66 



JOUENAL OF HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 



[ Jvay 27, 1871. 



peat, and one part leaf soil, with half a part each of lumps of 

 charcoal and silver sand. Provide good drainage. 



Pergularia odoratissima. — This is of quick growth, and may 

 be said to be thti Steijhanotia of the greenhouse, to which plant 

 it is allied, but the flowers are green and sweet-scented. It 

 blossoms in summei-. It is rather slow in establishing itself 

 in a greenhouse, but is there not nearly so liable to be attacked 

 by red spider and other insect pests as when grown in a stove. 

 It requires to be freely watered when growing, and to be kept 

 dry in winter. Soil fibrous loam, sandy peat, and leaf mould in 

 equal parts, with half a part of old cow dung and lump char- 

 coal, and a free admixture of sharp sand. Good drainage 

 should be provided. 



Pronaija elegans. — An evergreen twiner, with pretty blue 

 flowers in July and August. It ia allied to Sollya. Soil sandy 

 peat and loam in equal parts, with a free admixture of sharp 

 sand, together with good drainage. Water the plant freely 

 when growing and flowering, but in winter keep it moderately 

 dry. 



Plumbago capensis. — Flowers pale blue, produced at the end 

 of summer (August and later). Its flowers are very fine, but 

 ■ the plant is of straggling growth, for which there is no remedy 

 except stopping, but if that be resorted to after June the flowers 

 will be few. The plant should be cut-in rather closely in Feb- 

 ruary, keeping it rather dry for about a fortnight, and then 

 encourage growth by copious waterings and free syringings. 

 A good growth being made, water sparingly, and this check will 

 generally induce flowering. After November keep it dry. 

 Soil turfy loam two parts, one part leaf soil, and one part 

 sandy peat, with a free admixture of sharp sand, and good 

 drainage. 



Ehynchospei'mumjasminoides. — Flowers white and fragrant, 

 in July, li is very useful for bouquets. Water freely when 

 growing and flowering, and in winter keep it dry, but not so as 

 to afieet the foliage. It requires good drainage, and a compost 

 of two parts fibrous light loam, one part sandy fibrous peat, 

 half a part each of old cow dung and lump charcoal, with a 

 free admixture of sharp sand. It will hardly need pruning in 

 ten years, and then cut out Ihe old woru-oat shoots and en- 

 courage fresh ones. — G. Aebey. 



IMPORTANCE OF AN INTEREST IN GARDENING 



AND NATURAL HISTORY TO THE YOUNG. 



I LATELY held converse with some of the men who will leave 

 their marks for good on the times. Singularly enough the 

 above was the theme that occupied the attention of several of 

 them, and it was said that enough had not been done in this 

 direction in " our Journal," and that as a beginning I ought to 

 say a few words on the subject. 



I feel the importance of giving a right tone in this direction 

 to the young of both sexes in all ranks of society. In one 

 sense this is more necessary in the case of the children of the 

 artisan and the more humble labourer than in the case of those 

 more favoured by circumstances, or who have had the benefit 

 of a more extended and finished education, which would natu- 

 rally open up wider sources of investigation and enjoyment. 



I would strongly recommend all such encouragement from 

 three considerations. Firsjt, it is nects-ary, for the health of 

 body and mind, that both should be employed, and the more 

 employed the, better, provided we do not go to such extremes 

 as to transgress the laws that must ever regulate our physical 

 and moral well-being. Secondly, the study of the simple, the 

 natural, the pure, and the beautiful by the young will be one of 

 the best antidotes against the indulgence in gross and debasing 

 pleasures. Many a lad and many a man seek pleasurable 

 excitement in channels that will ultimately be ruinous, who 

 might never have cared for such indulgences if other sources 

 of excitement of a more mellowing character had been pre- 

 sented to his notice, such as a book to read, a garden to clean, 

 a plant to tend, a bird to feed, a beautiful insect in all its 

 wondrous transformations to study. And lastly, call it con- 

 tractedness or selfishness if you will, still it is no less a law of 

 our humanity, especially strongly manifested in the young, but 

 never absent even in the case of the old, unless the heart has 

 become old and as much shrivelled up as the half-mummied 

 body — the law manifested in the fact that to insure anything 

 like enjoyment we must have something to care for, something 

 to pet, something to love, something that in a proprietary 

 sense must be inherently and peculiarly our own. And thus, 

 on the same principle, if the objiiot petted be a living thing 



capable of responding in some measure to our cares for it, the 

 more attractive it will be. I can recall to recollection many 

 instances in which the sportive kitten, the cosy tame rabbit, 

 the faithful affectionate puppy, the kiss-and-kiss-me dove and 

 pigeon, the favourite strutting cock of the yard, or the still 

 more aristocratic bantam (but whose love to his owner was even 

 greater than his assumed digtitj), the high warbled cheering 

 note of linnet and canary when a certain knock was heard at 

 the door, and more especially when a certain head and shoul- 

 ders showed within it ; the appearance of the window plant 

 after its roots were watered and its leaves were washed, cleaned, 

 and sponged, and when every bit of flower and foliage seemed 

 to look you in the face and say, 0, how I thank you for your 

 care ! — I can recall to memory instances such as these which 

 have exerted a more mellowing kindness-securing and kind- 

 ness-diffusing power than could be realised by looJiing on tha 

 finest painting or sculpture, or beholding the most magnificent 

 scenery the world can afJord ; and chiefly because these living 

 things could make a return for the care bestowed, and because, 

 also, the possessor could look on each or either as his or her 

 very own. 



With all our contest with flinty selfishness, the moral re- 

 former will be sure to fail if he do not bring even this strong 

 self-appropriating feeling to work for him rather than against 

 him. I have known of hard-featured orangenut-and-cake 

 basket women in the streets of London shivering with cold, 

 shivering still more because they found themselves alone and 

 destitute of human sympathy (though liviug as it were in 

 passing crowds of men and women) who would deprive them- 

 selves of what they really wanted that they might take home 

 the accustomed piece from the catsmeat man to the little pussy 

 in the little room that purred and mewed its satisfaction, and 

 did its best to enliven the room, otherwise so poor and so dingy. 

 No neighbour's cat could have so cheered the lone woman. 

 And in a similar case when the poor woman went home to her 

 garret in St. Giles's, having sold little during the day, with 

 little for her supper, with visions of a frowning landlady about 

 the not strict payment of rent to the day and hour, and she 

 found her heart hardening, sinking, and despairing, because 

 no one seemed to care for her — what a relief it was to her for 

 the tear to find its way down her furrowed cheek as she watered 

 and washed the- leaves of the pretty plant in the broken tea- 

 pot in the window, and found herself in imagination away at 

 the cottage in the Wolds, and in meadows gay with Buttercups 

 and Daisies, whilst every clean and flourishing leaf spoke of 

 cheerfulness and the foreshadowing of happier days ! The 

 plant became what it was to her because she attended to its 

 every want, because it was exclusively her own. The finest 

 plant in a gentleman's garden would have exerted no such 

 mellowing, humanising power. 



Now for a few simple deductions. Damp not, but encourage 

 all such tastes for pets, be it bird or plant, even in very young 

 people. I have known gardeners greatly annoyed because 

 young ladies and gentlemen were always troubling them about 

 seeds and plants for their gardens, and food for thtir pets, &o. ; 

 and such a mess they did make of it all ! Order and good 

 management require that the children should not interlope or 

 interfere on the gardener's domain proper ; but surely a place 

 could be set aside for the young folks, and a particular place or 

 position awarded to each, that each might do the best, and 

 carry out a particular hobby without interfering with the 

 peculiar leatiings of his neighbour ; and all this it is wise in 

 every way to encourage. It is well to encourage sympathy 

 between the highest and the lowest in station, and Ihe yotmg 

 lady and the young gentleman who labour in their plots until 

 thoroughly exhausted may well be expected to feel more sym- 

 pathy with the working man than the young gentleman who 

 has never had his hands blistered or his shoulders aching from 

 wielding a mattock, using a spade, or trundling a heavily-loaded 

 barrow. 



Again, I have often found mothers, and fathers too, bo ob- 

 jecting to their young folks having any pets of their own, that 

 to carry out the natural craving it had to be indulged-in in a 

 concealed sort of way — a very bad thing, for in every matter 

 it is well that the most perfect confidence should exist between 

 child and parent. " I might as well have a perfect Babel as 

 these screeching and howling sounds. A manageiie with its 

 filth and odours could be no worse than my boys pester me 

 with, with their beasts and birds in every corner they can get 

 hold of," said a mother not long ago. Ah ! but mother, if you 

 arrest the gratification of- such tastes you might have tastes 

 formed for other things that will give such pulls at your yerv 



