Septemba 18, 1877. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



219 



planted. Twenty inches apart iB a very good distance for a per- 

 manent crop, but where ground is scarce and small greens are 

 wanted in the spring, they may be planted 1 foot apart, and the 

 same distance between the rows. If this be done, every other 

 row and every other plant must be removed for use as wanted 

 in the spring. Carrots, more especially the Early Horn and 

 James's Intermediate, will require harvesting — laying them in 

 layers of Band in the store-room. Overhaul all Potatoes recently 

 lifted, and remove all decaying tubers. Continue to transplant 

 Coleworts, Lettuces, and Endive from the July sowings, and 

 make another sowing of the Bath or Brown Cos Lettuce ; they 

 may be useful for standing over the winter. All herbs Bhould 

 be collected and dried at once. Winter Spinach and Turnips 

 should be sufficiently thinned before they become drawn. A 

 judicious thinning enables them to withstand the severity of the 

 winter better than when they have been left and become drawn. 



Chrysanthemums are now growing fast, their pots have be- 

 come full of roots, and now is the time to help them with ma- 

 nure water. They are very gross feeders ; still we advise it to 

 be given them tolerably weak at first. About an ounce of guano 

 in a gallon of water makes a very suitable stimulant for them, 

 or the ordinary mixture of animal droppings diluted will help 

 them. Their bloom buds are now becoming conspicuous, and 

 in order to insure large blooms they must be disbudded, pre- 

 serving the centre flower buds of the large-flowering and 

 Japanese sections ; bnt for the Pompons we do not advise dis- 

 budding at all. The various modeB of training for specimens 

 must be daily attended to, and all must be made secure to 

 stakes, or the winds may snap that which it has taken weeks 

 to grow. 



Stage and fancy Pelargoniums that have been previously cut 

 down and are breaking freely, should be shaken-out and. re- 

 potted into smaller pots. Place them in a cold frame; they 

 will Boon emit roots and grow away freely. Zonals that were 

 potted-on in the spring and placed out of doors for autumn dis- 

 play should now be returned to a frame or some place under 

 cover, using the lights only to throw off rains ; they will show 

 flower and be useful for some time to come. Primulas and 

 Cinerarias will require timely potting to prevent them from 

 becoming pot-bound. 



The stock of Dutch bulbs may now be purchased. Pot those 

 varieties that naturally bloom early first. After potting place 

 them under a cover of a few incbeB of cocoa-nut fibre or coal 

 ashes, where they must remain for a few weeks to take root 

 without exciting top growth. 



All houses will require a complete overhaul in the way of 

 cleaning and painting to get them ready to replace, as soon as 

 bad weather sets in, the stock of hardwooded plants now out of 

 ■doors hardening-off.— J. W. Moobman. 



DOINGS OP THE LAST AND WORK FOR 

 THE PRESENT WEEK. 



KITCHEN GAEDEN. 



This department is sometimes neglected at this time of the 

 year. Many of the quarters are half cleared of the various crops, 

 some of them entirely. In either case it is well to Bee that no 

 trimmings of vegetables or other refuse are left in the way. 

 Let the ground be cleared and levelled at once, aDd if a whole 

 ■quarter is empty it is the best plan to dig or trench it at once. 

 We are picking quantities of Scarlet Runners and Dwarf Kidney 

 Beans. Of the latter the Negro Longpod seems to be the best 

 for a general crop, although for the earliest Newington Wonder 

 bears abundantly, but the pods are very Bmall. We have tried 

 different varieties of the tall Runner Beans, but taking every- 

 thing into consideration there is no doubt that the variety termed 

 Painted Lady has not yet been superseded. OnionB have been 

 sown in drills, and also Cauliflower, in our dry soil. That sown 

 about the 21et of August is apt to button, especially if they are 

 planted out in the hand-lights ; whereas a neighbour who does 

 not use hand-lights, but puts out his plants in a dry sheltered 

 part of his garden, finds the 21st of August the best date. If 

 the plants are likely to grow too vigorous before the winter he 

 lifts them a second time and transplants, but the plants are not 

 put out in the open quarter until tos early spring months. We 

 have also sown a quantity of Hicks' Hardy White Cos Lettuce ; 

 it is an excellent variety of the Paris White Cob type, and has 

 not yet failed to stand over the winter months without any 

 protection. We have earthed-up Celery. It is needless to say 

 that this work must be done very carefully and only when the 

 leaves and soil are dry ; it is therefore necessary to take the 

 earliest opportunity of fine weather to attend to this work. See 

 ■that the soil does not fall into the centre of the plants : to avoid 

 this it is always best to tie the leaves tightly together. Cardoons 

 have now made considerable growth, and must also be blanched 

 in the same way as Cslery. A good old-fashioned plan is to tie 

 the leaves together with haybands, and then place the earth 

 around the leaves in the manner of a Celery trench. If they 

 are earthed-up now they will be fit for use about November and 

 onwards. Some persons consider that the best way to blanch ' 



Cardoons is to tie the leaves together and then tie some straw 

 round the plants, or place the straw in an upright position on 

 each side of the row, fastening it at the top. This certainly 

 throws the water from the centre of the plants. Cauliflower 

 plants put out in July will now be forming heads. They ought 

 to have been earthed-up and also kept free from weeds. If this 

 is not done see to it at once. See that gravel walks are kept free 

 from weeds by hand-picking. ThiB is the best way to clean 

 walkB, and after going over them a birchbroom should be used 

 to level the path and clear off any withered leaves and dirt. 



MUSHE005I HOUSE. 



At this season in many districts almost any quantity of ex- 

 cellent Mushrooms can be gathered on the old pasture ground, 

 and a succession may be obtained for some time yet. The Fairy- 

 ring Fungus (Agaricus oreadee) is very abundant with us, but 

 no one seems to use them in any way, which is a misfortune, as 

 they make excellent catsup, and can be cooked in the same way 

 as the Agaricus campestris. Preparation must also be made at 

 this time for the formation of a bed in the house, or if material 

 is ready a bed may be made up at once. The usual way is to 

 get stable manure with a portion of the long straw shaken out 

 of it. The manure must be placed in a heap to ferment ; but if 

 it is likely to heat with great violence it may be spread out 

 thinly, which will arrest the fermentation to a considerable ex- 

 tent, and the manure will also throw off superfluous moiBture 

 after being turned over every day for four or five days. It may 

 be again thrown up into a larger heap or ridge, taking care that 

 it is frequently turned to prevent over-heating. The method of 

 making up the beds has been frequently described. It will be 

 well for the gardener to be very attentive to the various details 

 of the work, and, what is of very great importance, he must see 

 that at no time is the manure over-heated. The first bed may 

 be made up on the ground, to be followed by others raised on 

 Bhelvea one above another as high as the walls of the house. 

 The manure must be beat down rather firmly; an ordinary brick 

 wielded in the hand is good for this purpose. For those who 

 do not possess the advantage of a forcing house for MuBhrooms 

 it has been recommended to obtain a supply by growing them 

 in boxes to be placed in a cellar or some similar place. A 

 writer in the Transactions of the Caledonian Horticultural 

 Society more than fifty years ago procured boxes 3 feet long, 

 li foot wide, and 7 inches in depth. He spawned the manure, 

 which was rammed into the boxes in the usual way, and each 

 box produced from twenty-four to forty-eight pints of button 

 Mushrooms. The writer further adds, " I have lately found it 

 very useful to add to every three barrowloads of horse dung 

 one of perfectly dry cow dung, beaten down to powder, as it 

 were, and well mixed amongst the horse dung after it has lain 

 under cover four or five days to dry." This plan of mixing the 

 dry cow manure with that from the stable we know to be a good 

 one, but it ought to be gathered in the summer and be dried in 

 the sun. Gardeners know how difficult it iB to get the manure 

 for their Mushroom beds sufficiently dry, and when this is the 

 case they would find how useful two or three cartloads of this 

 sun-dried material would become. Artificial heat in the Mush- 

 room house ought to be avoided as long as the night tempera- 

 ture ranges about 55°; a high night temperature is not con- 

 ducive to the qualify of Mushrooms. Two things must be 

 guarded against in the growth of Mushrooms, and that is over- 

 heating the bads and too much moisture in the manure. 



VINEHIES. 



If a gardener were asked the question whether it was most 

 difficult to grow Grapes to perfection or to preserve them after 

 they are ripe, probably he would be puzzled to say. In our dis- 

 trict, which is within the radius of the thick clammy London 

 fogs, it is almost impossible to keep the berries from moulding 

 or from injury in some way ; already one or two berries have 

 become mouldy. It is quite necessary to watch frequently for 

 traces of decay on the berries, and to have them removed before 

 they do injury to the others. For want of this precaution a 

 mass of berries are destroyed together and the appearance of 

 the bunch is ruined. As this is the season when most attention 

 is required the cultivator mu6t be on the alert. A judicious use 

 of the heating apparatus and careful ventilation is necessary to 

 success. Many vineries are not provided with the means of 

 ventilation in wet weather at the apex of the roof, and in wet 

 weather many persons put on the heat to dry the atmosphere. 

 This it might do if' there was a good circulation of air through 

 the house. We rather prefer to do without heat in such weather, 

 and to ventilate freely and dry the atmosphere in clear weather. 



Preparations as to cleaning the walls and woodwork of the 

 houses, also removing the loose bark and washing the Vines, 

 have been carried on with us during the past week. The walls 

 have been well washed with limewash, and the Vines will also 

 be washed with strong soapy water before painting the canes 

 with a mixture of soapy water, a small portion of soot, and suffi- 

 cient sulphur to thicken the mixture to the consistency of thin 

 paint. 



PLANT STOVE AND ORCHID HOUSES. 



Allusion has already been made to the necessity of carefully 



