102 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ February 3, 1863. 



the free-growing varieties, and always keep the dead flowers 

 cleared-off. Any compact plants of Scarlet Geraniums which 

 are intended as specimen plants for vases, baskets, or single 

 specimens on the lawn or terrace during the summer to be now 

 shaken out of their pots and repotted, using turfy soil with a 

 little leaf mould, old cowdung, and sand. Give them, if possible, 

 a gentle bottom heat for ten days or a fortnight, until they make 

 fresh roots, and keep a moderately moist atmospheric tempera- 

 ture of from 50° to 55°. When they have made fresh growth 

 remove to a light, airy part of the greenhouse. Repot them 

 into larger pots or tubs towards the end of March. The 

 Fuchsias should now be looked to without delay. Where fine 

 specimen plants are required, shake the old plants out, reduce 

 the roots, and repot them. Introduce them to a forcing-house 

 at a temperature of about 60°, and as soon as you can obtain 

 cuttings an inch long, strike them in pans of sand kept damp. 

 When struck to be potted into small pots in a compost of turfy 

 sandy loam, turfy peat, and leaf mould, and some sand, and to 

 be shifted into larger pots, as they require to be grown in a warm 

 moist atmosphere, remembering that if you want large plants they 

 must be grown to a considerable size before they show bloom. 



■FOROINGt-PIT. 

 Syringe freely. Continue a kindly humidity. Apply air in 

 suitable weather, taking advantage of those occasions to apply 

 more fire heat. Be very cautious in the application of fire heat 

 at night, or many varieties of plants will prove abortive. 



PITS AND FEAMES. 

 Give plenty of light and air to these structures in fine weather. 

 Look over the plants frequently, and pick-off all decayed leaves. 

 Pot-off the autumn-struck cuttings of Scarlet and Ivy-leaved 

 Geraniums, Fuchsias, Verbenas, shrubby Calceolarias, &c, that 

 are still in the cutting-pans or pots ; to be then placed in a 

 gentle heat till they are well rooted. Make a hotbed for cuttings 

 and seeds with fermented dung well-sweetened. W. Keane. 



DOINGS OP THE LAST WEEK. 



RoUTitTE much the same as the previous week. Wheeling, 

 trenching, turning over ridges, &c, in crispy mornings ; pruning, 

 nailing, tying, &c, in fine days ; potting, turning soil in sheds, 

 making Btakes, tallies, &c, when wet and sloppy. 



SITCHEN GABDEN. 



Sowed Sangster's No. 1, Dickson's Favourite, and Jeyes' 

 Conqueror Pea, for second crops. Will sow for the first out-of- 

 doors crop three weeks or a month hence, in boxes, to be trans- 

 planted. Sowed Tom Thumb and Bishop's Dwarf in boxes 

 under protection, to he transplanted under fences, to succeed 

 those that will have a little glass protection. Stirred the surfase 

 soil among those in rows and pots, and the same among Lettuces, 

 Radishes, Parsley, Cabbages, &c. Sowed Carrots, Radishes, 

 and a few Cauliflowers in a slight hotbed of leaves. If Lettuces 

 and Cabbages are likely to be scarce, a pinch sown now in such a 

 miid heat, and hardened-off by degrees, will come in only a very 

 little behind those sown in autumn, and they always seem to 

 eat rather crisper and sweeter. In sowing such a bed of Carrots, 

 we sometimes throw the seed broadcast, and at other times, and, 

 perhaps it is the best way, we sow such kinds as Early Dutch 

 and Early Horn in rows about 5 inches apart, and the Radishes 

 and Cauliflower between. The thinning and drawing of the first 

 give room to the Cauliflowers, and when these are pricked out 

 under cover of a mat at night, there will be plenty of room for 

 the Carrots. Potted, also, in four and five-inch pots a number 

 of plants of Cauliflower, and set them where they could have 

 protection, and they will come in useful if we should have severe 

 frost in spring. Put more Asparagus into a slight hotbed, and 

 placed more Rhubarb and Sea-kale in the Mushroom-house. 



Swept over all the Mushroom-beds ; and as a few woodlice 

 appeared notwithstanding our care, poured some water, nearly 

 boiling, down by the sides of the bed, where they would be sure 

 to lodge after the sweeping. If the water is thus poured from a 

 small spout it will penetrate the bed very little. In addition to 

 this, when the woodlice become numerous, we place small pots 

 with a piece of carrot or turnip in them, and filled lightly with 

 dry hay or moss, and turn the vermin into hot water in the 

 morning. Since we have taken to smoke the house with sulphur 

 in the autumn, we have been troubled very little with woodlice ; 

 but a few are apt to come in with the manure material. Potted 

 Dwarf Eidney Beans out of a box, sowed more, and moved 



Potatoes in pots into a colder place under glass. Potted 

 Cucumbers in a small dung-frame, as we do not yet wish to use 

 fire heat for them, and for raising young plants nothing after 

 all beats a bed of sweet decomposing material. When the 

 necessary material, and time and care can be commanded, no 

 sort of heat suits them and Melons better. We have cut better 

 fruit of the latter in the end of April from frames than ever we 

 did with hot water ; but then the plants never had the cbance 

 of suffering from a chill, and the banks of fermenting material" 1 

 that came in afterwards as enriching composts would do our 

 eyes good to look at now. We suspect the fine new improve- 

 ments that in some places are keeping everything but the- 

 distant scent of manure from the gardens, will perforce secure- 

 sweet vegetables, if they should be small. A good many of us- 

 could not grow them rank if we tried. 



EETTIT GAEBEIT. 



Pruned and nailed common trees as opportunity offered, leav- 

 ing Apricots and Peaches alone, but loose-nailed to let the air 

 about them, and to prevent the trees becoming heated from con- 

 tact with the wall in such a sunny day as we had on the 28th ult. 

 Have not pruned any Gooseberries yet, as we did it too soon 

 last year. Feel almost disposed to let them alone until the fruit 

 shows, the birds getting at ours with all our care last year. The 

 weather has as yet been too mild to tempt birds much. Will 

 syringe the bushes with a mixture of lime, clay and soot, the 

 bitterness of which will tend to keep birds away as the buds 

 swell. Just inserted the points of a fork between the rows of 

 Strawberries to keep the dung, &c, on the surface loose, and let- 

 the rains pass freely through them, pressing the rich soil to any 

 buds that seemed to stand naked or higher than the rest. We 

 have long found that Strawberry plants will stand much cold if 

 there is little or none of the stem exposed below the buds. Two 

 years ago we were asked to look at a plantation of Strawberry 

 plants, which though seemingly strong produced nothing but 

 leaves. We noticed that the plants if separated might have beer, 

 taken for little dwarf standards, so long and naked were their 

 stems ; and to the effect on them of a severe frost, and watering, 

 late in autumn with very rich liquid manure, we attributed the 

 ruin of the flower-buds. At any rate, another plantation in 

 a neighbouring garden, of the same kind of Strawberry and 

 planted at the same time, which had received no Bueh treatment, 

 presented no similar appearance, and was a mass of bloom and 

 swelling fruit. 



Forward Strawberries in-doors will need more water as the 

 fruit is swelling, but to be gi?en moderately in such dull weather. 

 Those freshly placed in the house should be kept rather dry before 

 the bud is seen moving, and even then rather dry instead of wet 

 uutil the flowers are expanding. Those in bloom should have a 

 feather or a dry hand waved through them to disperse the pollen. 

 We are obliged for the thanks sent by several, as to not allow- 

 ing water to stand in saucers during the early stages of the 

 forcing of Strawberries, and some correspondents wish to know 

 if there is nothing else that would do as well as moss for setting the 

 plants on, as they have a difficulty in obtaining it, and it blows 

 so about. We have often used, because we could not help our- 

 selves, thin pieces of turf — say 6 or 7 inches wide and 1 inch 

 thick — placed on the shelf with the grass side downwards. The 

 pots were set level on the earth side, and to secure that level a 

 little leaf mould was scattered along. This secured a moist 

 bottom, and the plantB could not be overwatered except by the 

 grossest carelessness. We were rather pleased the other day in 

 a princely establishment, where they had splendid shelves on 

 purpose for Strawberries, with edgings an inch deep and lined 

 with lead and pitch to retain water, to find that the most of the 

 Strawberry-pots, except those fruiting, were either standing on 

 bare shelves, or on temporary shelves covered with thin turves. 

 One side of a long span-house had a stage thus formed ; brickB 

 set on the bed supported the upper shelves and their line of 

 turf, and the plants looked extremely well and promieing. Our 

 friend in pointing to the shelves Baid nothing, but the look just 

 spoke thus — "There! if we have such abundant means we don't 

 despise the simplicities." For a swelling fruit nothing can 

 be better than these edged shelves, but the danger is, with care- 

 less watering, that the plants at an early stage are apt to become 

 too wet, just aB they are liable to do when set- in saucers. Last 

 year an amateur asked us to look at his Straw berry plants in 

 pots, they should have just been coming into bloom, but scarcely 

 a bloom opened kindly or showed farina on the stamens, and 

 there need have been no wonder, for though there had been a 



