230 BRIEF REMARKS. 



WATERING FLOWER GARDENS. 



BY AN AMATEUR. 



• 



The soil of my flower garden is a very sandy loam, upon a deep gravelly 

 substratum. From this circumstance I am compelled to water all the 

 flower-beds during dry weather. I am aware of objectors to this 

 practice stating that such application does much more harm than good. 

 This might be true to some extent, if the surface only was just mois- 

 tened. Such watering will encourage, perhaps, the pushing of a few 

 fibrous roots into the moist surface soil, which a day or two of hot sun 

 will destroy ; and whilst this system is going on, the plant, being dry 

 below, is gradually dying. Now my plan has been, during the last two 

 months, to have the surface loosened three or four inches deep by 

 hoeing, and leaving without being raked, and this uneven open surface 

 admitted the water applied to sink below. I had the surface thus dis- 

 turbed once a-week. The gutta-percha tubing being advertised in this 

 Magazine, I purchased a sufficient length at a trifling cost ; and having 

 a pond of soft water situated a few yards higher than my garden-ground! 

 I laid one end of the tubing in the pond (one hundred yards off from 

 the garden), and having the other end in my garden, I could move it 

 quite readily to every part, and thus with ease 1 gave the beds sufficient 

 to sink through the entire soil on each occasion. This enabled the 

 roots to supply the foliage with what is lost by perspiration, and 

 necessary for sustaining the proper vitality thereof. I repeated the 

 watering once a-week, and the plants are in robust health and profuse 

 bloom. The piping is easily unrolled over the ground, and when done 

 with, readily coiled up. A tank of water, heing higher than the ground 

 to be watered, will, of course, afford a supply, if there be not the ad- 

 vantage of a pond or other reservoir. The essentials in having the 

 plants healthy in dry seasons are, having the surface of the border 

 deeply loosened, and left in a rough-surfaced state ; and when water is 

 requisite, let it sink as deep as the general portion of the roots do. 



BRIEF REMARKS. 



Form of the Flower of a Calceolaria. — In my recent read- 

 ings and visits to Floricultural Exhibitions I find some difference exists 

 as to what is the best form of the Calceolaria ; and at two of the shows 

 I recently attended near London a considerable disturbance arose with 

 two exhibitors of these flowers, the decision of the judges being unsatis- 

 factory to one of the parties. The best specimen to which the judges 

 awarded the first prize had flowers of the middle size, good circular 

 outline, free from indentations (or hollows) at the edge ; and whilst the 

 back part of the flower was nearly flat, the front was well swelled out, 

 and the throat of the blossom was almost hidden. 



The second best specimen had much larger flowers than the former, 

 somewhat longer than broad, and the outline free from indentation ; 

 but the front was not so full as the flowers of the former. Both varie- 

 ties had a rich deep yellow ground, and beautifully blotched in the face. 



