IXORA COCCINEA. 
367 
the China sorts, but the stocks are of the 
Boursalt rose, as rapid a grower as the wild 
brier, and better adapted to the China sort for 
budding, as the bark runs as free now as the 
others did last month. Another man is 
making cuttings of all the verbenas, dwarf 
geraniums, and any other plants in the 
clumps and beds ; but this would do quite as 
well next month for all ordinary kinds. I 
see he is only taking them from a few favour- 
ites ; he wants more than he does from any 
of the common ones. 
The houses look naked now, except the 
conservatory. The greenhouse is fairly 
emptied, and the pots are in different parts 
of the ground in the open air. The stove is 
not so empty, but some of its best plants are 
removed to the conservatory. Those beautiful 
funnel-shaped flowers, hanging down from 
the plant with broad leaves, are yielding the 
powerful perfume that we experience. The 
plant is the Datura arborea sometimes 
now called Brugmansia suaveolens ; and those 
by the s,ide with flowers more tubular and 
contracted are of the same family, Brug- 
mansia bicolor or sanguinea, and Brugmansia 
lutea, the one is orange and red, the other 
perfectly yellow. There are finer plants of 
the same kind in the conservatory. In these 
pots we have balsams and cockscombs coming 
rapidly to perfection; they are kept warm and 
close to the glass. The borders are looking 
very gay. 
Let us now look in upon the kitchen-garden, 
not that it is very interesting, but there is 
always something going on. You see the 
man pulling up the roots of parsley ; well, he 
is pulling out all the plants that have plain 
leaves, and leaving none but those with ex- 
ceedingly crumpled foliage ; that is called 
" rogueing," or taking out the bad ones. They 
have been breaking down all the green tops 
of this bed of onions ; they fancy it makes 
the bulbs thicker. It is a foolish mistake ; 
all it does is this : it makes the foliage decay 
sooner; and as onions are said to be ripe 
when the foliage decays, they argue that it 
ripens them sooner ; this is another mistake. 
The onion is no forwarder than it would have 
been with the foliage on. It is a wrong 
notion altogether. Onions untouched in that 
particular ripen better and keep better than 
if their necks are bruised. Here they are 
earthing up celery, that is, banking up the 
soil against the stems to whiten them. There 
the man is taking off the tops of all the broad 
beans, that is to throw the strength of the 
plant into bearing ; the tops would other- 
wise continue growing. In yonder quarter 
they are sowing more turnips, salads, cab- 
bage, &c; and there they are planting out 
winter greens. The hoeing between all kinds 
of crops is to loosen the surface and kill the 
weeds, both of which are of the utmost im- 
portance to growing crops. That row of 
leeks ought also to be earthed up, and when 
the man reaches them in his hoeing, he will, 
doubtless, see to it. The cucumbers on the 
ridges out-of-doors look well. Observe, all 
the useless shoots are taken off, all the 
branches are spread over the surface neatly, 
and the fruit is coming in considerable quan- 
tities at all the joints. Those flowers which 
have no fruit at their base are the male blos- 
soms, those with the fruit are the female. 
There is abundance of vegetables of all kinds, 
but all those very small plants huddled so 
close together, are in the bed they were sown 
in, and have not been at all thinned; they 
consist of brocoli, cabbage, savoys, kale, 
Brussels sprouts, cauliflowers and pickling - 
cabbages ; further on, there are the same 
kinds taken from these very beds, and planted 
six inches apart to grow a little strong before 
they are put out for their winter growth. 
As the peas and beans come off the ground, 
after yielding their crops, the strong plants 
taken from these will be planted in their 
places, and these small ones will be pricked 
out to get stronger. These beds, therefore, 
will supply the crops for all the bits of ground 
as they become vacant. The carrots here are 
a good size, and are drawn as they are 
wanted, leaving the early sorts last ; those 
intended for storing are in the further bed, 
a larger kind and not so forward. The fruit- 
garden looks very promising, the wall-fruits 
ripening one after the other, and the standards 
ready to follow. The strawberries are now 
being cleared of their runners, and the bed 
dug between the rows. It is a curious whim 
of the gardener, but he always digs in the 
waste of the beds, upon the principle that the 
best manure for any plant is the decaying 
remains of such plants. Hence, a sort of 
self-manuring system is preserved. I know 
that in some vine countries all the cuttings of 
the vines are dug in to decay, and there is no 
doubt, but that if the fruit as well as the 
plant were dug in, the earth would get richer 
instead of poorer every year ; but inasmuch 
as the fruit destroys a plant most, and too 
large a quantity would almost kill it, the 
absence of that fruit, which is not returned to 
the ground, must be felt ; — but we may talk of 
these things at home. 
IXORA COCCINEA. 
There is not a stove plant that better de- 
serves universal cultivation than this floral 
gem ; nor is there one which more readily 
yields to the real skill of the gardener. Like 
