8 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ January 5, 1871. 



require, but where there is a regular system of watering, and 

 one man for his own work, no evil results can accrue to them 

 owing to their not being plunged. In my own case I prefer 

 my plants not to be plunged, as less skill is then required to 

 water them. Plunged plants have this disadvantage, that they 

 require far greater attention in watering. I have seen plants 

 which have died simply through overwatering. Of course, a 

 keen practical man can tell at a glance the plants which require 

 watering, but to an inexperienced hand the difficulty is great. 

 The Chrysanthemum is naturally a gross feeder and likes 

 plenty of water, still it is possible to overdo the watering. I 

 this year had an argument with a gentleman respecting plung- 

 ing plants out of doors, and the gist of my argument was, that 

 I considered the water that passed from the plants, especially 

 if manure water is given, had a tendency to become sour, and 

 unless the bed or whatever they were plunged in was well 

 drained, the plants would in a manner absorb their own refuse. 

 My idea may be wrong, still it is so. 



I have for three years given the bulk of my Chrysanthe- 

 mums their last shift the first week in August, and, of course, 

 I should not do so, it being as convenient for me to pot in July 

 as August, if I found no benefit from it. The Pompons and a 

 few early kinds are potted in the first or second week of July, 

 but the plants I have now in flower were potted in August. I 

 have a very distinct recollection, in the year 18G4, I being then 

 in Cheshire, of potting in the middle of August a few Chry- 

 santhemums which had been overlooked at the early potting, 

 and notwithstanding the prediction of the head gardener as to 

 their failure, they proved the best of the season. A consider- 

 able amount of care and thought will be required as to what 

 plants are best suited for late potting, so as not to overpot 

 them ; for my own part I would not repot a plant in August 

 unless it was in good condition and likely to be benefited by 

 the shift. In potting in the first week of August the roots 

 should be at the sides of the pot at the end of the same month, 

 thus leaving the whole of September and two weeks of October 

 for the plants to make and perfect their flower buds. 



I am open to conviction, and no one can read the Journal 

 with more interest than I do, though I find much to differ from ; 

 and in writing these short notes and in all others, I give to the 

 public a few of my practical observations, trusting they will be 

 received in good faith, even though they do not coincide with 

 the general statement of things.— Stephen Castle, Bent-Hill 

 Gardens, Prestwich. 



P.S. — Since writing the above I have been referred by a 

 friend to an excellent article in the Journal of August 19th, 

 1869, written by Mr. R. Fleming, gardener to E. Houghton, Esq., 

 Sandheys, Waterloo, Liverpool, in which, though his treat- 

 ment differs from mine in many respects, still on the subject 

 of manure water, he says that the time to apply liquid manure 

 is when the plant shows the buds. In this, of course, I per- 

 fectly agree. 



WAR ON FEENCH GARDENERS. 



A LETTER wHxch lias been received by field post from a yonng 

 German gardener with the army round Paris, dated 4th of December, 

 will be read with interest. The letter runs as follows : — 



" Alas, that I should have such sad things to tell you of the gardens ! 

 they are completely desei-ted, and all the fine collections are left to 

 ruin. I speak especially of the establishment of Messrs. Croux, 

 Durand, it Son, at Bagneux. Croux's establishment is occupied by 

 the Bavarian artillery ; in the lai-ge Palm house the horses are put, 

 which eat the tall plants lite fodder. The splendid Conifers (WeUing- 

 tonias, Picea Pinsapo, Deodar, &c.), which lately were there in large 

 numbers in their greatest beauty, are ordered to be made into a hedge 

 in order to block out the view fiom the batteries of the French forts. 



" But still worse is the condition of Croux's establishment at 

 Aulnay. In the Jardin pour etudes Pomologiques the splendid trained 

 trees are quite destroyed from the breaking of the wires which sup- 

 ported them, and now about two thousand sheep and from eighty to 

 a hundred cows are in the gardens, and of course eat up everything. 



" Not less sad is it to see the state of the gardens of Duraud fils. near 

 Clamart. The greenhouses are mostly destroyed by the thick shower 

 of bullets, and the plants in them withered or frozen. The day before 

 yesterday these were exposed to — 6° K. [18.4° Fahr.], and yesterday 

 covered with snow." 



[The above extract from a Gorman newspaper has been sent to us 

 by a correspondent at Hamburg.] 



New Violet. — A correspondent in Honolulu, after making a 

 botanical tour in the Eaala range, says, " Botanising on this 

 island is not without considerable danger. Only imagine de- 

 scending a steep decline of 70°, which had to be done chiefly 



by swinging from the roots of one tree to the branches of the 

 next one below, and that at a height of 2000 feet above the- 

 deep gorge beneath our feet." Kature, however, seems in all 

 cases to provide a reward for her admirers who voluntarily 

 expose themselves to such dangers for the purpose of bringing 

 to the eye of science her numerous hidden beauties, for the 

 writer continues to say, he was not a little surprised by the 

 discovery of a Violet with splendid snow-white waxy flowers, 

 some of which were almost half an inch in diameter, and ex- 

 quisitely perfumed. He considers it probably a variety of 

 Viola chamissoniana, which he found in its ordinary state lower 

 down in the forest ; but the pure white flowers stretching out 

 their long peduncles above the surrounding low undergrowth, 

 and luxuriating in the full sunshine of an azuie blue sky, far 

 exceed in beauty those of V. chamissoniana, which are of the- 

 ordinary violet colour. — {Nature.) 



SLOW COMBUSTION, AND ECONOMY IN 

 FUEL. 



I OBSEKVE in your Journal of October 27th, that " E. S." 

 has succeeded in keeping up the heat of his greenhouse by 

 having two holes drilled in the ashpit door. Will he kindly 

 say is it the ashpit door he had the holes drilled in, or the flre 

 door ? because very few flues have doors to the fire as well as 

 the ashpit. Would you state if it would not be better to 

 have a regulator on the fire and ashpit door to regulate the fire,, 

 instead of the damper ? as I fancy the damper prevents the heat 

 rising. Mj boiler is a conical one with a jacket, and the fire, 

 to go up the chimney, has to go through it, but it takes a great 

 deal of fire and attention to keep the heat up. Can you give 

 me any idea how large a fireplace should be to allow of suffi- 

 cient coals being put on to burn and to keep up the heat during 

 the night ?— A. Y. 



[We have no doubt that " E. S." in alluding to the holes 

 made in the ashpit door, at page 321, does mean the ashpit 

 door, and not the firebox, or furnace door. Perhaps " E. S." 

 may have something to add to his interesting article. Mean- 

 while, we may say that where economy in fuel, and sufficient 

 heat, and slow combustion are required, both the furnace door 

 and ashpit door should be made to fit as closely as possible. 

 Many of the best makers of these doors send out ashpit doors 

 fitted with a valve or other moveable opening to regulate the 

 draught, and this would avoid the expense of cutting out the 

 hole and fixing the valve over it. We should not like to intrude 

 an opinion into this domain of " E. S.," though we should 

 incline to think that one hole in the centre, with the valve, 

 would have been sufficient. When once a fire is lighted and 

 burning freely, it is amazing how small a quantity of fresh air 

 is necessary to support slow regular combustion. On this prin- 

 ciple all our best iron stoves are made. The valve in the ashpit 

 door can thus be screwed up, so as to lei. ve not more air on than 

 that alluded to by " E. S." It is by the ashpit opening that the 

 combustion must be regulated. Many iron stoves have also a 

 small valve opening above, and, therefore, over the firebox and 

 fuel — not so much or at all for ensuring combustion, as to pre- 

 vent smoke going up and choking the small iron chimney. 



When you inquire whether it would not be well to have a 

 regulator on the furnace as well as the ashpit door, to regulate 

 the fire, instead of the damper, we must answer I'es, and 

 No. Yes, so far as we have stated above, the ashpit regulator 

 would regulate combustion, and that can be done to a nicety 

 only as the result of watchful attention, and noting the state 

 of the weather. Yes, too, so far as a very little air coming 

 over the fuel would tend to lessen, and mostly consume the 

 smoke. But,[then, as to these rendering a damper unnecessary, 

 when a small house is to be heated economically from a boiler, 

 we say decidedly No. In heating by a flue, a brick stove, an 

 iron stove, or an earthenware stove, in a house of any sort, 

 there is no necessity for a damper. After the fire is fairly 

 going, a little slit in the ashpit door will not only regulate 

 combustion, but will concentrate the most of the heat in the 

 flue or stove. But with boilers, and especially conical boilers 

 such as yours, where the heat passes so quickly into the 

 chimney, a damper is important for concentrating that heat 

 round the boiler, instead of allowing it to go up the chimney 

 so easily. If the damper is close-fitting, it should not go quite 

 home, but a quarter of an inch or less would permit of slow 

 combustion. AVe find this matter is simplified by having a 

 close-fitting damper across the chimney, but with a hole an 

 inch in diameter in the centre, so that there shall be a passage 



