December 15, 1670. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



477 



enter tha field of gardening to be deeply disappointed at find- 

 ing that there is now no season of the year when there is any- 

 thing like leisure time in a garden. Of course there may yet 

 be genial and happy spots where gardening may be followed 

 calmly and quietly, and where the imaginative and the poetical 

 may be indulged in among all the digging, pruning, potting, 

 firing, &c. ; but as a general fact it would be well for all dreamy 

 youths, before taking to gardening, to be well indoctrinated with 

 the idea that their case will be rather exceptional if, instead of 

 the expected ease and quiet, they do not find that they must 

 manage to pat up with hard galloping from April to Jane, and 

 pretty hard trotting every day in the year besides. Many gar- 

 deners will experience that they are rather amongst the for- 

 tunate ones if, from many extras put in their way in winter, 

 they do not find themselves behind with their winter work 

 when spring work ought to engage their attention. 



We mention these matters more particularly because we 

 have of late years been often sorry to see youths entering with 

 high hopes on gardening as a means of living, and then leav- 

 ing it, after wasting much time, because they found that the 

 labour required from body and mind was too arduous for them, 

 and that even holidays were few and far between. In all cases 

 where numbers of youths are taken into gardens as apprentices, 

 or improvers, or learners, it would be well to set before them 

 stern realities, instead of allowing them to dream about flowery 

 imaginings, as such youths, when disappointed so as to turn 

 to other occupations, not only injure themselves, but keep the 

 gardening market so overstocked, that those who have the 

 natural capabilities, the requisite energy, and the determination 

 to surmount all obstacles, find it all the more difficult to get 

 on,- or even to obtain suitable employment. Unfortunately, 

 notwithstanding the vast increase in the number of gardens 

 of late years, there has been a still greater increase in the 

 numbers of those who aspire ultimately to manage them, and 

 this is partly owing to the fact that many make a commence- 

 ment in thia direction who have never clearly calculated on the 

 difficulties with which they must contend. These difficulties, 

 as well as the pleasures, calmly looked at would induce many 

 a youth to betake himself " to fields and pastures new," instead 

 of even for a time thronging that province of labour in which 

 it is now so difficult to obtain remunerative employment. 



It is sad to think at this inclement season of many gar- 

 deners willing to labour and unable to find employment ; and 

 it is equally melancholy to see so many youths and able-bodied 

 men accustomed to country work, going from place to place in 

 search of work for a day, or a week, with little in their pockets, 

 and next to empty cupboards at home. Many country gentle- 

 men who are able to afford it, would confer a great benefit in 

 effecting contemplated improvements in ground work, grubbing, 

 planting, &c, at such a season and in such circumstances ; as 

 almost any able-bodied man, though previously unused to it, 

 can with a little supervision be made dexterously to wield a 

 spade, or trundle a barrow. We would be inclined to look at 

 such work in many cases as true charity, and charity dispensed 

 in the best manner, so as not to rob the receiver of the wages 

 of a true manly self-respect. 



KITCHEN GAT.DEX. 



A sharp frost on the 8th, and a fall of snow on tha 9tb, have 

 confined our operations chiefly to wheeling, and to keeping 

 lifted plants of Sea-kale, &c, under protection. The snow is 

 one of our beat protectors, and therefore for two days our cold 

 pits protected a little have been left untouched. A dense fog 

 on the 10th led U3 to hope for a change, but the wind veering 

 to the north, and a rising barometer, may give us frost instead 

 of thaw. Open weather would give much work, and help those 

 who have little to do. 



TKUIT GABDEN. 



"We filled several frames with Strawberry plants in pots, 

 setting them on the surface with just a little bottom heat 

 below them, as much is apt to injure them by encouraging mere 

 growth. 



On the 9ih, a3 the snow covered the roof of the orchard 

 house, we gathered the last of the Coe's Golden Drop Plum, 

 and smoked the house with bruised laurel leaves. It is of little 

 use smoking such a house unless the roof is covered, and snow 

 is the best of all coverings for the purpose. The snow ?.nd the 

 frost prevented cur collecting tree leaves, but we carried home 

 a good lot previously raked up. For all sorts of hotbeds such 

 leaves are invaluable, as requiring little or no previous pre- 

 paration. "We never scrapie usiog rank dung beneath if we 

 can put a good surfacing, say 12 to 15 inches, of hot sweet 

 leaves over it. 



Pine-Apple plants in pits and frames heated ly fermenting 

 material, cannot now be too well banked-up to the wall-plates, 

 or the tops of the frame. For this aDy sort of heating material 

 will do, as the object is less to give bottom heat than to throw 

 heat, and dry heat too, into the atmosphere of the pit. Where 

 there is plenty of manure, great things may be done by sur- 

 rounding a solid wall with such material ; then there i3 no 

 danger of rank steam. If atmospheric moisture is wanted in 

 the shape of vapour, all that is required is just to sprinkle the 

 wall inside gently. The best pit we ever tried for heating in 

 this way had slabs of stout slate 1 inch thick and 3 feet wide 

 inserted in the brickwork. From rank fiery dung we have had 

 these slates so hot that we could scarcely touch them. The 

 next best was a solid 4J-inch brick wall in cement, with 9-inch 

 piers at every 4 feet. From that pit, 5 feet in width, we could 

 always obtain heat enough for anything, but in the winter 

 the moundB of fermenting material against the wall were any- 

 thing rather than narrow and small. We put a strong lining 

 the other day against the back wall of a pit with late Cucum- 

 bers, to help the hot water. Such heating by dung is, no doubt, 

 old-fashioned, but much might be done in this way in many 

 a farmyard where the heat given off by fermentation is lost. 



Another point is apt to be overlooked by many new beginners 

 in the management of either cold or heated buck pits, and 

 that is that the walls of such pit3 are good radiators of heat, 

 and therefore carry away much heat in winter. We have 

 known glass so carefully covered that no frost could enter, 

 but cold and frost penetrated Ly the wall. It was like shutting 

 the door securely and leaving the window unfastened. Where 

 such places are well heated, the fuel plentiful, and the expense 

 never considered, the walls, though 4 or 5 feet in height at 

 back, need not be much thought about ; but when matters are 

 the reverse, and every bushel of coal is an object, then the 

 placing from half an inch to an inch of wheat straw neatly with 

 strings and nails against such walls would be a great saving as 

 respects keeping heat id. Straw is scarce this year, and as yet 

 our cold pits and heated pits are still exposed, but even in 

 heated pits when we covered the back wall we soon saved the 

 value of the straw in the diminished consumption of the fuel. 

 When people have proved such things by experience they will 

 be led to gain a similar object with much less trouble by having 

 not solid but hollow walls, the confined air acting as a non- 

 conductor. 



OENAIIENTAL DEPARTMENT. 



Out of doors the frost and the snow have had it their own 

 way, and there has been little done except in sweeping walks 

 for locomotion and clearing off prunings, &c. — R. F. 



TO CORRESPONDEf4TS. 



Books (X. r.).— There i3 no book with merely lists of plants for small 

 greenhouses and small stoves. "We have frequently published such lis>s 

 in this Journal. Refer to back numbers. {Blland). — "Allotment Farm- 

 ing for the Many " will suit you. If you enclose fire postage stamps with 

 your address yon can have it from our office free by post. ( W. T. S.). — 

 You can have '■ The Cottage Gardeners' Dictionary " free by post for 'is. 2d. 



Sand fegm Glass "Works (T. E.). — The sample you enclosed is equal 

 to the Reigate silver sand for potting purposes. There is little, if any. 

 plant nourishment in such sands, and they are only used either to 

 render the soil with which they are mixed porous, or to secure a dry 

 surfacs. 



Gas Stove (Antony). — Apply to any gas-fitter. Wc know of no grass- 

 needed for the purpose you mention. 



Violets not Flowering (E. If. S.). — Their not doing well is a result 

 of their not having a proper amount of air and light during the summer, 

 end wh*n they are allowed to grow into a thick, close mass the plants are 

 weak, aud suffer from dryness in summer. "Watering with liquid manure- 

 would not now induce flowering,- though it would assist the swelling of 

 tbe buds. You are right, Violets ought to be raised every year ; the 

 runners being planted in May in beds of good rich soil, watered -well in 

 dry weather, and kept free of weeds, &e. If the old plant3 are retained 

 they should have the runners, -and, to a certain extent, the sucker3 re- 

 movod, encouraging them with copious waterings in dry v/eathor, and top- 

 dressings of rich soil or well-rotted manure. 



Keeping Mice trojX Bules (Eev. C. H. P.). — We cannot soy where 

 glass powder is to be had as a protection to bnlbs from mice. A line of 

 tar will keep them away so long as tha tar is offensive in smell and soft 

 and liquid. Chopped furze is greatly detested by them, and so are rough 

 barley awns obtained after threshing. Trapping and poisonieg aro so far 

 effectual when mice are not otherwise well fed. On the whole, there is 

 nothing like a cat for keeping a place free of mice. On a border a cat 

 iniriht have a house at each end, with a wire all the way, connected with 

 a collar ring and short chain round her neck. 



CccrorBER Leaves Injured f^f Young Gardener. — We found a few red 

 spiders and traces of thrips on the leaf of the Cucumber. For the first, 

 the best remedy at this season is painting the heating medium when not 

 above 160 c , with sulphur, also painting the walls and other surfaces, and 

 giving slight syringings in sunny days. For the latter, smoke with 

 tobacco. The treatment is all right, but light soil and little dung will be 

 best in winter. 



