158 



JOUENAI. OF HOBTICuLTDliE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



[ March 4, 1869. 



field, in whicb, when I was a boy, cannon balls and pieces of 

 trnmpete used to be fonnd ; and Deadland, in which may still 

 be seen the outline of a trench in which the dead were buried, 

 and over whom the corn is, 1 believe, even now of a deeper 

 green than elsewhere. The former is now covered with trees, 

 and in trenching the ground one or two skeletons have been 

 found — one I recollect as having a stout iron dagger lying by 

 its side. — T. BrvEBS. 



ROSE CUTTINGS— ROSES IN POTS. 



In bis remarks about Rose cuttings (page 122), Mr. Knott 

 says, ' ' I am assured that as soon as the buds start cuttings will 

 strike most readily." Surely this waiting till the buds start 

 must be a mistake. My aim in propagating cutting?, not only 

 of Eosea but of Vines, and, in fact, of any hordwooded plant, 

 is to endeavour to obtain roots. before, or as quickly as possible 

 after, the buds start into growth ; because it is a well-established 

 fact that all growth made before the roots have started i.'< of a 

 "spindly" nature, tending only to weaken the yonnt; plant, 

 while, on the contrary, if a cutting forms roots and shoots at 

 about the same time and in equal proportions, a healthy and 

 vigorona plant may bo expected if fair treatment bo given. 

 Hence the advontage of the method of strikiDg Eose cuttings, 

 which I have fully explained in No. 410 of this Journal ; for 

 the cutting, by tiie warmth of the earth, is enabled to form 

 roots, while its buds are kept in a dormant state by the cooler 

 temperature of the air to which they are exposed. 



As regards spring propagation, although a small percentage 

 of most kinds of cuttings may grow, yet the most common and 

 certain method is to take cuttings in March off plants which 

 have been forced early, and whose wood, having shed its blos- 

 som, haa attained the requisite ripeness for the purpose. 

 The pots containing the cuttings are plunged in a mild hotbed. 

 which is kept closa till the cuttings are well rooted, which will 

 be in about a mouth, when they are shifted into a cool frame, 

 and when slightly hardened they may be either potted singly 

 or planted in a prepared border. Such plants cannot be ex- 

 pected to equal in vigour those which, having formed roots 

 during winter under the cool treatment, have been planted out 

 in the open border in March, and which thus, in addition to a 

 vigorous constitution unimpaired by any forcing, have a start 

 of nearly two months over the spring-struck plants. Moreover, 

 cuttings taken off forced Hoses can never equal in vigour well- 

 matured cuttings from plants in the open air. After the fore- 

 going remarks I need hardly say that I have but little faith in 

 the utility of spring-struck Koses. 



Permit me to add a remark on pot Eases. So far as my 

 experience goes, I am of opinion that no Bose is fit to produce 

 blossoms worth looking at in a pot until it has been subjected 

 to a similar treatmfsnt to that described in No. 410. After 

 being so prepared the plants may be taken np, potted, pruned, 

 and plunged at once in a mild bottom heat, with their branches 

 fully exposed to the air day and night unless the weather 

 become very severe. By the time they are wanted for forcing, 

 anch plants, with their stout healthy wood and abundance of 

 roots in full activity, may fairly be calculated upon to afford 

 the most satisfactory results. — Edward Luckhuest, Egcrton 

 House Gardens, Kinti, . 



SUCCESSION 01' FRUITS IN AN ORCHARD 

 HOUSE. 



I HAVE a house full of Peach trees in pots, the fruit of which 

 I expect to be ripe in May. How would it do to introduce 

 then, or a few weeks sooner, a number of Vines in pots for a 

 crop of Grapes, of course keeping the Tines back as well as 

 possible until then? Would it do to keep them out of doors 

 until then ? or, it planted in a border, would it hurt them to 

 pull them outside the house, which I could manage to do, until 

 the Pe lobes were nearly ripe ? — L, W. 



[The best plan would be to keep the pots out of doors 

 plunged in litter, and set on the north side of a wall or fence ; 

 there they will scarcely break much before the middle of April, 

 and as soon as broken they might go into tho coldest part cf 

 the house at first. If the Vines are planted inside the canes 

 oonld be kept outside, but then the roots will bo more excited 

 by the heat necessary to ripen the Peaches in May. If the 

 Vines are treated as the Peaches all along, the Grapes would 

 ripen six weeks or so after tha Peaches. If both Ptachea and 

 Vines are planted out, and two fall crops are wanted to succeed ^ 



eiiob other, the Vines should be kept as long as possible fuller 

 exposed to the air, but with glass above them. This is best 

 done by having a moveable front, or rather two fronts to the 

 house — the inner one being used when forcing the Peaches, 

 and the outer one, with the Vines between the two, when the 

 Vines are too forward for complete exposure.] 



EUCHARIS AMAZONICA NOT FLOWERING. 



Several plants of this were perfectly flowered last season 

 by me. They were moderately potted in rather rich sandy 

 compost, and kept in a cool house or pit with a very moderate 

 supply of water and plenty of air until the blnom-spikes began 

 to be thrown up, then the pots were washed and the plants 

 placed on a warm shelf in the stove, and well attended to with 

 the syi-inge until the blooms expanded, which they did in a 

 fortnight or three weeks after the plants had been taken into 

 a temperature of 65°, with a rise from sun heat. — B. S. M. 



[The South African bulb is probably a Crinum. — Eds.] 



Having several fine plants of this beautiful Lily, I send you 

 my mode of treatment. When the plants commence growing I 

 give them abundance of liquid manure water, not too strong, 

 until they have doue tlowering, then water is withheld, but 

 they are not allowed to flag till the growth commences again. 

 In potting I use nothing but good loam, and the same for 

 top-dressing. Two plants growing under the above treatment 

 in 26-inch pots, flower five times a-year, each plant having 

 from eighteen to twenty spikes, with six or seven flowers on a 

 spike. They are in a temperature never below 50' at night. — 

 J. S., Eockvillc Gardcmt. 



Under the treatment I have adopted, I am rewarded with 

 complete success in flowering it two or three times a-year. I 

 have a large plant of it 4 feet high, on a stage about 6 feet from 

 the glass, and fully exposed to tho light. Care is taken not to 

 wafer it when required to flower ; in fact, it seldom has any 

 water even when growing. The soil in which it succeeds best, 

 I find is loam, leaf mould, and a small quantity of sand, well 

 mixed with one-fourth rotted cow dung. Ovorpotting checks 

 flowering and causes growth. On the one plant I have had 

 sixty-five blooms successively last summer; it flowered a second 

 time in the month of November, and it has again rewarded 

 me with eleven spikes, five and six large blooms on each spike. 

 — Edwin NiiWMAN, Edge Hill, lAvcrpool. 



I BELIEVE that the chief secret of flowering Eucharis ama- 

 zonica is to leave it alone, when once potted in, say, an 8-inch 

 pot. When established there it will not require repotting 

 oftener than once in two or three years, and will flower freely 

 enough as soon as it becomes pot-bound ; while, if continually 

 shifted and disturbed, it will grow largely and never flower. I 

 saw a beautiful plant last year which had not been shifted for 

 five years. My own plant does well in a moderate hothouse, 

 in a temperature suited for Cattleyas and such Dendrobiums as 

 D. nobile. — Duckwing. 



COLOUR OF THE BACKS OF ROSE PETALS. 



The colour of the reverse of Rose petals is a subject, I 

 think, of some importance, and one to which more attention 

 shoull be directed, especially in the selection of new Eoses 

 from description. How is it that many of our finest-shaped 

 Boses are dull and unattractive? Simply because certain 

 forms of the flower exhibit the backs of the petals much more 

 than others of a flat or rosette character; and the finer the 

 shape — that is, the more globular and deeper the cup of the 

 petal, the more its reverse is shown. In nearly all red Boses 

 this is of a dull purplish tint, which tones down very sensibly 

 whatever brilliancy of colour the face of the petals may pos- 

 sess. This is evident when we consider that fully one-third of 

 the back is exposed in our finest models of shape — cupped, 

 high-centred, and globular flowers, such as Ltplia, Alfred 

 Colnmb, Comtesse de Chnbrillant, Pierre Hotting, Prince Henri 

 de Pays Bas, &o. 



Neither the beeutiful old Jules Margottin with its shell-like 

 petals, nor the brilliarjt Senateur Vaifse, would have held our 

 hearts so long had they not shown us bright backs as well as 

 faces. 



lu a former notice I ventured to give our continen'al neigh- 



