62 MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



wards in the house. Soak the peas in a flower-pot saucer which is never re- 

 quired for any other purpose, and keep it on a shelf in the tool-house, covered 

 up. Three or four hours' soaking will be sufficient. If the wind and frosts be 

 powerful and continued, shelter the peas through March, by covering them with 

 straw or matting every evening. 



I have got sweet- peas into very early blow by bringing them up in pots in- 

 doors, and transplanting them carefully in April, without disturbing the roots. 

 In doing this, push your finger gently through the orifice at the bottom of the 

 flower-pot. and raise its contents " bodily." Then place the ball of earth and 

 plants into a hole trowelled out to receive it ; cover it round gently, and, if the 

 weather is dry, water it moderately. 



Ten weeks' stock is a very pretty annual, and continues a long time in bloom. 

 Mignionette is the very sweetest of all perfumes, and should be sown in Sep- 

 tember for early blowing, and again in March for a later crop. It is always 

 more perfumy and healthy, if dug into the ground in autumn to sow itself. 

 Venus' Looking-glass is a very pretty, delicate flower. Indeed, every annual is 

 lovely ; and the different varieties give a gay and rich appearance to the flower- 

 garden during the three summer months. 



The Clarkias are very pretty annuals, with a hundred other varieties lately 

 introduced, and which are all specified in Mrs. Loudon's new work upon annuals. 

 My plan is, to give a general idea of their treatment only, under the classifica- 

 tion of hardy annuals, or those annuals which may be nurtured without a 

 hot-bed. 



Keep your annuals from looking wild and disorderly in a garden by allotting 

 the smaller kinds their separate patches of ground ; and trim the larger annuals 

 from branching among other flowers. For instance, cut away the lowest branches 

 of the China-aster, the African marigold, &c, and train the plant erect and 

 neatly to a slight rod or stick ; cut away the flowers as they drop, reserving one 

 or two of the finest blooms only for seed ; asd let each plant look clean and neat 

 in its own order. By cutting away flowers as they droop, the plant retains 

 vigour enough to continue throwing out fresh flowers for a long period, — 

 {Extract from every Lady her own Flower Gardener.) 



On Aknott's Stove. — Having had a good deal of experience of the working 

 of Dr. Arnott's Stoves, in plant houses of various constructions, I am perfectly 

 convinced that they are not at all adapted for such. And having seen, in the 

 present month's Cabinet, an article by a florist, in which he expresses his entire 

 confidence in them answering for such purposes, I am induced to pen the fol- 

 lowing, but I may here state (and I hope I will be excused for doing so) that I 

 am afraid the florist has not had sufficient trial of his small brick stove in a large 

 greenhouse, during a severe frost. 1 know by experience, as 1 have stated 

 above, that in a sharp morning I have found my plants near the stove quite dry, 

 aud their leaves drooping, and those along the front and at the gxtremity of the 

 house not sufficiently hot, although I had removed some of the plants from the 

 stove the night previous, as that has always to be done whenever a fire is neces- 

 sary. And still I had one part of my plants suffering from over heat, and the 

 other from cold, in a house not thirty feet long. The stove takes up a great 

 deal of room in whatever part of the house they are placed ; if at the frout, which 

 is the proper place for either flue, pipe, or stove, the chimney or tube must 

 either be suspended across the centre of the house, with a rise to the back wall, 

 or taken up through the glass, either of which is very unsightly, and it does not 

 answer to take the tube on a level from the stove, without a very high perpen- 

 dicular chimney, to cause sufficient draught to make the fire burn. If under a 

 greenhouse stage it would destroy plants to stand once in it, they require to be 

 removed double the size of the top of the stove ; audit is not very desirable, nei- 

 ther is it very safe, to be moving plants at night whenever it is requisite to have 

 the stove lighted ; and if the chimney has got damp (and it is very often necessary 

 to have fire in winter to expel damp), the house is chocked full of smoke. These 

 stoves have been so highly recommended, as they consume so little fuel, but they 

 require double what the manufacturers generally say they do ; and as economy 

 in fuel is a great consideration in a gardening establishment, many individuals 



