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JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ September 4, UK 



sorts must be had recourse to lor accommodating them daring 

 •one m onth s of the year. Emeries, vineries, a warm green- 

 house, and spare pits present themselves as affording room 

 where a greater or less number of this interesting family may 

 pass then: vacation when the more active duties of the season 

 ace over. The thinning out of the principal house will permit 

 of the remaining plants having more room, and enable such 

 tiads as are coming into bloom to be brought forward to meet 

 fche eye. — W. Keane. 



DOINGS OF THE LAST WEEK. 



Ha» nearly a day's watering on Tuesday, the 2«th ult. 

 Utuefly applied the water to Peaeh-tree borders out of doors, 

 and such strong-growing plants as Salvias in the flower garden, 

 using principally house-sewage water. We felt confident that 

 we should have rain before long, but we made allowance for 

 that in using the sewage, as that always seems to tell more 

 wonderfully when a moderate rain and a cloudy sky follow the 

 watering. Had we known that there was to have been such a 

 drenching rain as that whioh fell on Tuesday evening and 

 Wednesday morning, we might have saved ourselves the labour 

 and finished some other work. We are sure that the sewage 

 watering will tell as expected, still it would not have been so 

 argent a work, if the heavy rain had been a certainty before- 

 hand. The change in the weather, though a drawback as 

 regards tho harvest, has helped us in another way, as it will 

 retard the fruit a little in the orohard-houses, which with all 

 the air possible, and a little shade, is ripening faster than we 

 want it. We could have easily kept it later by leaving air on 

 in summer instead of shutting np. In fact, by a little at- 

 tention in the management, fruit may be obtained in orchard- 

 houses jmheated, considerably earlier, or considerably later, 

 than on the open wall. 



mrcm.:; oabden. 



The chief work here besides hoeing to keep down all incipient 

 weeds, has been sowing Lettuces and Turnips, planting out 

 Endive, Lettuces, and a border of American Red-topped Stone 

 Turnips, which the rains will make all right. These were 

 planted in rows 15 inches apart, and about 7 inches apart in 

 the rows, as that, after this season, will give plenty of room for 

 nice useful tubers, more especially if the most forward be taken 

 np first. From 3 to 4 inches across is quite large enough for 

 such tubers to be used at the parlour table. At that size 

 they will be crisp and white at the root end, instead of brown, 

 hard, and stringy. This border will come in in succession to 

 that from which the thinnings were taken for planting, and 

 will be several weeks earlier than a fresh sowing. One of 

 our best gardeners told us the other day, that Turnips were 

 a perfect plague to him. Do what he would he had his 

 borders and quarters cleared off by the fly. He perceived at 

 once that by sowing under some kind of protection, and plant- 

 ing out after the plants had made several strong rough leaves, 

 he could beat his enemy. The drawback is, that in sunny 

 weather the plants would require frequent slight waterings 

 until they had taken hold, when they would look after them- 

 selves. In dripping, or cloudy weather, there is no difficulty 

 whatever. The plants very soon make themselves independ- 

 ent, and the labour is not much more in planting than in 

 sowing, protecting from birds, and thinning to the requisite 

 distance. 



It has not been generally considered that such Turnips may 

 be transplanted as successfully as Swedes. The chief point is 

 that whilst fixing the root, the collar of the plant should not 

 be buried. Even in thiB little matter, less care is needed than 

 in transplanting an Onion which we wish to bulb well. Well- 

 aired soil, enriched with rotten dung or leaf mould, is the best 

 preparation for a sweet, crisp young Turnip. When weight 

 of tuber is the object, the manure may be used less decomposed, 

 and plenty of it, and if assisted with the stimulus of artificial 

 manure, such as guano, superphosphate, broken half-inch bones, 

 or droppings from sheep fed on trellised boards in winter, all 

 the better. 



Dissolving Bovex. — A gentleman told us the other day that a 

 farmer effected this process in a very simple economical way 

 without the help of sulphuric or any other acid. A heap of 

 damp pig and other dung was thrown together, so as to produce 

 a good heat, the bones were well wetted with strong water from 

 the manure tank, placed on the hotbed, and covered all over 

 for a foot or so in thickness with the same materials, and the 

 «team and the heat caused the bones to fall down in powdery 



flakes, when the whole was mixed together. The plan may be 

 well known, though we have no recollection of meeting with it. 

 We have slowly dissolved, ox rather broken down, a small neap 

 of bones by frequently wetting them with strong urine drainage 

 from houses, and then covering well np with litter. 



Tomatoes, however grown — against walls, fences, or on the 

 ground — will now want regulating, removing many of the larger 

 leaves, and exposing the fruit to the sun. This plant, unless 

 the roots are much confined, is sure to grow rampant in saoh 

 a season as the present, and one of the best means of keeping 

 it fruitful and within bounds is to stop the shoots repeatedly 

 after they show their bunches of bloom, and remove when too 

 luxuriant a good portion of the larger leaves. So treated, the 

 plants will need little water after the plants are fairly estab- 

 lished. Few people in this country, as yet, adopt the American 

 system of using the Tomatoes when in a young green state as 

 a constituent of salads. 



Potatoes. — During the heavy rains of Wednesday looked 

 over the Potatoes, and was sorry to find as pretty a sample as 

 could be seen — when housed not a speck or mark of disease 

 upon them — now very much infected, which we regret all the 

 more, as most of them were intended for seed Potatoes. For 

 several years we have seen little of the disease until after the 

 Potatoes were housed for some time, in shallow bins, too, and in 

 an airy place. This is one of the most puzzling facts con- 

 nected with this still little-understood disease. We have advo- 

 cated fresh soil and an open situation, instead of the old soil 

 and close situation of a kitchen garden ; but we have since 

 learned that a market gardener who makes a large profit gene- 

 rally by securing fine samples of all the earlier kinds for selling 

 for planting, will have few if any to dispose of next spring, as, 

 though his stock was harvested in excellent order and from an 

 open situation, the Potatoes are going very fast now. It is 

 to be hoped that this will not be at all general. The weather 

 has been such as we might expect the disease among late kinds 

 in moist sheltered places, but there was but little of such 

 weather before the early kinds were taken up, and we can 

 assign no reason why such crops, taken up early, and housed in 

 a sound condition, should begin to go all wrong a month or so 

 afterwards. It also seems doubtful if such Bamples could be 

 perfectly healthy to use when they showed no signs of disease, 

 as the germs of that disease must have been in them before 

 they were housed. 



Mushrooms.— See last week. We again allude to this subject 

 because an "Old Cultivator" who used to be troubled in 

 summer with maggots, thin Mnshrooms, and these going ofl 

 and crumbling up in his house with platforms in the usual 

 way, examined our little bed, producing nice Mushrooms in 

 our shed, thatched at top, open in front, and shaded by trees. 

 The depth of the old bed at the end of that being cleared out, 

 he found to be rather less than we stated — namely, 14 inohes 

 at back and 12 in front, earth and altogether, and on poking 

 with his stick he satisfied himself that fully half that depth 

 was chiefly rather long litter, with shorter litter and drop- 

 pings at the top. Of course we would have preferred that for 

 that depth all, or nearly the chief part, had been droppings. 

 We have had Mushrooms good all the summer in a large house, 

 the bed on the floor, with means of wetting the floor and 

 syringing the walls, but in a small narrow house, and fur- 

 nished with platforms, we have not been so successful in the 

 hot summer months. We have also succeeded very well in a 

 sort of underground cellar, where the temperature and mois- 

 ture of the air were very uniform. We have helped to make 

 beds in an underground Mushroom-house, and where they did 

 well in summer, and well, too, in winter, only requiring a 

 covering over the beds at the latter season. The ground was 

 cleared out as for the cellar of a house, a wall of old bricks and 

 stones built all roand, and piers on each side in the centre, 

 with r-iom left for a path between the beds. Stout flat iron 

 rods went across from wall to wall, resting also on the piers, 

 these rods being 18 inches below the ground level. On these 

 slates and flagstones were placed, which were again covered with 

 earth rammed down, averaging 18 inches in thickness, and 

 slightly in the ridge form, highest in the centre. On this 

 was rolled about 1 inch of fine gravel and tar, extending a yard 

 beyond the side walls so as to take off the damp, this concrete 

 top being only a few inches above the surrounding ground. 

 There was a stair, with a door at the end, covered with a flap- 

 door to keep the wet out. This house answered well all the time 

 we knew it. It was cool in summer and warm in winter, but all 

 the material had to be carried in baskets to the beds, which 

 greatly increased the labour. For summer work we have found 



