Fabmary 4, 1875. ] JOOBNAL OF HORTIOOLTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



95 



oolonr. I think thig is very fair for Cheshire. [So it is. — 

 Eds.] Christmas Roses still glorious.— A Lady in Cheshiiie. 



THE WAY TO GROW FERNS. 



Some years ago I commenced growing Ferns, and having 

 oonsulted all the books on the subject that I could meet with, 

 came to the conclusion that my gardener's ideas were correct. 



The Ferns were potted in a mixture of leaf mould, peat, and 

 sand ; drainage in the ordinary way was carefully attended to. 

 The pots were placed on stone shelves in a house heated with 

 liot-water pipes, and the Ferns grew very much to his satisfac- 

 tion, but not to mine, for they were no better than my neigh- 

 bours' ; so by degrees I altered my plan, and, as many of your 

 readers would grow Ferns if they could do so without any 

 difficulty, I send you my mode of procedure. 



The hole in the bottom of the pot being broken out very 

 much larger than the maker leaves it, I put in three or four 

 pieces of broken pot, then some rich soil and old manure, just 

 what should be used for Cucumbers, no peat, no sand ; then 

 I put in the Fern, and very gently fill the pot with good 

 garden soil intermixed with a few small bits of soft brick as 

 large as peas. The pot is placed on soil or ashes, perhaps 

 partially plunged, perhaps surrounded with Lycopodium. In 

 any case the soil is always kept quite wet — in fact muddy, 

 and the Ferns grow as I never saw Ferns grow before. 



The whole oecret is in keeping them wet and warm, partially 

 plunged, and ihoroughly drained. You may take a pot-bound 

 Fern, pull roughly the drainage from the roots, break off the 

 fibres anyhow, repot it in wet soil instead of dry, and it will 

 grow and flourish as it never would with ordinary treatment. 

 I planted less than two years ago a little bit of Adiantnm 

 Farleyense root without a frond on it, and it now measures 

 10 feet G inches round.— H. L. 



rubber rings are in time very dilKcult to pull asunder, and 

 almost impossible to cut, but are soon burnt out by flat chisels 

 made red hot. Having proved the advantages of this system 

 of joining hot-water pipes, I have no patience in watching men 

 hammer, hammer, hammering at making iron joints which I 

 know will take three times as long getting to pieces again if 

 ever it is necessary. — J. E. Pearson, CInlwell. 



JOINING HOT-WATER PIPES. 



I SEE (page CO of the present volume) directions for making 

 joints in hot-water pipes with iron filings. To these direc- 

 tions I should take exception. 



In the first place, the admixture of sulphur has long been 

 discontinued by the best hothouse builders as quite unneces- 

 oary and very dangerous, often cracking the joints ; but I 

 think it is quite time iron joints were discontinued altogether 

 in the case of hot-water pipes. Where the pressure of steam 

 has to be resisted it is quite another thing, but for hot water 

 it appears very stupid to make a joint which is so diflicult to 

 undo again that it is easier to cut the pipe in two than get the 

 pipes separated at the joints. 



Pipes joined properly with Portland cement are just as good 

 as those fastened with iron filings, they are put together four 

 or five times as quickly, and are very easily separated again if 

 it is required. I have hundreds of feet so joined ; one of my 

 houses, 100 feet long by 30 feet wide, has all cement joints ; 

 and all Mr. W. Thomson's pipes, some of them 200 feet in 

 length, are put together in this manner. In saying these 

 pipes are all joined with cement, I except, of course, expansion 

 joints. In long lengths of piping, however the joints are 

 made, two in 100 feet ought to be put in with indiarubber 

 rings only, to allow of expansion. Before knowing this I had 

 several pipes broken where the joints were made of iron filings. 

 Of course the joints could not give way, and as pipes ex- 

 pand, say half an inch nearly when hot in 100 feet, and con- 

 tract again to the same extent when cold, nothing is more 

 probable than a breakage. If these pipes had been put to- 

 gether with cement it is probable one of the joints might have 

 broken instead of cracking the pipes, and I should very likely 

 have blamed the Portland cement, not knowing it had saved 

 me a cracked pipe. How can we expect a long d-inch pipe 

 full of water to elongate and contract at every change of tem- 

 perature without something giving way in time '.' An india- 

 rubber ring here and there removes all danger. 



But as in all other operations, however simple, there is a 

 right way and a wrong one of making a cement joint, I will 

 describe the right one. First of all it must be roped as in 

 making a joint with iron filings, then filled with cement mixed 

 as for laying bricks, then roped again, and finished with 

 eement. Thus made a joint will neither break nor leak, whilst 

 if roped once it is liable to do both. Pipes so joined will be 

 ready to fill with water in twenty-four hours, are just as good 

 as those made with filings, and can be cut out much easier 

 if any alteration is required. The few pipes joined with india- 



.JOTTINGS ON LAST YEAR'S GARDENING.— No. 2. 



Artichokes. — Never was this vegetable so much in request 

 or so fine as in 1874. It delights in an open rich vegetable 

 soil, abundant manuring, and even sewage in dry hot weather 

 poured around the plants, not upon them, in heat and mois- 

 ture. By planting strong well-rooted suckers annually in 

 April, they produce beads later than is afforded by established 

 plants. The first heads were cut June 15th (remember, we are 

 high and cold), and the last November 1.5th. It has been 

 questioned whether the usual protection of litter is necessary 

 in severe winters. I have not found the plants destroyed, but 

 those protected produced heads much earlier in the season than 

 the unprotected. The Purple and Green Globe varieties are 

 cultivated. The Purple is the earliest, but is not so good as 

 the Green. 



AspABAGus started and grew strongly, the supply being 

 checked by the cold of late May and early June. The first 

 heads were cut April 4th, earlier by seventeen days than in 

 187.3 ; the last heads being cut .Tune 2'Jth, whilst the last heads 

 in 1873 were cut July 23rd. This vegetable requires a rich, 

 deep, light, vegetable soil, the alluvial deposits suiting it re- 

 markably well, and though revelling in moisture is injured by 

 water stagnant in the subsoil. It can hardly have too much 

 liquid support after May, but the soil must be well drained. 

 I have the ordinary kind of Asparagus— Giant or Battersea, 

 and other aliases, growing side by side with Connover's Co- 

 lossal, and of the same age, and can see no difference, only the 

 head of Colossal is more kuob-hke, and is more round in the 

 stem. Seed sown in April, 1872, had a few heads fit to cut 

 in 1874. Some plants of the old kind (and the difference is 

 slight), from seed sown where to remain, gave heads fit to cut 

 when the same age as the Colossal. I have some hundreds of 

 two-year plants of both varieties and in beds side by side, so 

 that any difference is readily apparent. 



Broad Beans. — The first crops were very good, but the 

 sowings after the middle of May very inferior in productive- 

 ness. Early Longpods were fine. Early Mazagan and Beck's 

 Dwarf Green Gem are too small and not earlier than Early 

 Longpod, which gives double the crop. Seville Longpod I 

 shall have this season, and it must give pods longer than 

 7 to 8 inches, or it will not beat the old Early Longpod, which 

 grows fully those lengths in good rich soil. The Early Long- 

 pod or Seville are chiefly recommendable for their earUness 

 and length of pods ; Monarch Longpod for second and main 

 crops, it being very productive and having very long pods, and 

 Broad Windsor good; Improved Broad Windsor (Suttons'), 

 being a great improvement upon the old kind, having as many 

 sometimes as five beans of very large size in a pod, it is strong 

 in growth and prolific of pods. Broad Beans were first had 

 July 3rd. 



Feesch ok Dwaef Kidney Beans. — Never finer. Osbom's 

 New Forcing is good alike for forcing and outdoor, of dwarf 

 and compact growth, with pods narrower and longer than Sir 

 Joseph Paxton, and very prolific. It is unquestionably the 

 best of dwarf kinds for forcing and early crops outdoors. 

 Canadian Wonder as usual had the longest and largest pods, 

 and was remarkably prolific ; as also was Negro Long-podded, 

 very fine and hardiest of all. The first dish gathered July 

 23rd; in 1873, July 2 -1th. 



EoNNEE Beans. — Scarlet Champion had very much larger 

 pods, and as many or more of them than the old Scarlet, 

 which I have struck out. Though no white seeds were sown, 

 some pods on some plants produced white ripe seeds. Why 

 this freak of Nature ? The first dish gathered August 18th ; 

 in 1873, August 17th. Wax Eunner Beans were too unpro- 

 ductive in 1873, and were so little esteemed that it was con- 

 sidered our limited space could be better employed. Premier 

 Eunners will have a place this season. Maybe they will be 

 superior to the Chinese Runners I had through the Editors in 

 1872, with pods long and narrow, and purple-streaked ex- 

 ternally like a Negro Long-podded, dwarf, and ripe seed about 

 twice the size of Osborn's Forcing, of the same colour as the 

 ripe seed of that variety. Premier Eunners remind me of the 



