JtQy 13, 1871. ] 



JOUENAIi OF HOETIOTJLTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 



3S 



crowded are very likely to do if the weather do not become drier. 

 Soma of these drenching close days made us look to Potatoes 

 rather closely, but as yet we see no signs of the disease, though 

 the crop is all the heavier on account of the moisture. Though 

 we have had many downpours that have greatly assisted in 

 filling our reservoirs, we have been surprised how short a dis- 

 tance the rains have penetrated, owing to the great dryness of 

 two summers in succession. The rains in filling ponds and 

 pools will be of great service, as the water in most deep wells 

 is getting very shallow. Much grass for hay in this quarter is 

 Etui uncut, and if fine weather come to dry it, the yield will 

 be very heavy. 



Butch Bams. — Since we first alluded in these pages to Dutch 

 barns — that is, large buildings roofed, but open at the sides, 

 except for a certain height, and plated with zinc or tin to ex- 

 clude vermin, these buildings are becoming more common in 

 well-managed establishments, as the trouble and expense of 

 thatching are avoided, and the straw used for thatching can be 

 tnrned to better purposes. We cannot recollect just now what 

 a gentleman told us as to the economy of such houses, and 

 how few years of the expense of straw and labour in thatching 

 sufficed to pay all the expenses of the open barn. There are 

 jast two ideas well worthy the attention of those contemplating 

 having such a building for holding their hay and corn crops. 

 First, whatever the floor — wood, asphalt, or consolidated con- 

 crete washed in with a little cement, it is advisable that it 

 should be above the surrounding ground level, and that air- 

 drains should pass beneath it, with gratings to prevent vermin 

 going in from the outside, and fine-pierced gratings or sheets 

 of iron with small holes over openings inside. Then, again, if 

 over these openings tubes or air-shafts similarly pierced with 

 holes are placed, all crops stored will be kept in a sweet healthy 

 condition, and in bad damp seasons the crops will be housed 

 with more safety than when built in stacks in the usual man- 

 ner. It often seems a marvel to us how corn-growing can pay 

 when the cornstacks are built on the ground, merely with some 

 faggots and old straw beneath them in which mice and rats 

 may do as they hke, destroying often a good percentage of the 

 crop, and deteriorating the whole with their noxious excreta 

 and effluvia. In such open-sided, roofed barns, if the side walls 

 are from 2i to 30 inches in height, and there is a band of zinc 

 or tin some 12 inches deep all round, no mouse nor rat will ever 

 pass it, and there can be no loss from such vermin, unless they 

 pass in concealed in a sheaf or a large forkful of hay. Times 

 are coming when a first-outlay will be of less consequence, as 

 thus the yearly saving will soon make up for the outlay. This 

 is a matter to be thought of by gardeners, who are often the 

 haymakers ; but even in gardening proper the question is now 

 gaining in importance, "How can the greatest amount of en- 

 joyment be realised with the smallest possible outlay?" and 

 regular annual outlays are in general more to be avoided than 

 a good sum spent at once so as to secure future economy. 

 Makeshifts are all very well, and most of us must be content 

 with them, but for proprietors and holders of long leases these 

 makeshifts are often very dear shifts in the end. 



Makeshifts. — Perhaps there ia no class so guilty of resorting 

 to makeshifts as gardeners. The most successful are often 

 those who are most ready to devise temporary means to meet 

 temporary difficulties. In the light of true economy, though 

 such schemes suit the purpose, tliey can scarcely be defended, 

 as the labour, as well as the thought tnl reflection and con- 

 tinual mental strain, are considerable. For instance, we have 

 a lingering love for the old hotbeds, small and large, both for 

 temporary and more lasting purposes, and where plenty of 

 such heat can be obtained, except in a few of the darkest 

 months of winter, the bed and the frame will pretty well rival 

 the pit or the house heated by hot water. We do not like to 

 give up for another serious consideration, and that is the fine 

 lot of the most valuable manure for a garden these decayed 

 hotbeds of dung and leaves supply, all grass cuttings for linings 

 adding just so much more valuable nitrogenous material to the 

 mixture. For sweet vegetables and flourishing flower beds 

 nothing beats such material from hotbeds, and we often fear 

 that when gardeners have no hotbeds they may feel the great 

 difficulty of the manure question, for few gardens will bear 

 continuous and close cropping merely with the help of artificial 

 manures, unless muck from such manures as the above be also 

 supplied. Eat with all this we are not blind to the fact that 

 now the beds are more independent of such considerations as 

 the above mere makeshifts ; and if the manure' is to be pur- 

 chased every year, and the time of preparing it, &c., taken 

 into consideration, it would on the whole be the cheapest in 



the end to have a pit, or rather little house, heated by fire 

 heat. 



Then, again, as respects cold pit>) and frames, they require 

 great care in protecting them in severe weather in winter, and 

 the protecting material, however cheap, costs money, and with 

 the greatest care there is still a liability of breaking glass, so 

 that we are fully convinced it would be the most economical in 

 the end to run a couple of 3 or 4-inch pipes for hot water to 

 keep out ordinary frosts, 8Hd reserve a covering of a mat or a 

 little dry litter for some very extreme weather. 



Heatmr/ Small Houses. — We have read Mr. Pearson's remarks 

 on the monopoly of fruit-selling with much pleasure, and W6 

 have no hesitation in saying that there are hundreds and 

 thousands of little unheated houses, &c., and therefore yield- 

 ing only a small part of the pleasure and the profit they other- 

 wise would do, because so many of our first-rate hot-water 

 men think it beneath them to have anything to do with such 

 little jobs, or they make such a marvel and a secret of what, 

 after all, is a very simple matter, or speak of a price which is 

 quite alarming. Such simple heating is now becoming a little 

 more common, because country tradesmen are seeing the im- 

 portance of not despising little jobs. Mind, we say nothing of 

 large jobs ; these, on the whole, are generally done economi- 

 cally, with a suitable remunerative profit, and we do not se© 

 how a little job cannot be done on the same principle. We 

 had a little house which we wished to heat to keep out frost, and 

 we consulted several, but all went far beyond our calculations, 

 and in the end we took a small flue beneath the tiled floor, and 

 it answered admirably, and cost little more in shillings than 

 we had been asked pounds for hot water. For medium-sized 

 houses, merely to be kept temperate and look neat, nothing in 

 our opinion will beat the small flue beneath the floor, the tile> 

 of the floor forming the top of the flue, and the flue being under 

 the pathway. 



Even for glass cases, or orchard houses, a small stove would 

 often be a great convenience, for in such a case covering would 

 be troublesome and expensive. Let us, then, do our best with 

 makeshifts, but not lose sight of the fact, that more outlay in 

 heating at first would often prove true economy before many 

 years were over. These matters, however, will bear alluding 

 to again, as being of great importance to proprietors as well a& 

 their servants. For instance, it is not uncommon to find a 

 large flower garden well filled on the present fashionable group- 

 ing or massing system, and yet after the plants were turned 

 out it would puzzle an experienced person to say where or 

 whence they could come. But doing things in such a way in- 

 volves a great amount of time and labour in moving from 

 place to place, which might have been in a great measure saved 

 if there had been more glass room in the first instance. 



KITCHEN GAEDEN. 



In the kitchen garden, besides attending to successions, th& 

 chief work has been hoeing and forking the surface soil among 

 all growing crops where it had been crusted and baked by the 

 rains. It is often amazing how this surface-stirring acts upon 

 such plants from merely letting the air into the soil. Plants 

 that looked as if they would stand still, grew rapidly after the 

 forking. Where rapid growth is the object, we do not think 

 that our less-experienced readers are yet quite aware of th& 

 importance of this surface-stirring. They are sometimes non- 

 plussed by what they consider the contradictory practice of gar- 

 deners in this respect. For instance, some time ago a keen 

 young enthusiast could not make out why we stirred the 

 ground amongst Calceolarias, and passed over beds of Scarlet 

 Geraniums, tboagh the ground was crusted in the one case as 

 well as the other. Well, the first were flowering pretty freely,, 

 and we wished them to grow freely, and thus furnish succes- 

 sions ; the Geraniums had grown freely, but the ground was 

 cool, and they had not bloomed so freely as we wished. There 

 had been two or three days of bright sun that would heat the 

 crusted ground sooner than the stirred ground. The caked 

 surface would so far lessen growth, and just in proportion 

 would prompt the plant in self-defence to do what it could iii 

 the production of flowers. We like to see free growth, but very 

 free growth does not generally accompany free blooming and 

 fruiting. We have no occasion to go to flowers for an example, 

 however, though it just came in our way. Let us go to the 

 Cabbage plant. If we wish to have as soon as possible a com- 

 pact nice head we must surface-stir, &e. If wa wished a Cab- 

 bage plant to throw up its flower-stem as soon as possible, 

 then we would plant firm, keep the ground firm about it, and 

 never think of watering with slops or anything else. Ere long, 

 most likely, a tiny flower-stem will come from a tiny plant. 



