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JOUENAIi OF HOETIGULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ June 11, 1868. 



FOKCING PITS. 



The yonng stock of Gardenias, with all the novelties recently 

 propagated, are the chief occupants here ; and now begins the 

 propagation, by grafting, of Camellias, Rhododendrons, and 

 Azaleas. Where expedition is preferred these may be kept in 

 a strong, moist, and close heat till the grafts are united ; but 

 they will do perfectly well in a close cold frame well shaded, 

 only they take longer time. — W. Keahe. 



DOINGS OF THE LAST WEEK. 



KITCHEN GARDEN. 



Here, with the exception of planting Cauliflowers between 

 rows of early Peas, where the former would be protected by the 

 shade of the Peas, no planting was attempted, as the ground 

 and the atmosphere were alike dry. We have read of storms 

 and downpourings of rain, north, south, and ail round us, but up 

 tothis, the 6th of the month, we have had only a few drops of 

 rain in our district ; and though established crops in the 

 kitchen garden stand well, especially when assisted with mulch- 

 ing, it would be useless to transplant much, unless shading of 

 some kind were given. In such weather garden pots afford 

 good shading for a few days to all the Cabbage tribe, when 

 the plantations are not extensive, removing the pots at night, 

 and replacing them before the sun becomes very powerful. As 

 much watering with us is entirely out of the question, we 

 neutralised the excessive heat and dryness by surface-hoeing 

 with the Dutch hoe, and mulching Cauliflowers, Peas, &c., with 

 litter and short grass. 



During the last days of the week the atmosphere was very 

 dry with us — a fact we arrived at by no scientific instruments, 

 but from the simple observation, that though there was a 

 fierce sun all day, and a clear sky the most of the night, there 

 was next to a complete absence of dew in the morning under 

 the very circumstances in which we would have expected abun- 

 dance, if there had been much vapour in the air near the 

 ground to bo condensed into dew. In such a state of things we 

 forbore planting Celery and other crops, as it was much easier 

 to water where the plants were close together in beds, than to 

 spread the watering over a larger surface. 



Potatoes. — Partly from press of other work, and partly on 

 purpose, we have earthed-up but little. If planted G inches or 

 more from the surface, Potatoes are little better of the earthing- 

 np. In very dry seasons they are the worse of it, as the roots 

 do not obtain enough of moisture, especially when the ridge 

 resembles the point of an acute-angled triangle. In very wet 

 summers and autumns, we think the lidged-up Potatoes are less 

 liable to the disease. In loose, open soils, we do not see much 

 use in the earthing-up, so as to make an open gutter between 

 every two rows. 



IlVfiis. — The hot weather made these grow so fast that we gave 

 up bedding-out in the flower garden on the Saturday, in order 

 to have at least one day's cleaning and surface-hoeing. It is 

 bad policy, if it can be avoided, to permit seed weeds to require 

 to be treated with anything but the Dutch hoe. In such 

 weather as the last days of the week, ground hoed shallow will 

 not only have a loose surface, but every weed cut up will soon 

 disappear under the drying of the sun, and multitudes of weeds 

 would be destroyed by the hoe that could scarcely be discovered 

 with the eye. Weeding by the hand should be avoided as 

 much as possible. 



FRUIT GARDEN. 



Very much the same as last week. Mulched our fruit trees 

 in pots heavily so as to save watering, which the mulching does 

 very much. In this case it chiefly consisted of rather fresh 

 horse droppings, and a little litter, rather fresh, which had 

 been in a heap for ten days, and heated violently. We used 

 the centre of this heap, after passing it through a rough open 

 sieve of rather more than 1-inch mesh] to exclude the longer 

 pieces of litter. We know we lost fertilising power by this 

 heating, but we killed all the oats that might have been in 

 the droppings, also the stray seeds of Wheat that might have 

 been in the straw for litter ; and it this is not done, mulching 

 with such material will provide plenty of future work in weed- 

 ing the surfaces of the pots. Just now, and before we get our 

 tanks replenished, we must be very economical of water. 



Strawberries. — Some idea of the dryness may be formed from 

 the fact, that blackbirds and thrushes, which have visited ue 

 in clouds this season, have begun their ravages on Cherries 

 and Strawberries which are yet quite green out of doors. It 

 is not likely that we shall gather Strawberries out of doors for 



a week at least, but the berries of Keens' Seedling, Sec, are of 

 a good size though quite green, and great numbers of these are 

 picked and eaten, a sure proof that the birds can obtain no 

 other juicy food. In such weather old gardens generally eufier 

 greatly, but a good rain relieves them for a time from the birds, 

 as the latter then find succulent food elsewhere. 



We have now removed most of the Strawberries from under 

 glass, except in the front of the orchard houses, where they have 

 done good service, and where we hope to gather until we have 

 them out of doors, if we can keep the birds from them. The 

 blackbirds helped themselves to some fine fruit of the British 

 Queen in the Peach house, forcing us to net the openings for 

 ventilation. From having a fair amount of ligbt and air, the 

 Strawberries in the orchard house are almost as good in flavour 

 as when grown in the open air, and better than out-door ones 

 in dull and drizzly rainy weather. All Strawberries are best 

 the fresher gathered they are, as a general rule, but to have 

 the full flavour they should be gathered dry. Those picked 

 in the morning will be more juicy ; those gathered in the after- 

 noon after a sunny day will be more sweet and better supplied 

 with saccharine matter. When we have wanted Strawberries 

 early in the morning, before they would be dried after a dewy 

 night, we have found it a good practice to gather on the evening 

 before whilst the fruit and leaves were quite dry, and place the 

 fruit thinly on fine paper for the night. This may be of use to 

 those who wish to have their Strawberries at the best. The best 

 fruit are comparatively insipid when gathered out of doors 

 after a rainy day. Sun and dryness are necessary for flavour. 



ORNAMENTAL DEPARTMENT. 



Laun. — We have used the daisy ktife several times, just to 

 make all look green. A few tough bents appear here and there 

 to take ofi the uniform level, when examined close at hand, 

 but looked at from a little distance the grass appears as well as 

 if mown and swept several times. We shall be very unwilling 

 to mow until rains come. All is now green ; hut if closely 

 mown and another week of parching weather should come, we 

 should expect a brown surface instead of a green one. The 

 only disadvantage of the knife, instead of mowing or ma- 

 chining, is that we shall be obliged to use the scythe instead of 

 the machine, and that will take more time at the first going- 

 over. No flowers on a lawn will compensate for the want of 

 greenness, and many a lawn might be green instead of brown 

 but for the merciless cuttings it is subjected to in hot parching 

 weather. The mere knocking-over of Daisies and Plantains, 

 &c., is very different from cutting down so short in such 

 weather the tender blades of grass. Better, in our opinion, 

 have a green surface if not quite so short. If some of the 

 grass should be 2 or 3 inches in height there will be no trouble 

 in walking on it in dry weather, and when wet comes it will be 

 easily mown, and then the machine may be used, though even 

 then we like to employ the scythe occasionally, as it keeps all 

 more level and nice at bottom. 



Plantinij. — Gave up on Saturday owing to the excessive dry- 

 ness, and much hoeing and cleaning being required. Deferred 

 planting lots of annuals from the same cause. A little delay 

 in such cases is often as good as too much forwarding. "What! 

 not done planting yet?" has now no terrors for us as it used 

 to have. What is planted is standing the test of the weather 

 well. The plants were well watered at the roots, and the dry 

 earth replaced on the surface ; and though most of them were 

 not turned out of pots, but lifted from earth beds in which they 

 had been planted, they showed but little distress with all the 

 bright sun until the 6th (Saturday), and instead of n-alering, the 

 syringe and the garden engine were employed, just to spirt over 

 the foliage and ground, on which the water did not rest long, but 

 it arrested evaporation from the plants, and what was spilt on 

 the ground refreshed them, too, as it rose again into the atmo- 

 sphere, and by the evening every leaf was as erect as possible. 

 Such damping of foliage can scarcely be called watering. 

 Many would be afraid to do so. Counsels out of number are 

 given never to water, and, above all, never to wet the foliage of 

 a plant when the sun shines, or dire were the results that 

 were sure to follow, in scalding and burning even out of doors, 

 if the sun shone on damped foliage. At present we say nothing 

 of plants under glass, though even there, if the glass is good, 

 no burning spots in it, and there is plenty of air to prevent 

 condensed vapour, the danger in many cases is more problem- 

 atical than real, but out of doors we have never noticed this 

 wondrous scalding and burning. On the other hand, we have 

 often noticed how gorgeous and lovely vegetation looked when 

 after a heavy sunny shower, the sun came forth and all vege- 

 table nature se'eined to rejoice, instead of being in the least 



