November 80, 1871. ] 



JOUENAL OF HOETICULTURE AND COTTAGE GAKDENKE. 



4->3 



we think, depends on the long litter placed between and well 

 up the stems, which is not tonehed, and helps to keep the 

 ground warm. The little that is laid over the top of the plant 

 is lifted off in a fine day and replaced when the evening threat- 

 ens to be frosty. We suffer least from the attacks of intruders 

 when the plants thus stand in the open air instead of being 

 taken up and put in earth pits. 



Lettuces have also as yet stood well ; but as it is advisable 

 to be safe we emptied some space in frames, and filled it with 

 Lettuces fit for use and approaching their best. Celery we 

 covered for several days and nights when the weather was 

 severe, but on a change uncovered at once that the heads might 

 be kept green and hardy. A nice piece of Eadishes out of 

 doors has been kept well by placing a sprinkling of rough hay 

 , over them on frosty nights. 



Put more roots of Ehubarb and Sea-kale in the Mushroom 

 house. We earthed-up a second piece of a bed, spawned a 

 third, and got a fourth piece in preparation, 03 we chiefly de- 

 pend on many and small successions. The platform or shelf 

 bed that we stated had become rather cold is now coming in 

 nicely, the heat being restored by the manure that was placed 

 on the ground beneath it, and where a bed will shortly be 

 formed. Many such schemes must often be lesorted to. We 

 have a bed just now that has cooled too suddenly and is not 

 yet spawned. If some simpler modes fail to restore a gentle 

 heat we will mix some barrowloada of fresh horse droppings 

 with the bed, and tread and beat it down afresh. This will 

 give us all the heat we want, but with a loss of time. At this 

 season of the year the easiest way of getting a mixture of drop- 

 pings and short litter sufficiently dry is to throw them into a 

 compact heap and cover them with a little long litter. This 

 will cause them to heat rather violently and so far lose a part 

 of their fertilising powers, but then you get the material quickly 

 in a suitable state of dryness. Some of the best Mushroom 

 beds we ever had were made of tree leaves that had been col- 

 lected damp, and placed in a heap until they heated so strongly 

 as to destroy all spores of fungi, and send all slugs out of the 

 way. All the outside of the heap not sufaciently healed to 

 effect these objects was removed, and the central part chiefly 

 taken and made into a bed from 12 to 15 inches deep. This, 

 as the temperature moderates, will retain a mild heat a long 

 time, and on being surfaced with 2 inches of droppings it was 

 spawned, and, when there was no danger of overheating, from 

 half an inch to an inch more of droppings was placed over it. 

 The chief drawback to using leaves more freely for Mushroom 

 beds is that they often contain the spores of many fungi which 

 would thrive well in the mild heat of a Mushroom bed. Other 

 manures, as a little green grass, would contain nitrogen ; bat 

 they are apt to bring spores along with them, many of which 

 would survive a high temperature, and would soon destroy the 

 spawn of the cultivated Mushroon:. 



Cucumbers. — We have just, oa the 25 th, pulled out the plants 

 from five lights in a pit, as we much wanted the room and 

 though the Cucumber plants were vigorous and healthy, the 

 fruit did not swell to our satisfaction, partly from deficient 

 heat, but chiefly because the plants lay on the soil in which 

 they grew. For all winter work the plants will thrive better 

 when they are trained to a trellis a foot or more above the soil. 

 When we used to have Cucumbers very early by dung heat 

 alone, we found they did best thus free of the soil, even if the 

 trellis was nothing better than a limewashed old hurdles laid 

 across the bed. We have been rather uncertain what to do 

 with Cucumbers lately, beoiuse our early-spring Cucumbers 

 have continued to succeed so well in a small pit heated by hot 

 water. We forced ourselves to destroy part and plant afresh. 

 Another part is still producing so profusely that we have let 

 it remain. The sort is Cox's Volunteer, a most prohfic 

 kind. We obtained stout plants to fill the space, but were 

 rather afraid of them, as there was only a wooden division 

 between them in a pit slightly heated and chiefly filled with 

 Scarlet Geraniums in bloom. We could not well move the 

 plants, so we put a mat in addition on the cold side of the 

 wood division, tied some straw round the wall, and in the even- 

 ing put a mat on the glass, and thus we have kept them all 

 right, although the thermometer was not above 55° on the cold 

 nights. In the proper pit, as we have not enough of heating 

 power without making the pipes hotter than we like, we think 

 that some of the success is owing to covering the glass in cold 

 weather at night. Of course we make no reference to the Cu- 

 cumber disease, for when it troubled us we adopted a similar 

 treatment. We might have removed the young plants referred 

 to from the comparatively oold pit into the warm one, but we 



were unwilling to do so until the latter was thoroughly cleared 

 out, washed, and lime-and-sulphur-painted. 



FEDIT GABDEN. 



By turning over some of our beds we managed to get soma 

 Strawberry pots, where there was the slightest bottom heat, 

 under glass. We cannot find space to tell how, how by clear- 

 ing, &c., we prepared the five-light pit for the reception of 

 Strawberry plants next week, leaving it a couple of days open 

 to get frost, it being also an enemy to all insects. The Straw- 

 berry pots in beds on the hard soil kept well with the slight 

 covering of litter, and we might have let them remain so, but 

 by moving bedding plants from earth pits we obtained more 

 room. We got under protection the most of the Strawberry 

 plants that we do not intend moving on slowly. 



ORNAMENTAL DEPAETMENT. 



The chief work was having the last of the Calceolaria cuttings 

 inserted in a oold pit, and getting the whole of the flower beds — 

 unfrosted and frosted — cleared away, and moving against our 

 will lots of bedding plants under Vines, because we felt we were 

 scarcely sure with so many boxes of struck cuttings laid across 

 earth pits under old rickety sashes. The little rough litter has 

 hitherto kept all right, and the place thus occupied came in for 

 the Strawberries. — E. P. 



TRADE CATALOaUES RECEIVED. 



James Dickson & Sons, Newton Nurseries, audl02, Eastgate Street, 

 Chester. — Catalogite of Forest Trees, Ornamental Trees, Shrubs^ 

 Evergreens, &e. 



Peter Lawson & Son, Edinburgh, and 20, Badse Eow, CannoB' 

 Street, London, E.G. — Catalogue of Forest Trees, Shrubs, t&c. 



TO CORRESPONDENTS. 



N.B. — Many questions must remain unanswered until next 

 week. 



GoRHAMBURY. — Through an accident on the machine last week, a por- 

 tion of the references to the plan of the flower garden at this place 

 "dropped out." These should read, "a a, Raised terrace walk, 211 feet 

 wide; b b, Walks 10 feet wide; c. Grass slopes; D D, Grass verges ; 

 E E, G'-ass plots ; H, Mansion; G, Portico; 1 — 1, Geranium Mrs. Pollock j- 

 2 — 2, Verbena Purple King." 



Potted Plants in Bedrooms (S. H ). — They are promotive of health. 

 They purify the air. The carbonic acid they emit at night is too triding 

 to deserve coDsidpratiou. We refer to growing healthy plants and those 

 not having powerfully fragrant flowers. 



CoPROsaiA Baderiana tariegata (J. A.). — It is a greenhouse evergreen 

 shrub of the Nat Ord. Cinchonacese. It ia easily propagated by cuttings 

 in gentle heat. It is a native of New Zealand. The directions given for 

 cultivating Gardenias in the "Cottage Gardeners' Dictionary " are suit- 

 able to the Coprosma. 



A CcPHEssus (.1 Lady, The EnoU).—Tha plant referred to is the Cu- 

 pressus torulosa, and we da not think it would train well over a window, 

 and it has proved itself rather tender in many places. We think a va- 

 riegated Ivy would suit you better. Pretty as the foliage of the Ampe- 

 lopais is in autumn, there is the litter of its falling leaves. Jasminum 

 nudiflorum is a climbing evergreen of handsome growth, and produces a 

 profusion of yellow flowers in winter and spring — in fine seasons a sheet 

 of yellow ; the flowers, however, are scentless. The common white Jas- 

 mine is very sweet, but it loses its leaves in winter, and does not grow so 

 fast. 



Strawberries foe May Exhibition (President). — You should in- 

 troduce your Strawberry pots about the middle of February, beginning 

 with 45^, and rising gradually in a fortnight to 55^, and then to 60". We 

 should not think of repotting your plants in IS-sized pots now, but when 

 you get your flower trusses up you might set each 4y-pot in a 32-sized pot, 

 with some good compost at the bottom. The Peas to come in the first 

 week of May, should be sown in January, as they will not stand much 

 forcing. 



Vine Failure (Subscriber, Co. Donegal). — Wo cannot account for the 

 Vines succeeding so badly. The want of artificial heat would not pre- 

 vent the Vines growing freely. A little heat might be of advantage in 

 maturing wood and fruit. With your preparations of soil, the Vines 

 ought to have done well, if you have not overdone them with rich food. 

 Sometimes the planting and watering afterwards will have great in- 

 fluence. A twelvemonth ago last spring, we saw Vines planted inside of 

 a house having a very miserable appearance. It was said they were re- 

 gularly watered, but though the surface soil was somewhat sodden for 

 3 inches down, where the roots commenced the soil was very dry. A goo(2 

 watering recovered them at once. We have no grounds for supposing 

 that this is your case, hut it may be looked to. 



Ferns— Heating a Pit ( Conijee). — Purchase the " Fern Manual," price 

 at our ofiice 5s. " The British Ferns " are treated of more fully in a 

 separate work, price 3s. Gd. at the of&ce. You will see much about heating 

 by flues in late numbers, and also in the present. We hardly know your 

 purpose, otherwise we would advise you more definitely. If you merely 

 want to save tender plants, then you .cannot do better than run a flue 

 through the pit, and place a stage for the plants over it, and we would 

 have the stage so that we could raise and lower it at pleasure. If you 

 wish the flue to act instead of hotbed manure, then it would be as well to 

 take it along near the side, and return it on the other side. Lay rough 

 slabs across tj to 8 inches from the flue, fill the cavities between the slabs 

 with clinkers, &c , and on this flooring place the soil. A simpler plan 

 would be to surround the flue with open rubble, cover 3 inches or so with 



