5li 



^OUBNAL OF HOBTIOULTDEE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



I June 2S, 1874. 



be in the midst of yoiar prosperity and making a display of your 

 riches. The bulbs are all laid to rest for the season. The early 

 Eoses, &c., which succeeded the bulbs will have done flowering, 

 and should be replaced by Pelargoniums, Fuchsias, and other 

 plants which have been before recommended. Let every pot be 

 kept in the frame until the bloom is ready to expand, that the 

 full benefit of light and heat may be secured, and then remove 

 it to the window. When there it should be moderately watered. 

 It is astonishing, to the inexperienced, how small a quantity of 

 water will keep a plant in health. I have some Pelargoniums 

 in 60-sized pots in a window fully exposed to the sun, and I find 

 watering once a-day quite sufficient, and even then take care 

 that none stands in saucers. But to do this it is requisite that 

 the pots should be kept as much as possible from the solar rays, 

 which may be accomplished by opening the window so that the 

 thick lower frame of the sash shall intercept the light, and so 

 keep the plants cool. If pots are placed outside the window, 

 which is often done with good effect, they may advantageously 

 be put into empty ones of a larger size, by which a current of 

 air will be secured around them, and a lower temperature main- 

 tained. Any little contrivance of this description will be useful, 

 for frequent watering has many evils; among others the soil is 

 rendered too compact, and the most valuable portions are quickly 

 washed from it. 



The most scrupulous cleanliness must be observed with 

 window plants, or their health will soon suffer. All decaying 

 leaves should be removed as they appear, and no flowers should 

 be allowed to die upon the stalks. By removing flowers as soon 

 as their beauty is impaired neatness is consulted ; and this 

 is not all : by stopping the natural tendency to produce seed, 

 more flowers will be produced. Mignonette in pots soon be- 

 comes shabby if this rule is neglected, but by picking off every 

 spike of flower when it is elongated and bare, laterals will quickly 

 reward your pains and keep up an air of healthfulness. It is 

 scarcely necessary to prescribe an abundance of fresh air, and 

 it is presumed few persons would in summer sit with closed 

 windows, unless the dust of a high road were whirling near them. 



Having pots in your frame for a succession, remove your 

 plants from the house as soon as the bloom is over. Some sorts 

 may be cut down, and with care will flower again. Perhaps the 

 warmth of the season may bring too many forward at once ; in 

 that case pinch-out the bloom of some of them, and you will 

 have the benefit later in the season. Scarlet Pelargoniums are 

 valuable in this kind of window gardening. I find small pots do 

 best, producing least foliage and most flower. Fuchsias also 

 repay the grower for window culture. By a little forethought 

 and daily attention the window, even without a balcony, may be 

 made very attractive until frosts appear again, and our now 

 dormant bulbs demand and repay our care. 



In addition to the plants recommended, the amateur who is 

 thinking of having a few pots of flowers for his window or draw- 

 ing-table through the winter must putin a first sowing of annuals 

 for autumn blooming in pots. It is almost needless to name the 

 kinds best adapted for this purpose, as in every garden they 

 may be seen in bloom ; but as some may not know those which 

 are most suitable for winter-flowering, I will enumerate a few. 

 F'irst, then, among the tribe of beauties are Nemophila insignis, 

 atomaria, and their varieties. Next may be named Collinsia 

 bicolor and grandiflora, Clarkia pulchella and pulchella alba, and 

 lastly Erysimum Peroffskianum, Ageratum mexicanum, and 

 the various kinds of Salpiglossis and Petunia. The last, how- 

 ever, are best raised from cuttings taken from the old plants 

 in August, and if potted singly will flower in a warm room up 

 to Christmas. 



As most annuals transplant indifferently, it will be advisable 

 to sow them at once in the pots in which they are intended to 

 bloora ; and in draining these it will be well to jjlace an oyster 

 shell at the bottom, and fill the pots half full of moss before 

 any soil is putinto them. The moss will be found advantageous 

 through the summer, as it will retain moisture, and, if the pots 

 could be plunged in it, it would be greatly in favour of the plants. 

 The seed must be sown very thinly, and as soon as the plants 

 are up they must be thinned, retaining only the proper quantity 

 iu each pot. This, it must be recollected, is the first supply, 

 but a second for late-flowering must be sown about six weeks 

 hence. Those who admire Stocks iu pots may sow some of the 

 Ten-week kinds, and Mignonette will of course not be forgotten. 



Of plants before spoken of, the Scarlet and other Pelargoniums, 

 the propagation of which was recommended, and which require to 

 be potted-off— if they are well rooted they may be placed at once 

 in their blooming pots in rough soil ; aud if they are not, give 

 them pots in proportion. They must be stopped to make them 

 bushy, and no flowers must be left on the plant till after the 

 middle of August. The first sowing of Primula sinensis will 

 now be tit to pot-off. They must be put two plants in a large 

 ijo-sized pot in loam, peat, aud leaf mould, and it will be ad- 

 vantageous if they can be kept under glass in showery or dull 

 cold weather. A second sowing must now be got in for the 

 main winter and spring supply. 



If strong plants of Salvias are desired for blooming in pots, no 



time must be lost in preparing them; but as small ones are 

 preferable, the blooming points (aken off the old plants at the 

 end of August and rooted in heat will be quite early enough. 

 Propagate Chinese and other Eoses as fast as you can procure 

 cuttings, as if you get the plants strong by autumn they will, 

 with very little forcing, bloom all through the winter. It is by 

 no means an unfrequent occurrence for hundreds of plants of 

 Chinese Primroses to bloom all the year without producing a 

 grain of perfect seed. It becomes then necessary to treat a few 

 individuals iu a manner expressly adapted to cause them to 

 bear seed, for their management as merely ornamental objects 

 is not suited to this purpose. The primary consideration con- 

 nected therewith is to prevent the plants exhausting their 

 strength in the development of flowers during the winter. As 

 an assistance to this, it is better to sow in July than at an earlier 

 period ; and by removing the flower stems as they appear, strong 

 plants will result for the summer's blooming. A situation fully 

 exposed to the influence of the sun is essential when in flower, 

 that the pollen may be properly matured, which is, indeed, the 

 great and almost only requisite to the plentiful production of 

 the seed. — W. Keane. 



THE CANDLE PLANT. 

 Theke is an inquiry respecting this plant on page 370. The 

 plant inquired after is, I am of opinion, Cacalia articulata, 

 which is a succulent. The whole plant, stem and leaves, has 

 the same glaucous hue as Echeveria secnnda glauca when 

 grown in beat. It is rare : I never but once (some years ago) 

 saw a plant of it, and then in a cottage window. It and 

 Crassnla imbrioata and Monanthes polyphylla are, I fear, lost 

 in cultivation; they would be valuable acquisitions to the col- 

 lector and lover of curious or rare plants — at least, they would 

 be so to me. Loudon tells us the plant was introduced from 

 the Cape about 1775, and in the " Encyclopasdia of Plants" 

 there is a figure of it. Mr. Peacock, of Hammersmith, may 

 have it in his collection. — John Gbummiii, Priory Dank 

 House, Shclfield. 



DBYING PLANTS FOE THE HEBBABIUM. 



The approved plan is to place them between sheets of 

 soft paper — which, like blotting-paper, will absorb moisture 

 rapidly — and press them under boards or a screw press. The 

 paper must be changed every day for a few days, or the damp 

 paper will mould the specimens, or turn them black. The 

 object is to carry off the moisture from the drying specimens 

 as rapidly as possible. 



A couple of years ago Professor Alphonso Wood invented a 

 press, which is a capital idea. It is made of wire — such as is 

 used for common sieves — the meshes about a quarter of an 

 inch wide. Two of them are used just as two covers of a book 

 or portfolio would be. These are strapped together, so that 

 any thickness of paper can be used. The plants are put in 

 these papers as gathered. Soon after gathering, the wire port- 

 folio can be put under a trunk, or other heavy article, to press 

 them a little, and then hung in any warm place to dry. 



In the writer's travels last year he had one of these 

 presses, and the opportunity taken to hang it out of the car 

 windows, or on the side of the waggons, exposed to the sun 

 going over the mountains, or by the camp fires at night; and 

 in this way the moisture went out through the meshes without 

 any change whatever being required until they were dry. 

 Two or three times a-day the package would be cut, so as to 

 have the inside of the mass made the outside, and so on ; but 

 the labour was wonderfully small in comparison with what we 

 have had to do in our past life on similar expeditions ; aud 

 many a time last year we thanked Professor Wood, and lamented 

 at the same time that he did not think of the thing thirty 

 years before. — (American Gardener's Monthly.) 



DOINGS or THE LAST AND PRESENT WEEKS. 



UAKDY FIIUIT G.AKDEK. 



This is usually a very busy time in the kitchen and fruit gar- 

 dens, and especially so in such seasons of drought as this has 

 been. We managed to cut-out superfluous wood from the wall 

 trees, and to nail-in the growths that would be the future bear- 

 ing wood. A very common mistake is made by those who have 

 not had much experience in this sort of work, aud that is to 

 nail-in too much wood ; two or three shouts are placed where 

 one would be sufficient, consequently sun and hght, the ripen- 

 ing agents, are excluded, and healthy fruit buds cannot be pro- 

 duced. Another of the minor details must be noticed, and that 

 is the necessity of carefully preserviug the leaves at the base of 

 the foreright shoots when these are cut-back. We have seen 



