Febroary 21, 1867. 



JOUPNVL OF HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GAJEIDENEE. 



149 



Artichokes, Garlic, tini Shallots ; the Long-keeping Shallot is 

 the best. Sow Basil and Sweet Marjoram in pots in gentle 

 beat. 



rnriT oABDEy. 

 Preparations onght to be made for protecting the blossom of 

 Apricots. Thin canvas screens are, of course, the preferable 

 means, but where this material cannot be afforded Spruce 

 branches or Fern may be employed. Under a broad coping 

 the blossoms of Peaches, Nectarines, and Apricots, are rarely 

 injured, unless on an east aspect, where they are apt to suffer 

 from exposure to cold cutting winds so prevalent from that 

 quarter. Bring up all arrears forthwith. Make sure of thorough 

 draining. Plant high both at bottom and top. Finish nailing, 

 and provide against insects. 



FLOWER GARDEN. 



Attend well to thorou^jh cleanliness ; hoe through or other- 

 wise dress all margins or beds where Crocuses, Anemones, 

 Snowdi'ops. Primroses, and other spring flowers are peeping up. 

 Plant out Hollyhocks directly. This noble flower is well de- 

 terring of general cultivation. Its bold and pointed form 

 etands out in fine relief in masses of fiat-headed shrubs. 

 Walks may be turned, raked, and rolled down in order to pre- 

 pare them for receiving a thin coat of gravel. It occasionally 

 happens from disease and other causes that a Tulip does not 

 make its appearance above ground with the rest ; a careful ex- 

 amination should take place, removing the soil till you come to 

 the top of the bulb, when it may be found that the outer 

 sheath or leaf is wholly decayed or rotten. In this case, after 

 removing the diseased parts, do not return the soil, but allow 

 the bulb to have free exposure to the air, covering from rain 

 or frost with a hand-glass. The weather is now favourable for 

 planting the Eauunculus, which should be proceeded with as 

 speedily as possible. Auriculas, if not previously top-dressed, 

 should be attended to immediately. As seedling Polyanthuses 

 come into bloom, remove all that are inferior in shape, lacing, 

 and colour. Should any fine-formed flower with other good 

 properties come pin-eyed, it would be worth while to fertilise 

 it, as all its progeny will not necessarily be pin-eyed, and occa- 

 sionally some very promising flowers spring from one of this 

 description. 



GBEENHOUSE AND CONSEIITATOET. 



Dispense with fires in the conservatory as much as possible, 

 a, temperature of 55° by day, and 4-1' by night will be sufficient 

 for general purposes. Do not allow the beat to increase much 

 by sunshine. There is as much skill displayed in retarding 

 certain flowers as in hastening their flowering in the first in- 

 stance, and to this end a canvas screen of a thin character 

 should always be at hand to throw on the roof during the 

 midciay hours of very bright days. The seed of the Chine B3 

 Primrose may be sown in pans filled with light soil, and as 

 soon as the plants are sufficiently large let them be potted 

 eff into three-inch pots, which should be well drained and 

 Ailed with about equal parts of loam, Eandy peat, and well- 

 rotted manure or vegetable mould. The plants should never 

 be watered overhead, and great care must be taken that they 

 M9 not overwatered at the root, or they soon become sickly 

 and die. Be sure to sow a little Cineraria seed as soon as you 

 ean. This, with another good sowing of Chinese Primroses 

 and Cinerarias in April, will furnish a supply throughout the 

 next autumn and winter, if high cultivation be carried out. 

 As we are now upon the eve of a general shifting season, place 

 some loam and peat soil in an open shed. Leaf mould should 

 always be kept dry. Have all the pots clean, and, in fact, see 

 that everything is ready for coming operations. This is a good 

 time to sow all kinds of exotic seeds, either home-saved or 

 imported. Place them in heat and they will soon germinate ; 

 prick off into other pots as soon as the cotyledons expand, 

 »nd you will have plants established in a very short time. 

 Attend to your ornamental trellis plants, they should always 

 be in high order, and to accomplish this frequent attention is 

 necessary. Forced bulbs, as Hyacinths, Narcissus, etc., should, 

 after blooming, have the leaves tied up, and should be trans- 

 ferred to a cold frame, and when the most severe weather has 

 passed away they should be turned out of their pots to feed in 

 prepared beds. 



STOVE. 



Continue repotting such Orchids as need that operation. 

 Stanhopeas, Acroperas, Dendrobiums, etc., suspended in baskets 

 or on blocks, wUl now either require syringing occasionally or 

 watering by some means. Many of these will have received 

 little water since the end of October, and will ha%'e become ex- 

 cessively dry. Blocks may occasionally be soaked for a few 



minutes OTerhead in tepid water ; also, baskets if very dry. If 

 syringing is resorted to, choose a bright sunny day for the pur- 

 pose, and syringe them well early in the morning. On such 

 occasions keep up a brisk fire, and give air freely until the 

 afternoon for fear of the moisture lodging on the expanding buds, 

 which in some cases would prove fatal. Some of the winter- 

 flowering stove plants, as Geissomerias, Erauthemums, Plum- 

 bagos, and Justicias, now exhausted, shotild be cut back a little 

 and left to break, when they may be disrooted and placed in 

 smaller pots. They will make large and early specimens for 

 next autumn, whilst cuttings from them struck immediately 

 they break, will furnish succession plants of a smaller size for 

 dressing front shelves. The temperature should now be allowed 

 to rise freely on bright days in the early part of the afternoon, 

 remembering that a rise by means of solar heat alone can do 

 no harm for a few hours even at this period, provided it do not 

 exceed 80'. 



FORCISG-PIT. 



Continue to increase atmospheric heat and moisture at fittinj 

 periods. Attend to subjects for succession. Watch the worm 

 in the bud of jIoss Roses, fumigate for thrips, i-c, and see 

 that the plants are duly watered with tepid liquid manure. 



PITS ANn FHAirES. 



Prepare a gentle hotbed to receive fresh-potted plants, and to 

 nurse such as are required to be excited for affordiug cuttings. 

 Sow tender annuals for early blooming. Give air and water, 

 and repot plants that require it. Pot off all rooted Calceolarias 

 that were put in in the autumn, to make room for more tender 

 plants. Continue to put in cuttings of all kinds of plants that 

 are wanted to decorate the flower garden. — ^Y. Kease. 



DOINGS OF THE LAST WEEK. 



KITCHEN' G.VRDEX. 



Cabbages. — Earthed up some Coleworts planted late in au- 

 tumn, and which, contrary to general results, have stood the 

 winter well as yel, thanks to the snow, which kept the most 

 severe frost from touching them. These will come in useful as 

 our earliest cutting or gathering in spring, for our spring Cab- 

 bages wiU be a little later than usual. We have previously 

 stated that in our plantation, though surrounded by a common 

 net, there was not a single plant left, the rabbits, &e., m'aking 

 holes in the netting, or finding their way under it. To make 

 amends, we turned out some hundreds of nice stubby Cabbage 

 plants from pots which had been placed in the orchard-house 

 and under glass frames, where the plants could have a Uttle 

 heat at the roots, and the tops be kept stubby and cool. In 

 such positions they grew rapidly ; and as the pots became 

 I filled with roots we turned the plants out on the loth on a 

 I bank sloping to the south, being in expectation of the rain tliat 

 ' followed on that evening and the next day. Such plants will 

 grow right on without any check, and where no four-footed 

 devourers of consequence wUl be able to attack them. These 

 I wiU now be little later than those planted out in September, 

 I but then, of course, the labour has been considerably increased 

 I — a matter of much importance when the market value comes 

 , to be closely looked at. Such schemes must be resorted to at 

 I times when we would not have crops later than usual. Many 

 will make allowance for failm-es, accidents, and depredations, 

 when the causes are seen to be beyond the manager's control, 

 but will forget all about these causes when there is the slightest 

 stint in the supply. This shows the necessity of constant 

 watchfulness ; and when an accident happens now and then 

 from forgetfulness or inattention, the fine weather that succeeds 

 seems to upbraid us every hour. It is bad enough when sow- 

 j ings and plantings are rendered next to nugatory thi-ough no 

 remissness of our own, but from depredators that nothing but 

 ' destroying them or guarding by wire netting can protect us 

 ' from ; but there is at least the freedom from self-accusation, 

 the worst of all to endure. Even in such eases much labour is 

 I often required to bring up our leeway. Last season our early 

 Cauliflowers, independently of trapping and poisoning, were so 

 injured by rats, that, not" to be behind, we had to hurry on 

 a score or two under some old sashes in a pit. Singularly 

 enough, we have not seen a Cauliflower plant touched as yet 

 this winter. Last season nothing seemed to come amiss to 

 the rats, and though many were trapped the numbers of the 

 depredators were but little diminished. 



Pe'ns.— Sowed more in semicircular drain-tiles, but chiefly 

 in pieces of turf 9 inches long, 4 inches wide, and from 2 to 

 3 inches in thickness, the turf reversed, a groove scooped out 



