March 5, 1868. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



18!> 



We took the Celery np -with good balls, watered it at the bottonj, 

 and banked it up rather closely on a level bed of eifted furnace 

 ashes. We have thns kept it in good condition in a shady 

 place until April or May, and it requireB little trouble to take 

 it for use. The only objection to the plan is, that unless the 

 Celery is in a walled garden it must be protected with wire 

 netting from marauders. 



In connection with this subject wo may state that wire net- 

 ting, 2 feet in height, placed against an open fence of Ivy, 

 seciffed our Cabbage plants from rabbits until lately ; but we 

 now find we ought to have had the wire farther from the fence. 

 A number of fine plants have been cut up, and on close in- 

 spection we discovered that the rabbits had mounted the Ivy 

 fence, and from thence jumped over the wire. When people 

 want to be very sure, a 30-inch fence would do better than a 

 24-inch one, as the following fact will show. Outside the gar- 

 den a heap of rotten leaf mould had been piled against a low 

 wall. The highest part of the mould was 20 inches from the 

 coping ; yet to that coping the rabbits had sprung, and then 

 dropped down a depth of nearly 6 feet inside, as proved by the 

 excrements and hair left behind them, and the marks of their 

 feet and bodies in both positions. We have seen a hare fcpring, 

 when pressed, a height of It feet ; and we have seen rabbits 

 jump from a good elevation ; but we never before knew them 

 to get up and over a wall nearly 2 feet above where they could 

 stand. 



Planted early Potatoes at the bases of walls, and placed others 

 where there was a little heat to sprout them an inch or two. 

 Planted the pit with the strong plants of Cucumbers referred 

 to last week, and Saturday being a wet day, pricked-o£f a lot of 

 Celery into shallow boxes, which we will place in the hotbeds 

 or Cucumber pit. Of course, before planting the Cucumbers, 

 we had the soil well warmed first. 



Avoiding checks of all kinds is the best safeguard against 

 the attacks of insects, and consequent premature decay. 

 Farther on in the season such care would be less necessary ; 

 but at present every moving of the ('urumbers from the dung 

 frame, whether for potting or final planting, was done by 

 placing the plants as quickly as possible in a close box during 

 the little time taken in the transition from one place to another. 

 We mention this not to remind experienced professional gar- 

 deners, but as a hint to amateurs and beginners to beware of 

 checks. We have known many failures, and therefore as lessen- 

 ing enthusiasm worse than mere disappointments, in the case 

 of Cucumbers, when, after good plants were obtained from a 

 gentleman's garden, and carefully carried home with many 

 wrappings about them, they were unpacked in the open air, 

 allowed to remain there for some minutes, and then, perhaps, 

 tamed out and planted at once in soil considerably colder 

 than that they were used to. All such plants should, if pos- 

 sible, be unpacked in the place they are intended to grow in ; 

 and in general it will be as well to water and syringe with 

 water at about 80^ or 90°, and leave the plants unturned out of 

 their pots for a day at least, and considerably longer if the soil 

 is not warm enough. Such delay and care will be anything 

 but time lost. 



Simple as this caretaking is, it is often considered as a matter 

 of no moment. Some seasons ago, in a cold day in the begin- 

 ning of March, we accidentally noticed in a rather close cold 

 shed thirty or forty fine Cucumber plants, just shifted into 

 5-inch pots, brought from a hot place, and intended to go in a 

 fortnight into a Cucumber house. We were told the plants 

 had been there more than an hour, as the man who was potting 

 them had been obliged to leave them for another job. We 

 were not surprised to learn that these plants never answered 

 the results expected from them, and that another set of plants 

 had to be introduced early in summer. We could see at a 

 glance how it was. The worker was no doubt a very systematic 

 man. A certain number of plants had to be potted, and potted 

 in this shed as most likely the most suitable place to do the 

 work in ; and therefore, on system, all the plants must first be 

 carried out, and then all must be potted, and the group well 

 looked at before any were returned. This would have been the 

 case if there had been no calling-away to attend to the wishes 

 of the lady or anything else. This over-systematising, so as 

 to have a potting shed full of potted plants, is a very favourite 

 system with many young cultivators. It may proceed from 

 the otherwise laudable desire that their work should be 

 seen. Now we think that the better, if less showy, .system as 

 respects the Cucumbers referred to, would have been more 

 attention to some little matters ; and we specify them for 

 the use of beginners, merely presuming that the plants are 



in a frame or pit, where there is no room to pot them. Before 

 potting, have suitable soil properly warmed over a furnace or 

 otherwise ; pots cleaned, drained, and also warmed ; have warm 

 water also in readiness. Then bring only a few plants out at 

 a time, shift, or do what is wanted, and afterwards as quickly 

 as possible take them back to their warm place, and bring ont 

 a few more, and thus go on. If on an emergency the work 

 must be left, the plants can be so replaced as to receive no 

 injury. 



We might tell a similar tale of hundreds and thousands oJ 

 tender cuttings inserted with much care in February or March, 

 and yielding but a poor return in rooted plants, and this chiefly 

 because the danger of checks was considered to be of no im- 

 portance. Now the only secret in striking a growing cutting, 

 is just to keep it growing, and never allow it to have a check 

 or a flagged leaf. But for the courtesy of the affair, and the 

 pleasure it yielded, we have often thought it was labour thrown 

 away to take off cuttings, and give them to people who un- 

 ceremoniously stuffed them in their pockets like so many little 

 bundles of straw. Some years ago we noticed a nice hotbed 

 filled with cutting pots, but mostly empty, or covered with the 

 dead and dying cuttings, and we learned something of the reason. 

 About two hundred varieties were thus to be largely increased 

 for bedding purposes, and the cuttings were taken as they were 

 growing rather tender, in a house ranging from 00' to C".'. On 

 the system referred to, all the cuttings were taken off first, and 

 laid down with their little tally to each kind, on a bench in a 

 cool shed. Then pots partly prepared had to be made ready, 

 then the cuttings had all to be made, and when made all had 

 to be inserted before being placed in the striking bed, and thus 

 the little tender cuttings were shrivelled, starved, and almost 

 dead before they were placed in suitable quarters. A less 

 showy, but a far more suitable system would have been to 

 do a few pots at a time, and put the cuttings in their place at 

 once. Such few pots could easily be filled in the house where 

 the cuttings were taken from, if no warm place could be ob- 

 tained. 



FRUIT GAKDEN'. 



Pruned out of doors when we had an opportunity. Placed 

 more Strawhern/ plants in pits and houses. We shall not be 

 so early this year as usual, as we have not begun so early. The 

 most forward are showing well. One of the secrets of success, 

 provided the plants were fair for strength and ripeness last 

 autumn, is to avoid extremes of temperature, and commence 

 with a low temperature, and rise gradually. A heat of 55° or 

 00° is quite as high as the plants ought to have until in bloom, 

 and the fruit set ; from 45° to 50° will be high enough to begin 

 with. For want of tree leaves we could not start them in 

 frames as we wished to do. This is an excellent plan for 

 starting the plants, provided the heat is mild, and the roots do 

 not find their way through the bottoms of the pots. 



Our stock of Strawberry plants is under the protection of 

 the orchard houses just now ; but they received much more 

 wet in the autumn and in the beginning of the winter than we 

 liked. Ilowever, we do not think the wet, nor the frost which 

 they had up to nearly Christmas, has done them much harm. 

 The pots stood on the hard ground unplunged, and in some of 

 the severe frosts they were covered all over with litter for a 

 week. On turning out a number of pots before housing them, 

 the roots were all as they ought to be — fresh, growing, and 

 clinging to the sides of the pot. This would not have been the 

 case but for the litter. We think Mr. Kivers some time ago, 

 after the remarkably severe winter of 1860-01, wrote about 

 how little litter would preserve plants from injury if close to 

 the ground. The above fact as respects Strawberry plants in 

 pots, and many other instances, confirm his statements. Ne- 

 vertheless, if we had it in our power, we would have Straw- 

 berry pots for forcing under protection from frost, rain, and 

 snow by the middle of October. 



Regulated Vines breaking, thinned-out superfluous shoots from 

 others more forwaid ; gave heat and air as lately stated. Thinned 

 shoots in the Peach house, watered borders ; potted Peas, and 

 took them into it for a fortnight to establish them before re- 

 moving them to the orchard house. Potted Melons in larger 

 pots, as the bed is not ready for want of material, and we do 

 not wish to have the plants checked. Finished whitewashing 

 the vn-liard lioKse ; and on the 29th, as the day was wet, 

 painted the most of the trees with lime, suot, and sulphur, 

 merely as a precaution. Previously the weather was so fine 

 for out-door work that we did not Uke to do this before, though 

 this last house would have been as well if thus treated a fort- 

 night ago. The first house, which we bring on earlier, was 



