CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
335 
chives for many years, and I think I hear 
some wiseacre say, " Well, surely, there is 
nothing more easy to cultivate, or more simple 
to use, than chives." No doubt ! Yet, strange 
enough, they are neither cultivated nor used 
aright by any gardener, cook, or cottager that 
I have seen yet ; and, after I have explained 
the simple treatment of this truly useful, 
homely plant, every one will cry out, " We 
all knew that." Why, then, did you never 
put it in practice ? To grow chives every- 
body knows right well how. They are gene- 
rally parted in the spring, planted in some 
well-manured soil, either in rows or patches, 
and, when well watered, the tops are soon 
ready for cutting. Now, this little plant is, 
in reality, a bulb, and as such, however small, 
it requires the proper treatment of a bulb ; 
therefore, the time to shift it is certainly not 
the spring, but the autumn — not the time 
when its leaves are just pushing a few inches 
above the surface. Try the hyacinth with 
this treatment, or ask the tulip fancier his 
opinion of this treatment of bulbs. The time 
to plant chives is when they are dormant ; 
and, at that time, they will be found to be 
little bulbs, without roots or leaves, and may 
be ienvn, like onions, on a richly manured 
bed, and covered about an inch deep ; or 
dropped in drills, nine inches asunder, and 
half an inch apart in the drill. Though the 
leaf of the chive grows only about nine inches 
long, the roots of the plant will run three 
feet deep into the earth if they can find food 
and moisture. The proper culture of chives, 
therefore, is to plant them, like other bulbs 
(as tulips, for example), in richly prepared 
land, early in autumn, that is, after their 
foliage has turned sere and yellow. Now, for 
the using of them after they are grown. 
Whether the spring onion be wanted for the 
Scotchman's kale pot, or the cockney's salad 
bowl, is no matter, it is wanted ; and every 
gardener has proved, by the late winter, that 
autumn-sown onions, or, indeed, autumn-sown 
crops of any kind, are liable to be uprooted 
by the frosts, and consequently killed. The 
chive, under ground, is never known to suffer 
from any weather ; and, in proof of this, here 
it is now, nine inches high, green, and fair, 
before the oak has opened a bud to salute the 
spring. To cut the tops off the chives is to 
take the fodder and to leave the grain ; try 
the same doctrine with the common onion or 
the leek, and ask the cook's opinion of the tops 
and tails of leeks and onions for cookery, 
always taking care to leave the blanched 
bottoms of the leeks, and the bulbs of the 
onions, in the garden ; and by these helps, 
and the exercise of common sense, I doubt 
not but all gardeners and cottagers will agree 
with me in digging up the chives, and wash- 
ing them like spring onions, which, in reality, 
they are. — Forsyth, in Gard. Journal. 
Hothouse fires. — Great waste of fuel is 
often the result of the ordinary mode of 
managing hothouse fires. Much of the 
smoke, for instance, which is in itself a 
nuisance, is also a waste, for the gases which 
thus pass away are capable of combustion, and 
thus of increasing the amount of heat which is 
developed. Whenever pure coals or coals 
blended with cinders are employed in furnaces, 
it will be found to be a palliative of this nui- 
sance to push forward towards the neck of the 
flue the bulk of the red-hot fuel, previous to 
mending the fire, and to deposit the fresh fuel 
in front of the glowing mass. The gas which 
is liberated and forms smoke, is thus made to 
pass directly over the hottest part of the fire, 
and to a great extent becomes ignited. The 
bulk of red-hot cinders should be considerable 
before the ash pit doors or dampers are re- 
sorted to, and then, particularly at " damping 
up" for the night, small cinders and moist 
ashes should alone be employed ; on no ac- 
count pure coals. A writer in the Pharma- 
ceutical Times states that a scientific chemical 
remedy for the smoke nuisance offers itself, 
by introducing a cast iron tube from a boiler, 
to convey a column of steam to be dispersed 
by a rose nozzle over the surface of the cok- 
ing coal. New combinations thus take place, 
which affect the entire combustion of the in- 
flammable gases, and where it has been ap- 
plied the disappearance of the column of 
black smoke has immediately followed its 
application. 
The Carrot Grub. — I find that trench- 
ing the ground two spits deep, and spreading 
some manure at the bottom of every trench, is 
almost an effectual cure for this troublesome 
insect, which was always very prevalent till I 
adopted this plan. I always do this work in 
autumn, leaving the surface of the ground 
rough during winter, and at the proper season 
it is deeply hoed, raked level, drilled, and 
sown, without adding any more manure. The 
half decomposed contents of the rubbish heap 
answer very well for putting into the trenches, 
and save better clung for other purposes. 
Besides preventing injury by the grub, I find 
that both carrots and parsnips grow much 
straighter under this treatment than when the 
manure is dug into the ground in the usual 
way. In the next autumn the trenched 
ground is well manured and roughly dug for 
onions in the ensuing spring. — Whiting in 
Gardener's Chronicle. 
Olea Fragrans. — The following is a ready 
method of propagating and flowering this fra- 
grant plant : — In March or April collect a 
number of suckers, according to the quantity 
of plants required, from an old privet plant or 
