378 



JOUBNAL OF HOBTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[ June 3, 1869. 



keep together. You may every day in a fine park see sheep, 

 aud oxeo, and deer living happily and harmonioasly together ; 

 but you will rarely, if ever, see them congregating in mixed 

 groups for ropote. Even as they feed thty will generally be 

 found distinct in thtir groups, and thus tend to produce 

 more variety than if they were mingled. Seldom, even, will 

 you find hares in abundance close to where rabbits burrow and 

 have their warrens; a fact ignored by some of our greatest 

 sportsmen, who, wishing to have abundance of both close to- 

 gether, EO far fight against nature, and thus so far fail after 

 uiuch money has been spent. We presume, however, that 

 when plunder is the object, there is for the time a suspension 

 of all discordance in distinct families. Partridges and pheasants 

 generally keep themselves to themselves, they do not seem to 

 cross each other's path at all; but the other morning early 

 three partridges and two hen pheasants were very busy in the 

 Onion quarter, pulli.jg up and eating with the greatest gusto. 

 We have long known how grateful young Onions were to young 

 turkeys and even other domestic fowls, but we did not find 

 out until this season how partial seme of our wild fowls were 

 to the same healiag condiment. Is it because they are daily 

 becoming more ]i<ie barndoor fowls? Why should not a 

 pheasant daintily reared become as social and homely as a 

 domesticated fowl ? 



Bed-coloured Stcdling Plants, Tind Birds.— It would be in- 

 teresting to know how our readers fare in this respect. At 

 Stockwood we noticed long lines of Beet with the bright- 

 coloured leaves wholly untouched, though not protected in any 

 way. For years we have not been able to keep a single plant, 

 unless protected by netting, or by planting the seedlings out 

 when 3 or 4 inches in height, and then the birds did not seem 

 io care for them. The stable-yard at Stockwood is as near 

 the garden as ours. The trees in the park and pleasure grounds 

 are much the same, so that the attractions to birds in these 

 cases are about equal. The farm buildings at Stockwood are 

 much farther off, and thus the garden is saved from being a 

 great rend,ezvons for sparrowa and other birds ; and there, again, 

 there is no rearing and feeding of winged game near the garden. 

 Be the reason what it might, the Beet was healthy and un- 

 touched, and not a single leaf, blossom, or pod, of the earliest 

 Peas seemed to have been touched. But for frequent sprink- 

 ling with soot and other unsavoury substances, we should not 

 have saved leaf nor stem of our earliest Peas, after they were 

 staked and growing freely. The stakes were fine perches for 

 the birds. We looked for their company in plenty, as the pods 

 became rather more than half full, but we were never so much 

 troubled before by their depredations on shoots, blooms, and 

 leaves. We would soon have made short work of hosts of 

 sparrows, but for the cruelty of doing so, and that anything set 

 for them would likely be partaken of by more valued birds. We 

 have known pheasants poisoned by baits set for rats, where no 

 birds could reach them, but the rats, after having had a share, 

 had carried the baits out, and left them exposed. 



ORNAMENTAL DEPAIiTMENT. 



With a few warm days after the 23rd, we began planting-out 

 onr bedding plants on the 26th, though even then the giound was 

 too cold, and fai- too wet to please us. By Thursday night we 

 Imd a good deal of work done in fair condition. The state of 

 the ground, however, in our heavy soil forced us to resort to 

 one of our old contrivances, so as to give the plants a good 

 chance, as we have no faith in placing the plants in a hole 

 that 13 httle better than a marsh. But for having so much 

 to do, and for being later than everybody else, we would have 

 waited for the drying of a few sunny da'ys. The contrivance 

 was, as the hole was made for the plants with a trowel, to sur- 

 round the b.i;i or roots with a little rich, light, rather dry com- 

 post, which was thus warmer than the wet soil. This compost 

 »/*i™ "^ riddling some old exhausted mateiials from 

 Mushroom beds through an inch sieve, tlie old bed having be- 

 come rather dry, and most of the material being forced to pass 

 by drawing the hand firmly over it in the sieve, this forming 

 about a half of the compost. The other half consisted of about 

 equal proportions of soil on the whole rather light, riddled from 

 beneath the potting bench, a mixture which we find very useful 

 for many purposes, and the other half riddled soil, that had 

 been brought from the sides of a road, and kept dry under 

 cover. To about six large cartloads of this mixture, light and 

 good on the whole, we added about a buthel of soot, and two 

 bushels of floury lime, turning and mixing all well together, 

 the latter being added as we noticed that the worms were more 

 plentiful than usual in the damp beds and borders. In using 

 this compost, we find the most expeditious mode is to lay it 



down in small spadesful on the beds or borders to be planted, 

 and then work it in round the balls with the trowel, firming 

 with the hands in the usual way. 



Peihaps we are wrong in using the latter expression, " usual 

 way," for we find that few men, if not looked after, will make 

 the right way the usual way. Some time ago we described the 

 right way of planting with the dibber, showing that a perpen- 

 dicular thrust of the dibber to make the hole, and a more dia- 

 gonal thrust, bringing the dibber then nearly to the perpendi- 

 cular, to fix the plant as in a vice, were all that were essential, 

 and much better than many strokes, that after all left the plant 

 hung or unfastened. By attention to this simple rule one 

 man in pricking-off seedlings will do more than double the 

 work, and better and more easily for himself, than another man 

 who never knows or cares how many strokes of the dibber ho 

 must give. Just so with planting. When the plants have less 

 or more of a ball of roots, the right way is to make the hole 

 large enough to receive the ball without any undue pressure, 

 and then to fix the earth with the hands round the sides of the 

 ball, firmly enough to keep out the undue entrance of air, but 

 not so firmly as to hurt or crush the roots. The usual way with 

 the inexperienced, and oven many who ought to know better, 

 is to be rather careless of the size of the hole, and to squeeze 

 the ball down, exerting the pressure of fixing from above, in- 

 stead of at the sides. If when plants with fair balls are so 

 planted, and show distress by flagging almost immediately after- 

 wards, those who take the trouble to examine for themselves 

 will find that in many cases the ball is broken, the roots rup- 

 tured, and the soil immediately beneath nearly as hard as a 

 pan from the perpendicular pressure. More as to future well- 

 doing depends on these matters than is generally imagined. 



One other help to future success in planting flower beds 

 where the soil is rather wet and stiff, is never to set a foot on 

 the bed or border ; and if surrounded by lawn or grass verges, 

 to be equally careful not to trample on that part where grass 

 and earth meet. A few light boards of different lengths will 

 keep all right in this respect, prevent all trampling of the soil, 

 and all injury to the grass verges. Some stiff soils when 

 trampled when wet, never become properly pulverised and aired 

 all the summer, but remain littlu better than blocks of brick 

 ond pieces of iron. We once set a really first-class labourer to 

 plant the front rows of a ribbon border, with strict injunctions 

 as to the boards, as border and grass were a little damp. He was 

 too wise for us when our back was turned and used no boards, 

 and the trouble and labour we had in making that trampled 

 verge right were such that it would have been true economy to 

 have paid the man treble wages for doing nothing. 



Brtulutood Siip2hnls — On Friday, the 28lh, we were stopped, 

 it having rained heavily and almost continuously for the best 

 part of twenty- four hours. Out-door work was out of the 

 question. Much pricking-off and potting was forwarded, as in 

 the case of Achimenes, Feathered Cockscombs, Balsams, Kho- 

 danthes, Gomphrenas, and other everlastings and tender and 

 half-hardy annuals, but much was done in preparing branchy 

 sticks of different heights for the beds, to suit different heights 

 of plants. Many sheltered places need nothing of this sort. 

 We cannot, exposed as we are to sweeping winds, do with- 

 out them, and we fancy that many places would present their 

 beds in better condition if such a plan were at least partially 

 adopted. Plants in full bloom, swept into bundles with the 

 wind, can never be brought back into their places and look as 

 they did before. We could never keep straight lines in ribbon 

 borderwnithout such aids. Small straight' sticks would be of 

 little use, and it would be almost impossible to get hold of 

 them ; we greatly prefer little twiggy branches, such as old birch 

 brooms when worn out, or points of branches such as are used 

 for pea-sticks. What we like best are spruce branches that have 

 lain long enough to have lost all their foliage. The next best 

 are larch branches that have been cut in winter. As respects 

 both, we much prefer them when the bundles or faggots have 

 been used previously as the bottoms of hay or corn stacks, for 

 the weight above them makes the blanches slraighter than 

 they would naturally be. The more twigs there are on such 

 little sticks we like them the better, as the shoots of the plants 

 become interlaced among them. One tie is generally all that 

 is given to each plant, and in doing this work the same care is 

 taken not to tread the soil as in planting. These twigs act first 

 as a sort of protection. As the heights of the plants are known 

 certain-sized sticks are used, and though seen at first they are 

 all concealed before the beds arrive at their full beauty. Spruce 

 lasts with us the longest. We have had the same twiggy 

 branches for four or more years. Larch, owing to its resinous 



