U2 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ February 24, 187U. 



or winter crop, as it is calleJ, should be sown, choosing an open 

 situation, and to secure good growth watering should be re- 

 sorted to' it the weather be dry. The kinds should be Hardy 

 Winter, Bath Cos, and All the Year Round. The third week 

 in September the plants will be fit to plant out. A portion 

 should be put out underhand-glasses on a south border, taking 

 out trenches '2 feet wide, with 3-feet spaces between, and laying 

 the soil from the trenches on the 3-feet spaces, so as to raise 

 them about 9 inches higher than the bottoms of the alleys. A 

 dressing of leaf soil or any rotten manure may be given, but 

 not unless the soil is light and poor. Though it is well to dig 

 and pulverise the soil, the fiiruer the ground is for planting 

 the better. The plants are hardy or tender in proportion to 

 the firmness or lightness of the soil. Place the hand-lights on 

 the ridges as closely as they will stand, and those with move- 

 able tops are best. Those with fixed tops and bell-glasses, or 

 whatever other name they may have, are practically of no value 

 in England, however well they may answer in a brighter, drier 

 climate. The great difficulty of the horticulturist in this 

 country is his moist soil and climate and cloudy sky. The 

 plants may be put in about 4 inches apart, the needful water- 

 ing given, and the tops of the hand-glasses taken off ; the tops 

 may remain off until the weather becomes frosty, then put 

 them on at night, taking them off every morning if the weather- 

 be favourable ; or if cold, but above freezing, the tops may be 

 placed cross corners as regards the bottom, but whenever the 

 weather is mild remove them altogether. In mild weather, 

 however, heavy rain may fall ; then the glasses ought to be 

 tilted, and thus air be admitted to pass through. In very frosty 

 weather mats should be placed over the glasses at night as 

 long as the frost continues, and should not be removed in the 

 morning until the plants, if they are frozen, have thawed. If 

 the plants become frozen cover them with mats, and keep 

 them in darkness until thawed. The soil about the plants 

 should be frequently stirred, and every decaying leaf removed. 



In spring the plants should have plenty of air, and to bring 

 them forward admit it early in the day ; when the moisture is 

 dissipated replace the tops of the glasses, and if the weather is 

 mild place the tops cornerwise. Watering must be attended 

 to as required. Eveiy alternate plant may be taken out as 

 required for use, and this will allow of those left attaining a 

 larger size. The plants under hand-glasses will form a suc- 

 cession to those in frames, and afford the first out-door spring 

 supply. 



If no plants are put out in autumn under hand-glasses, the 

 Hardy Winter Lettuce should be planted on a south border in 

 beds -1 feet wide, the lines being 9 inches apart, and the plants 

 6 inches from each other in the lines. Both the Hardy Winter 

 and Bath Cos should also be planted in front of a south wall, 

 and these will give Lettuces after those under glasses, or if 

 none were so planted, they will produce the first spring supply. 

 They should not be planted near walls where the drip falls 

 from the coping. These plantings should be made at the 

 beginning of October, putting out the best plants at the above- 

 named distances. The smaller plants may be planted in nur- 

 sery beds on a south border, and in spring every alternate 

 plant and row should be transplanted with balls. The soil 

 where the plantation is made should be firm, and the soil about 

 the plants must be frequently stirred, but not so deeply as to 

 interfere with the roots. The Bath Cos stands a long time in 

 spring without running to seed. Good breadths of it should 

 be planted out in autumn, both in beds on south or other warm 

 exposures, aud under the shelter of walls with south or west 

 aspects, nursery beds being made of the smaller plants for 

 planting snccessional beds in spring, which in ordinary seasons 

 will take place in March. Sometimes these smaller plants best 

 survive the winter, but if both those in permanent beds and 

 those in nursery beds survive, the latter form a good succes- 

 sion to the former. 



Another sowing of Hardy Winter Lettuce and Bath Cos 

 should be made towards the middle of September, and on a 

 south border, making the ground firm, and sowing just thickly 

 enough to secure a good stock of plants ; if they come up too 

 close together they may be thinned out, as they very rarely 

 succeed if left too crowded in the seed bed ; indeed, I have 

 known all the plants in the alleys stand the winter, whilst 

 those in the bed itself all perished— a result I can only account 

 for from the plants being rendered tender by crowding and the 

 ■want of solidity of the soil. If the plants from this sowing 

 survive, they may in March be planted out, and will form a 

 snccessional spring crop. 



The ground for winter Lettuce3 should be warm and dry, 



aud the soil light, but made firm, and moderately rich. If it 

 is very heavy and wet Lettuces seldom succeed, except when 

 protected by a wall or other shelter, and hand-glasses or 

 frames are of no assistance on such soils, unless they are 

 placed over Lettuces planted on beds considerably elevated 

 and inclining to the sun. 



What may be effected by the patent plant protectors of Mr. 

 Rendle in growing winter Lettuces remains to be determined, 

 but they appear to possess many advantages over hand-glasses 

 and frames, and are well worthy of trial. Those having had 

 experience of them would do well to make it known. — G. 

 Abbey. 



(To be continued.) 



FLORAL CKITICISM. 



I have read with much pleasure the remarks of Col. Scott on 

 this subject in The Jocexal of Hoeticclture, page 101. So 

 appositely put, they should do something to abate the preten- 

 sions of those little critics who are fuller of themselves than of 

 the objects they profess to love, or the subjects they profess to 

 teach. If horticulture and floriculture are to hold their own in 

 the future, to say nothing of advancing, we must act on wide 

 and general views. It is natural that the little critics should 

 fight against this, for they are shrewd enough to perceive that 

 if wide aud general views prevail the death-knell of their in- 

 fluence is sounded. 



Those who study plants may be classified in various ways. 

 For my purpose I will here draw them into three classes. 



1. Those who hold that the wild flowers are the loveliest and 

 the best. 



I would not dispute the point that wild flowers are perfect as 

 such, but I cannot grant what some of the advocates of this 

 view contend for, that wild flowers are absolutely and under 

 all conditions the loveliest and the best. The wild Rose met 

 with in dingle and dell, the wild Sloes and the wild Crab abound- 

 ing in wastes and in hedgerows, are perfect and satisfy us 

 there, but in our gardens we prefer the cultivated forms of 

 flowers and the cultivated flavours of fruits. Unquestionably 

 I prefer a bed of double red or double white Roses in my garden 

 to the wild forms of the Rose, as I prefer a dish of Green Gage 

 Plums or Bibston Pippin Apples to a dish of Sloes or Crabs 

 for my dessert. 



2. There is another class who, by reasoning, seek to deter- 

 mine from within what a flower or a plant should or should 

 not be. 



I have no wish to condemn altogether the practice which has 

 been and still is adopted by some, of drawing on their own 

 imagination or inward resources, of setting up from within an 

 ideal of perfection, and henceforth rejecting every variation in 

 nature that does not culminate in that point. This method 

 may result in the uprising of many objects of beauty, but I 

 fear that it also crushes out, for a time at least, much that is 

 or might become beautiful. This method favours the adoption 

 of one preconceived line to the exclusion of the many collateral 

 lines which co-exist and are equally open to development. 

 Here, too, I suspect is the source of the many fantasies met 

 with in gardening, arising from a lack of knowledge or an 

 incorrect taste — the dressing of florists' flowers, the tight 

 lacing of exhibition plants, the gumming of Pelargoniums and 

 pinning of Hyacinths, which have not only been practised by 

 some but defended by others. I refer to the setting-up of a 

 false standard from within. I go further here, and say that 

 the disrepute into which many florists' flowers have fallen is 

 due to this unnatural system, which those who practise it call 

 improving (?) nature. 



3. But there is another class, who seek the same object as 

 the last by building up from without rather than from within, 

 who go to nature for their first lessons, grounding their aspira- 

 tions on a close observation of her tendencies, and working to 

 aid in their development. 



It seems to me that the most natural and best course of 

 labour that we can pursue is to watch the tendencies of wild 

 plants when brought under cultivation, seizing upon the slight- 

 est departures from the type, endeavouring first to fix and 

 afterwards to develope them. If we do this we have, instead 

 of one line, several lines to follow, and more important results 

 will likely accrue from labouring to develope every tendency to 

 variation than from following any one tendency however judi- 

 ciously chosen. To say, however, that by this plan we " im- 

 prove " nature is not, I think, quite correct — at least not in 

 the sense in which the word is sometimes understood. 



