 

 partial justice to your back wall, and at the same time grow in the centre 

 ot the house plants not so high as to shade the back wall, then fonr 

 Vines in front would be sufficient, and these four Vines would soon fill 

 the house if more room were given to their roots. One of the easiest 

 modes to do that would be to make openings in the front wall .and let the 

 roots out into an outside border, and you would still retain the advantage 

 of inside planting. If vou must havo the roots inside, then the border 

 might havo been wider, and if von ivished Vines at the back as well, 

 then you might have had a similar border raised there and a pathway 

 between them. Both of these borders might be covered with a trellis for 

 plants, and the house would look neater and more furnished than it does 

 now. If you forced tho Vines at all, a fine lot of Strawberries in pots 

 could be had, at least from your front border, if set on a permanent or tem- 

 porarv platform, and in all such houses it is well to have these platforms 

 to move in pieces so as to be easily taken out. With your command of 

 ventilation you may almost bid defiance to tho smoke, if you have rather 

 open gauze netting placed over the openings. In all early forcing this 18 

 an excellent precaution even where smoke is not excessive, ns tho air is 

 sifted before entering, and never comes in in great gusts at a time. 

 Hurricanes are, no doubt, essential for the purification ot our general at- 

 mosphere, but wo do not advocate violent tempests in oar plant honscs ; 

 wo would rather keep them out. You may keep all kinds of greenhouse 

 plants in your house, when the temperature is not raised artilicially 

 alwve 54 . When for tho Vines you raise it above that, Pehlrgoniums, &c. 

 should be gradually withdrawn. 



Hardiness of Balm or Gilead, Lemon-scented Verbena, and 

 Veronica (Cedn).— Tho Balm of Gilead(Dracocephalum canaricnscl. will 

 not endure our ordinary winters in the open ground, though possibly it 

 might succeed in a warm situation and in a dry, well-dniined soil,pr.itec-_ 

 i.m being afforded it during severe weather by sticking in evergreen 

 boughs around it, and wr.ipping a hsy or straw band round it. The head 

 might suffer, but it would in all probability push afresh from near the 

 ground. Tho Lemon-scented Verbena (Aloysia citrio.iora), will succeed 

 against a south wall it covered with dry straw and mats during severe 

 frost, and the ground mulched around the stem with Utter, It is ncces 



