268 



JOUENAi OF HOBTICULTXJBE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEE. 



t October 5, 1871. 



give a temperature of from 60'^ to 65°, and 70- on the surface of the 

 border, Tvhich yrUl encourage fresh rooting upwards. If tEiking-np is 

 resolved upon, ire have frequently described the process. 



Tines Planting (Gas-meter MaJcer). — As the Tine has been planted 

 two years, instead of taking it np vre would fork carefully round it, 

 and, if the roots are now spreading, leave well alone and tnp-dress with 

 dissolved bones and horse droppings. If you resolve to relift, you can- 

 not do it too soon. Ee corelnl of every fibre, replant in fresh soU, water 

 at about 70°, cover the soil over with litter to keep out cold, and if with 

 anything to keep oat cold rains ail the better, so that the roots may be 

 excited inio activity before the top breaks. Use the fresh loam by 

 all rneans, but do not raise it 8 inchts above the present soil and roots. 

 Yon may get new roots in the fresh soil, but yon will injure the old 

 roots. "VVe lately saw a fine Oak tree kiUed because the stem and old soil 

 were covered with a foot of refuse earth. Tour Vines ought to do in the 

 north of London in the open air, but of course a glass covering, tempo- 

 rary, or orchard-house fashion, would be in favour of the Tines and fruit. 



Strawbebet Plants fob Foecing (A. B.), — "We presume the Straw- 

 berry plants are now in pots, and the sooner you can place them in the 

 conservatory, or anywhere else to save them from this drenching as well 

 a? frost, the better. They will be quite safe if the temperature be a little 

 a'jove freezing, and will want little attention, except seeing that they do 

 not become over-dried until you wish to start them for forcin:?. It would 

 be of no advantage keeping them at all warm in winter until you wished 

 't3 start them fairly, and then they must be brought on gradually and 

 have no checks. Perhaps we do not quite see the drift of your question. 

 For early forcing, say commeucing in November or December, the plants 

 ought to he well established in their fruiting pots, the outsides and in- 

 sides of the halls being a complete mass and network of fine roots. 



Beds on Grass (Suimij). — Provided you have enough of room on each 

 S" ^e of the walk and to spare for a croquet ground, we would put a series 

 of small beds alons the sides of the wide walk, and also of that in front 

 0:the windows. Nothing, on the whole, would look better or be more 

 s'mple than parallelograms and circles ; the first with the ends curved to 

 Slit the circles ; the parallelogram 8 feet by 4, and the circles 4 feet in 

 diameter; 4 feet from the walk, if so Hiuch can be spared, and 4 feet be- 

 tween the beds, to he filled with bulbs and spring flowers, and Geraniums 

 in summer. 



Makcre for Mfadow oy Clatet Son. (X, Y. 2^.).— If you can manage 

 to collect a quantity of parings from the hedgesides or ditches, mis it 

 with about one-s^sth of its bulk of quicklime, let the heap lie a month or 

 two. and then turn it; you will have a better manure than any of the 

 artificial kinds, as the most of them seem better adapted to crops under 

 tillage than to peimacent grass; we have, neverthc-U ss, sten excellent 

 hay crops after a dressing of nitrate of eoca, or of bone dust, both on 

 heavy soil, but we prefer the action of lime, and have a partiality to bulk, 

 which cannot be had in the artificial manures. If you cannot obtain 

 parings of ditches, perhaps roadside scraping? can be had ; these will be 

 better still if at all sandy, and maybe applied without the lime ; hut if 

 you use the latter, take care the earthy materials are not too wet, other- 

 wise the mass will become like mortar instead of the useful friable com- 

 post so much needed, and which you may apply at the rate of thirty one- 

 horse loads to the acre if you have plenty of it, or twenty loads if it is 

 scarce. 



EosE Leaves Ts^ttreh (Edgeicortk, W. i^.).— The leaves you enclose 

 seem to be injured by smoke from chemical works; it is, however, diffi- 

 cult to say without knowing the position in which they were grown, and 

 if there is no chimney near to hurt the leaves, they may sufi^er from the 

 roots being too dry. We have seen leaves injured just in the same way 

 in the neighbourhood of Birmingham and other smoky towns. 



EuE Leaf f J. JB.). — The following is " the full botanical deecription" 

 which you ask for: — Leaves glaucous, pulpy, dotted, divided like the um- 

 bellate plants, doubly pinnate, or more p^op^^y what Linnjeus calls 

 superdecompound. Leafl'^ts obovate, sessile, the lower ones smallest, 

 the end one commonly trifid, with the middle lobe much larger than the 

 rest. 



Supply of Vegetables (Biish). — Ko one could value the supply unless 

 he knew the amount and quality. In •' The Eatable Funguses," published 

 at our office, there are coloured engravings and full descriptions of them. 

 "We could not epitomise them. 



Iresine Likdeni FEOir Seed (An Amateur). — It can eo doubt be raised 

 from seed, but we are not aware that the seeds are in commerce. It 

 strikes so freely from cuttings that no one need he long in raising np a 

 stock. By "Lobelia" we presume you mean Terhena venosa, plants of 

 which raised from seed sown at the end of February in a hntbed of 75-, 

 and forwarded in heat, will make good stocks by the end of May. and will 

 bloom finely the first season, in fact better than older plants. The Gera- 

 nimns which you hope to winter in a spare room we would continue in 

 the Melon frame until November, keeping them rather dry, and admitting 

 air abundantly. It maybe necessary, if frosty nights occur, to throw 

 mats over the lights. 



Stowing Filberts — Tritosia Flowering Late (A Sulscriber). — They 

 keep best in jars between layers cf sand, and placed in a cellar. The 

 cause of the Tritoma flowering late is no doubt the cold summer The 

 plants being healthy we would not lift them, but would mulch round them 

 with partially decoyed leaves. They would probably flower earlier if 

 lifted, and the best time to do that is as soon as the flowering is over. 

 The plants will, however, be weakened by the lifting. 



Trees fob Exposed MomD (J. B.].—Tor the soil you name and an 

 exposed situation we should confine ourselves to evergreens, and should 

 plant them at 4 feet apart, using equal proportions of .-Austrian Pine, 

 Corsican Pine, and Scotch Fir. The first-named is the hardiest of all, and 

 makes the best shelter, and unless the mound be extensive we should 

 plant it alcne. If you wish for dflciduous trees you m-y plant at 20 feet 

 apart Sycamore and Norway Maple, flUing up at 4 feet apart with the 

 evergreen trees named. 



CucTjaiEER House Construction {A Beginner). — We should contrive 

 for a walk at the back, raising the present wall to 7 feet, and making a 

 front wall cf about 3 feet 6 inches high. You will not need front lights, 

 but we would have the front part of the roof of lights 7 feet lonj, and a 

 short roof to the hack of 3 or 4 feet, which will need to be regulated ac- 

 cording as you Giver the wall or not. If the wall be covered it should be 

 " splayed " at top to the width of the wall plate. The back part should 



he fixed, and the top IS inches of the 7-feet roof should have framed and 

 glazed sashes, so as to open the entire length c^ the house from half an 

 inch to a foot or more. The front part of the roof should be at an angle 

 of 45^. The flue we should run along the front of the house, returning it 

 along the centre cf the bed which we should form for the soil, and back 

 along the side of the walk. You will in that way have two pipes for top 

 heat and one for bottom heat. It would be well "if the covers cf the flue 

 were hollow, so as to retain water. The flues need not be raised more 

 than half a brick from the floor, and may be about 12 inches deep and 

 9 inches wide inside, but they may be less. The bed we should have 

 4 feet wide, and enclosed with ii-inch walls, but from 6 to 9 inches higher 

 than the flue, which we would cover over ; or we would form a bottom to 

 the border of flags or slates, and thus have a chamber beneath the bed. 

 You will need to carry the 4:^-inch walls 18 inches above the fiass, and on 

 these you mn-t place about 6 inches of stones for drainage, and then you 

 will hiive left about a foot space for soil. You may have the furnace in 

 front, and it should be so sunk that its top may be level with the bottom, 

 of the flue ; you may then carry the flue through the house on the level, 

 or with a very slight rise to the chimney. 



Small Forcing House (A Young Gardener). — "We have no objection to 

 the depth of the chamber, IS inches ; we should like it better than if 

 deeper. We do not quite understand the mode of heating; for bottom 

 heat you have a pipe ihmagh each tank, which raises the temperature of 

 the water to 130^ ; that would make two pipes, and yet you say you have 

 four pipes for bottom heat. So we presume that one pipe on each side is 

 in the tank, and the other in the chamber. By either or both modes, for 

 such a narrow border, you will have enough of bottoai heat, but for a 

 house 9 feet wide we do not think that two pipes for top heat will be 

 enough for Cucumbers in winter. We would rather have four. K you 

 allow the holes in the .'^late to remiin yon should have 6 inches of open 

 rubble over them, covered with washed fine gravel and sand below the 

 turf and soil far Cucumbers", Tines, &c. If you stop up the holes the 

 rubble will be equally required, and the vents you propose for letting up 

 vapour would also do for pouring water down among the rubble. The 

 vapoor that rises from water in a tank at 130" will not iniure if it rises at 

 a distance of 15 inches or so from the foliage. It will also be modified 

 by passing through the rubble. "We would not like the roots of any 

 plants to reach the heated slate. Cucumbers should not be overwatered 

 in winter, or have too much hot vapour. The plants in pots will do best 

 plunged if the bottom heat is not above SO-'. From 60- to 65° is a good 

 winter top temperature, with a gradual rise from stmshine. The Suoly- 

 Qua Cucumber appears to be a Lufia; we should not like to eat it> 

 though it is used in China. 



Heating et Gas (South Norwood). — No injury occurs to plants in a 

 house heated by gas if there be a tube to carry ofi" the fumes into the open 

 air. '■ In-door Gardening" will suit you ; it can be had free by post from 

 our office if twtnty postage stamps are sent with your address. 



Heating Greenhouse and Tineet (J. H. Jones). — "We are sorry that 

 your gas stove did not give you sufficient heat last winter. The great 

 advantage of such stoves is the ease with which they are managed. But 

 for this, heating a stove with gas we consider in general more costly, and 

 far from being so effective as an iron stove with firebrick in the fire- 

 place, and buTDing good coke. You would no doubt get more heat from 

 the gas stove if you had a small boiler over it m the concave or saddle- 

 back shape, as described in p^ge 38 of the manual of " Greenhouses for 

 the Many,' to which you refer. We, too, would prefer 2-inch to 3-inch 

 pipes. A small cistern set higher than the flow pipe, and communicating 

 with it by a 1-inch pipe, the return pipe beirg near the bottom of the 

 boiler, will supp'y the deficiency of getting the water in to which yon 

 refer, or a raised open pipe on the highest point of the flow pipe would 

 answer as well. You will also succeed by placing in the furnace of the 

 shed behind a piece or coil of pipe as you propose, taking the extreme 

 end out into the open air. You will succeed still better by having a coil 

 or band in the furnace as a boiler, and the pipes filled with warer, with 

 an opening at the highest point in the house for supplying with water- 

 But to avoid all these complications we would sink the furnace in ihe 

 potting shed some 15 or 18 inches, and then take a flow and return flue 

 beneath your present pathway and up your present chimney. As you 

 have the furnace there you will succeed better and with less trouble 

 than with all these complications of gas, hot air, and hot water. Of 

 course the three quarts of water in the boiler in " Greenhouses for the 

 Many " refer to the boiler alone, and not to what is in the pipes. A case 

 is shown round the boiler, so that the gas heats on all sides, otherwise 

 we prefer that the gas heat should go right up the middle and round the 

 sides, as in the conical system, or underneath and rotmd as in the 

 saddle-back system. 



Heating a House 20 Feet by 10 Feet (Grosmont). — Would not t'se 

 chimney stack that passes through the greenhouse give you enough of 

 heat to keep out frost? In some such case?, where the fireplace is near 

 the chimney, a metal plate, say 20 by 30 inches, let in securely, instead of 

 brick, has given out enough of heat, along with the more moderate heat 

 from the chimney above, to keep the enclosed space temperate in winter. 

 There are two objections to heating the house with hot water from the 

 dining-room fireplace ; the first arising from the floor of the greenhouse 

 being 15 inches below the level of the fireplace in the dining-room, in- 

 stead of above it. With an open boiler at the back of the fireplace the 

 flow pipe might go on a level, say 2 or 3 inches from the top of the boiler, 

 and return to the bottom, but the flow pipe must not fall from the boiler, 

 and therefore the pipes would require to be high in the house. With a 

 fixed-top boiler, and the pipes still higher, the circtUation would be more 

 rapid. One-inch strong pas pipes would connect the boiler with the 

 pipes in the house, and some 63 feet of 3-inch pipiog would be necessary. 

 The second objection is that in severe weather in winter you would 

 have to keep a fire close to the boiler at night, so as to prevent the water 

 getting cool. All things considered, an iron stove about 14 inches square, 

 the furnace part lined witb firebrick, and set beside the chimney stack 

 inside, with the smoke funnel into the chimney well up, and a vessel for 

 water on the top, would be the simplest mode for obtaining security. 



Wire -trellis IN o Wire in Front of Fruit-tree Walls (J. Y.). — There 

 can be no question that such wire-trellisinp, or rather straight wire line, 

 as nianufactijred by Messrs. Barnard & Bishop , has a great advantage 

 in every way over the old and too general practice of fastening the 

 snoots of the trees with shreds and nails. The driving-in and pulling- 

 out of nails soon disfigure the finest new wall. Every hole made and 

 left open becomes a harbour for insects, every piece of shred left is the 



