182 
LIQUID FERTILIZERS. 
interesting. Some of this genus are adapted 
for the edgings of broad walks in large con- 
cerns, for the edging must be allowed to grow 
half as wide as an ordinary grass verge, on 
account of its large features as compared with 
box ; and again, it must remain undisturbed 
some time before it flowers freely. The white 
variety of Gentiana verna is by no means 
plentiful,, but it deserves a place in every 
garden. The majority of the species grow 
well and look well, and flower in April and 
May. This renders them, for the most part, 
a good subject for an edging to a gravel walk ; 
they grow well in the shade, and if a bed be 
made for them in collections, the compost 
should be peaty. 
LIQUID FERTILIZERS. 
These, like a thousand quack medicines, 
are offered in all directions, and the florist or 
amateur who buys and tries is totally in the 
dark as to what he is doing ; but the most 
likely of all that we have noticed is that taken 
from the Gardener's Gazette last month, and 
since repeated by the correspondents of the 
papex-, who are said to have tried it. We 
have, however, inquired of chemists as to the 
probability of the solution there recommended 
doing harm and the possibility of its doing 
good, and with one consent it has been allowed 
that ammonia, if not administered in excess, 
has every capacity to do good to vegetation ; 
and it is as freely admitted that, in the pro- 
portion recommended, that is to say, half an 
ounce of sulphate of ammonia in a gallon of 
water, applied once in six waterings, cannot 
do harm, while it must be conceded that a 
more definitive unerring mode of application 
cannot be given. We have been so opposed 
to nostrums of any kind, that the bold manner 
in which this was first recommended, without 
any kind of qualification, rather startled us, 
and led us into serious inquiries wherever we 
had a chance of leai'ning anything, and, 
although we have given our reasons for the 
questions we have put, we have been thought 
unnecessarily inquisitive. But here is the 
point — hundreds have bought fertilizing liquors 
in bottles with directions for use ; some of 
them leaving a good deal to the imagination 
of the cultivator ; for instance, " put a little in 
the watering-pot when you Avater your plants," 
is a very indefinite kind of direction. " Water 
the plants occasionally with some of the mix- 
ture in twenty times its quantity of water," is 
another awkward lesson. And then, again, 
the liquids in bottle come to a price which a 
large grower would soon find a considerable 
item in his expenses. In the solution recom- 
mended there is neither cost nor uncertainty. 
But to go to the result of our inquiries, many 
of the solutions sold in bottles have been re- 
ported by different people to have different 
results. Some complain that it has killed 
their plants ; others, that they see no differ- 
ence in those to which they used it and others 
which went without it. But this says not 
half so much against the fertilizers as it does 
against the indefinite instructions which accom- 
pany them. For all we can see, the very 
thing complained of on the one hand for doing 
nothing, and on the other for killing the 
plants, might be the very solution we are re- 
commending — second-hand, it is true, but 
nevertheless recommending — as a most useful 
and certain application to almost every, if not 
quite every description of plant. The evi- 
dence we have of its efficacy at present is — 
1st. Applied to geraniums as soon as they 
showed the bloom trusses, instead of shifting 
them into larger pots and fresh stuff, they 
come much larger and finer, and the foliage a 
better colour, than those which had not the 
application and were not shifted, as well as 
much better than those which were shifted 
instead of having the application. 
2d. Applied to fuchsias coming into flower, 
with their small pots full of matted roots, and 
beginning to turn pale for want of shifting, 
they improved in colour and flowered and 
grew freely, while those shifted were inferior, 
and those remaining in their own pots were 
very bad indeed. 
3d. Applied to fuchsias (this spring) which 
should have been shifted from their crowded 
pots to grow, they have set off in rapid growth 
and fine green colour, surpassing those shifted, 
while those not shifted have almost remained 
in a stunted state. 
4th. Applied to newly-potted green-house- 
plant rooted cuttings, they are growing rapidly, 
while those which are watered in the ordinary 
way are by no means going on so well. 
5th. Applied to alternate rows of peas in 
the summer of last year, they stood well 
through all the dry season, and bore heavy 
crops, while those sown at the same time 
