January 21, 1860. 3 



JOURNAL OP HORTIOULTUBB AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



49 



true policy, however, to use the tiles. It is often very ilifllcult 

 to open these old drains. The work is often more diilicult to 

 do than makinr; fresh ones, and as B placed his drains iiO feet 

 apart, and as tiles are now cheap, wo would lie inclined to drain 

 the intermediate spaces, and let the old drains alone. 



Drains are often stopped up by roots of trees taking pos- 

 session of them. Circular, or semicircular tiles, or pipes, 

 require merely to be placed end to end. There is no necessity 

 for having other holes in them. Even at the ends where they 

 join it is well to have a piece of tile, stone, &c., placed over 

 them to prevent fine soil entering ; but wherever water can 

 percolate, the fine roots of plants and trees will also find their 

 way ; therefore, drains should be laid at a distance from trees. 

 We have taken up pipes filled with sach a solid mass of Ash, 

 ]:^lm, and Toplar rootlets, that no water could pass, and yet 

 these trees were 50 or GO feet from the drains. For draining a 

 small extent of ground the common spade and pick answer 

 very well, though when thus made you must have a wide 

 bottom; but for extensive draining operations, and where there 

 is much depth, it will in every way be beet to have the pro- 

 per tools and make the drain in the wedge-shape, with the 

 apex downwards. When for particular purposes, as convey- 

 ing sewage, bricks are used, we would either use the barrel 

 shape or make the drains square. We have known square 

 brick drains, inches wide and 5 inches deep, carry oft great 

 quantities of sewage with hardly any sediment for a great 

 number of years ; but just in proportion to the soap water and 

 fatty matter from dishes being thrown down, so there is the 

 greater necessity for having a good-sized cesspool just beyond 

 the water stink-trap, which could be often cleaned out, as that 

 would very much tend to keep the drains clean and in good 

 working order. Nothing so soon furs-up iron pipes, and even 

 round earthenware pipes, as dish-washing and soap water. 



C, and he is not the only one we know, is equally un- 

 fortunate, having pitched his pretty home on ground at a low 

 level. He never thought of drainage. As good luck would 

 have it, he has nothing under the ground level, even his cellar 

 is on the ground level ; but as the nearest outlet he can have, 

 the bottom of a ditch by the side of a road, some 200 yards 

 distant, is only 3 inches below the surface of the intervening 

 ground, he has the greatest trouble even with the necessary 

 sewage, as whenever water accumulates in the ditch, the sewage 

 flows back, and forces itself above ground, and then when in 

 addition there are heavy rains, his little lawn is no better than 

 a stagnant morass. He is becoming alarmed for the conse- 

 quences to himself and his household, and fears he must part at 

 a great loss with what was obtained with much toil, sweetened 

 with many a vision, now fully realised but for the difficulty of 

 this stagnant water deteriorating the otherwise healthy air 

 about him. Well, the case is a bad one, but not, we think, with- 

 out remedy. Make the water move, and to a great extent you 

 rob it of the powers to injure which it would have when stag- 

 nant. For the sewage near the termination of the drains sink 

 a hole or well as deep as you can go — say 30 or 40 feet, without 

 finding water, more shallow if water should break in, and there 

 let the sewage go in the first place. Very likely, if no water 

 come in until you go down a good depth, you will be little more 

 troubled for years, as if there are any open strata, as gravel or 

 chalk, the water will find a way for itself. In the worst result, 

 the well getting full, why then an iron pump plied for a few 

 hours would send the water into the ditch, and keep the house 

 sewage from returning, and in this case, if the well held the 

 sewage, you might find that anything but useless for the kitchen- 

 garden crops, &c., in summer. If the extent of ground is large, 

 we should prefer another well for receiving by shallow drains 

 the superabundant water, and even then, if there were no 

 porous strata to take the water away, the use of a pump would 

 take o£f the superabundant supply, and keep the moisture from 

 being stagnant. We cannot, however, just now call to mind 

 the number of cases known to us, where the sinking of a dumb 

 well 30 or 40 feet deep, owing to the open strata the well 

 passed through, was quite sufficient, without the use of a pump 

 for keeping low-lying places quite healthy and comfortable. 

 Even the use of a pump under such circumstances would be a 

 trifling drawback when compared with the loss attendant on 

 disposing of a country residence. 



Stagnant water and its evils are by no means confined to the 

 gardens and the outsides of residences, even of the wealthy. 

 We need not here allude to what were facts, if they are not facts 

 now — that some of the finest drawing-rooms, &c., in London 

 were piled over what were nothing better than cesspools be- 

 neath the kitchen and scullery floors. Too often even in 



country houses we have stagnant water producing its pes- 

 tiferous eltects, even amid the most engaging and pleasing 

 appearances. 



I'liuili (Dili FliJwer.-< in Rooms. — The rage for cut flowers, and 

 even flowers in vases in rooms, is often doing an evil work. 

 The beautiful, however pleasing, will never make amends for 

 the want of thought and consideration. We have looked with 

 pity at this season at Hyacinths and other bulbs struggling for 

 existence on the tops of mantelshelfs and other secluded corners 

 where no direct light could reach them. It is strange how 

 people, in other respects very intelligent, are so slow to realise 

 the simple fact, that direct light is more necessary to plants 

 than even to men. In such places the plants cannot be other- 

 wise than unhealthy, and if in glasses the water soon becomes 

 putrid. In a window, or fully exposed to light, the water 

 remains longer sweet, as the healthy growth exercises a purify- 

 ing influence. A little charcoal or camphor in the water causes 

 it to keep sweet longer ; but there is no sure cure against 

 putridity, except frequent changing of the water, applying it at 

 a temperature the same, or at the lowest as high as the general 

 temperature of the room. We have frequently seen Hyacinths 

 BO profusely scattered in glasses in a room as to render the 

 atmosphere next to unbearable, not so much from the aroma 

 from the flowers as from the odour of the putrid water in the 

 glasses. There is this advantage from having plants in pots 

 in rooms, that so long as the drainage is good there is no an- 

 noyance from stagnant water, and the more especially il water 

 is not allowed to stand long in the saucers. 



Cut flowers are another fruitful source, though little thought 

 of, of malaria in rooms. Very soon the bottom of the stalk 

 begins to decay, and from that moment the stagnant water 

 begins to exercise the influence of a pestiferous morass. Chang- 

 ing the water at least every day, is the chief means of prevent- 

 ing the unseen annoyance. Putting a little charcoal in the 

 water will do good, and to keep the flowers long they should be 

 taken out, and a small piece nipped off the stalk, so that a 

 fresh piece will bo presented to the water. A lady, a friend of 

 ours, used to keep flowers fresh by this means for four, and even 

 in some oases for six weeks, whilst her neighbour could not 

 keep the same flowers for a week. This unseen evil, from great 

 quantities of cut flowers, arises from the fact, that the person 

 who puts them into vessels of water never thinks more about 

 them until the flowers decay. We have no hesitation in stating, 

 that a dozen such vessels of cut flowers in a room left uncared 

 for, would be suQioient to bring on low fever. Often in our own 

 experience, when such vessels have been sent to be emptied 

 and refilled, we have had to ask others less annoyable by ill 

 scents to perform for us the emptying process. AH admirers 

 of cut flowers may soon satisfy themselves of the truth of this 

 statement. As a less evil, when the regular attendance could 

 not well be given, we used pure sand saturated with water, in- 

 stead of water alone ; but that, too, though keeping sweet 

 longer, would become ere long oppressively foitid if there were 

 no outlet for the moisture. 



We have said that plants in pots will be free from these 

 objections so long as water does not remain long in the pots 

 and in the saucers. The eorth acts a purifier, and the water 

 has no chance of becoming putrid. To our eye, however, there 

 is hardly anything more out of place than common garden pots 

 in finely furnished rooms, or on staircases, &c. Hence we have 

 recommended that all pots so used should be concealed in 

 vases, boxes, itc, of an ornamental and artistic character, bo 

 as to be in harmony with the general furnishing of the apart- 

 ment. Either when single pots are thus placed in small vases, 

 or a number [of pots are put into a larger vase, and covered 

 with fine green moss, an effect is produced that could never 

 be approached by single plants in pots, however numerous. 

 Just now, for instance, think of an elegant vase, whatever its 

 composition — say 2 feet in diameter, in front of a window, 

 centred with Hyacinths, banded with Tulips, and edged with 

 Crocus, and judge if any combination of scattered pots would 

 equal it in effect. In advocating such combinations in 

 rooms, and thus rendering cut flowers less necessary, there is 

 one thing, however, we have nearly forgotten to allude to pro- 

 minently, and that is either to water so carefully as to have 

 no surplus water, or to have means by drainage and a de- 

 vice for catching the water below, by tap or otherwise, for 

 removing the superfluous water, which otherwise would be 

 stagnant. Wherever this stagnant water thus exists to any 

 extent the plants would suffer little in comparison with the 

 human residents of the room. A little while ago we put a 

 Fern growing in a pot into a china vase, with nothing but a 



