CALENDAR — JANUARY. 397 



Forcing Department. — About the end of the month, 

 prepare for making up hotbeds for early cucumbers 

 and melons, at least where a pit heated with hot water 

 is not in use. Sow salads, carrots, and kidney-beans 

 on slight hotbeds. Sow peas in cold frames for trans- 

 planting. Force asparagus, searkale, and rhubarb, in 

 hotbeds in pits, in the mushroom-house, or in the open 

 garden by covers surrounded with litter. Give air in 

 fine weather, and water sparingly, to the pinery and 

 cucumber pit ; and to other forcing-houses according 

 to the progress of the trees. Attend to forced kidney- 

 beans and 'strawberries. Give abundance of air to the 

 green-house, conservatory, and alpine frame, but little 

 water. Continue to force roses, kalmias, rhododen- 

 drons, and hardy flowers and bulbs, for the decoration 

 of the green-house, or to be taken into the lobby or the 

 drawing-room. Most of these ought to. be potted and 

 prepared in autumn. 



Floiver G-arden.—V\^ni dried tubers and bulbs of bor- 

 der flowers, if not done in autumn ; but the planting of 

 the roots of the finer florists' flowers ought to be de- 

 ferred till next month. 



Transplant herbaceous plants and evergreen shrubs 



garden, which are often suspected of attacking blossom or fruit 

 when they are only picking ofT caterpillars or aphides, their 

 favorite food. Even the common sparrow and the blue titmouse 

 are useful in destroying the larvae of the moths which infest 

 fruit-trees. In hot-houses, the keeping of the walls and frame- 

 work clean, by frequent white-washing and paiAting, is very 

 important; and much benefit results from occasionally filling 

 them with the smoke of tobacco-paper, and then thoroughly 

 syringing the plants. 



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