212 



JOURNAL OF HOETIOULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



t March 16, 1876. 



of mixed bordera, but T may Bay to those lacking enough plants 

 for a regular design, Pat yonr plants in irregnlar order in the 

 bed, intermingle them with dumps of Mignonette, Sweet 

 Peas, Asters, Stocks, and annuals of all kinds, and you will very 

 likely congratulate yourself upon the fine outcome of your 

 necessity, and it is not improbable that yon will cling to yonr 

 mixed border ever afterwards. 



A simple scroll bed really calls for very little detail. A 

 margin of Santoliua incana with a centre of Altemauthera | 

 amcena would form a lovely carpet. Change it any way yon 

 please, having an edging of succulents, with inner rows or 

 bands, only take care to make the central colour predominate. 

 Edgings and bands of Bucculents are always neat and impart 

 a high finish to a bed. ! 



If you ask what I recommend, I respond. What is your 

 taste ? For a rule I can safely venture to tell yon not to put 

 a green-leaved succulent plant like Sempervivum montanum 

 next to tnrf, but prefer the dark-tipped S. californicnm or 

 the pretty yellow and green Sednm acre elegans. The pearly 

 Sedum glaucnm dotted with any of the larger succulent 

 rosette forms is a charming margin, and the bine-leaved 

 Kleinia repens is quite one of the best plants as an inner row 

 to it. For winter take the hardy succulents for a carpet, 

 dotting them with bulbs ; or yon may follow the summer 

 plants with Silene, Myosotis, Saponaria, Alyssum, <ts. 



One word more. If yon require an emerald summer carpet 

 take the bright green-leaved Cerastium arvense, which was so 

 effective at Battersea last season, and you will attain your 

 object without the incessant care in pinching which is required 

 when Tagetes is used. — Edwakd Luckhuebt. 



ABOUT POTATOES. 



The ides of March, and not a word of advice given concern- ; 

 ing the planting or about Potatoes in the Journal of Horliad- 

 (itre this week ! " Zounds, my Lords 1 " Atleast, that is what 

 Queen Elizabeth is reported to have exclaimed when threaten- 

 ing to revert to her " old Latin " to reinstate a state of things 

 more agreeable to her. I fear, though, forme to revert apropos ^ 

 to Potato culture may cause many readers to exclaim, " Oh, 

 ah ! old Fenn, you know I " Nevertheless, the apparent non- 

 chalance of the old Cottage Gardener in thus excluding a most 

 important matter, at this season especially, makes me arise 

 to supply a blank and to tell how "old Feuu " is jaat a 

 trifle new. Of coarse my ground is bastard-trenched, and the 

 manure compost at once worked into the body of the soil as 

 of old, and not allowed to lie on the surface to waste its 

 ammonia in the desert air. No one, young or old (as I find 

 the subject ia cropping up again), will persuade me to depart 

 from that practice. I have not had the gaps ground out of my 

 glaive since the battle with Mr. Pearson on the subject, as the 

 blade is become rather worn by being so often resharpened of 

 yore when upholding the ridge-and-trench cultivation of 

 Potatoes. I have no cause to do that now, as the plan has 

 champions galore. 



My practice is still to plant npon the surface at ■42 inches 

 apart in garden ground, and 3 feet in the field, proceeding to 

 work by merely casting out a couple of inches of soil longi- 

 tudinally as a shallow drill in which to place the first row of 

 sets, then measure and strain a line, and cast out the soil as 

 before with the spade (or what is better, with a shovel per- 

 fectly square at the bottom of its blade) over the sets in the 

 first row, and so on consecutively till the ground is planted. 

 Watch for the first peeping-ont of the young shoots, preparatory 

 for which I last year caused some half-worn-out shovels to have 

 their lower corners cut-ofi at the blacksmith's, and then made 

 red-hot, and to become slightly rounded— formed, in fact, into 

 shovel-scoops. 



At the first sign of the leaves breaking into the light of day 

 strain a line from end to end exactly over the row of Potatoes ; 

 then, centrally from between the rows, scoop up with the 

 instrument just mentioned, and cover over tho line about 

 2 inches deep with dry friable soil, and so make sure of cover- 

 ing over head and ears, not only those young shoots already 

 apparent, but those others which are not yet visible, but 

 which we may be sure are just about to become ao. The line 

 is easily jpiked from its bed out of this first slight moulding to 

 become adjusted, and strained over the next row of sets, and 

 BO on. A quantity of such work can be done in a day ; and 

 what is more, it is certain safety for the young shoots in the 

 event of frosts so likely to happen now, and at the eamo time 

 it suits the crop so well. 



The next operation is to walk backwards and apply a 

 Parke's fork rigbt and left, or up on one side and down the 

 other, of the rows, turning tho soil np ridgeways about 

 9 inches from the seta, so aa to leave Ihem growing in a valley, 

 so to speak, 18 inches wide. Their shoots will presently be 

 seen again in line along the centre of these valleys, bursting 

 through their first slight mouldings. And now again no time 

 must be lost, on account of the fear of the frosts, of moulding- 

 up again. It is to be done also with the shovel-scoops, more 

 friable soil being added this time by fiUing-up the valleys to a 

 level surface, which were formed by the forkinga ; and for their 

 third and final mouldings, when the shoots are again sufii- 

 oiently grown, the forks may be again applied if the soil is 

 sufiiciently holding for them to bite it, or the trenches suffi- 

 ciently wide to admit them (I use four-tincd forks forthia final 

 moulding), otherwise, if the soil is too light or crumbling, the 

 shovel-scoops answer admirably. Thus we complete the ridge 

 and form the trench, and so leave the Potatoes to cater for 

 themselves in the future, in the meantime of course eradicat- 

 ing all weeds as they grow ; and if the Potatoes are subject to 

 berry I pick off the blossoms. It is very possible, though, for 

 late frosta to threaten ua, and when they do the shovel- scoops 

 will prove instant agents to scatter fine soil amongst the foliage 

 from the bottoms of the trenches as a part protective now, aa 

 of course moulding overhead from increase of growth is out of 

 the question; still dusty aoil scattered over and about the 

 foliage is a protective, and often sufficient to save from slight 

 frosts. The look and feel of the day will generally warn when 

 a frost may be expected at night, and a whole square of Potatoes 

 can have dusty soil slightly scooped from the bottom of tho 

 trenches during an afternoon, and in so doing the shovel-scoops 

 will not by reason of their rounded blades endanger the ridges 

 by cutting into their bases. I consider the above culture by 

 giving extra tilth and permeable texture to the soil a great 

 improvement for the ridge-and-trench system. 



Again, in lien of occupying every trench immediately after 

 the above operations (or so soon as the Potatoes are safe from 

 the frosts) with Brussels Sprouts or other of the Brassicas, 

 skip every other trench, for the purpose of walking up and 

 down unobstructedly, for when bent upon examinations of 

 the Potatoes the mind becomes diverted from the plants in 

 the trench and many of them suffer by being trampled npon. 

 This alternate occupation allows also a clear path to work in 

 when forking out the Potatoes from two ridges, or facility when 

 the disease smites the foliage to turn the haulm from two 

 ridges pell-mell into the unoccupied trench. Some advisers 

 seem to fancy this will prevent the disease-spores being 

 washed down to the Potatoea. I forget who it was some years 

 ago that first mooted this recommendation in these pages. I 

 tried it a few times, but to reap no benefit from it. Mr. Fish 

 of Hardwicke recommended a field roller to pass over the tops. 

 I tried a garden roller, but without satisfaction. I think, in 

 short, I have tried almost everything that have been recom- 

 mended from time to time excepting Mr. Hibberd's " tile." I 

 have not capacity sufficient for that. I trust no more to ex- 

 perimental preventives other than what I have mentioned 

 above; and aa soon as the haulm becomes ttricken by disease 

 np come my Potatoes. Of this anon, as I fulfil a promise I 

 made to you last June, page 490, when I detailed the be- 

 haviour of my crops and said I would write you again when I 

 had experienced the worst that was Ukely to happen to them. 



Three-fourths of my American sorts had then already suc- 

 cumbed to the new phase, and two-thirds of those which were 

 left had a Peronospora quietus, thus proving a moat unfortu- 

 nate enterprise for me. None of my English kinds were at- 

 tacked by the early curl, but I could have pointed out to you 

 whole plots of some English sorts in this neighbourhood with 

 bad symptoms of our old English friend " Bobbin Joans " 

 accruing from seed which I knew had been heated in heapa, 

 badly grown out, then apnrted, and afterwards cut into sets, 

 and I know this old plan ia not uncommon even now ; there- 

 fore we must not alwpys jump to a conclusion as most people 

 did concerning the above, and lump the two features together 

 as being derived from the same cause. 



Well, I told you in No. 74.3 how I came to rent some gardens 

 in old Woodstock last spring. Temporarily, too, in regard to 

 having to move my family I took the house attached to the 

 gardens — and it is a house with a history, by consfquence of 

 containing the room in which Edward the Black Prince was 

 born ; and it may be interesting to you when I say it looks 

 on to the house and garden where once lived Kemster the 

 cobbler, who raised tho Blenheim Orange Pippin. I remember 



