520 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COT1AGE GARDENER. 
[ June S5, 1885. 
fitable neat little heads. Small Savoys are also the best in 
quality, notably King Koffee, Golden Globe, Early Vienna, 
Tom Thumb, and Little Pixie, the first named being as 
useful as any. These small growers can be dibbled in a foot 
apart in various positions, or may edge the borders filled 
with larger and later sorts, such as Early Ulm, Dwarf Green 
Curled, and the Drumhead. None of these require so much 
room as they frequently receive. The Drumhead grows 
quite large enough when disposed in rows 18 inches apart 
and the rows 15 inches apart in the rows, while the others 
succeed well with about 8 inches less each way. If the 
ground is fairly rich there is no necessity to dig the ground 
for Savoys, and most of ours succeed early Turnips on an 
east border. 
Carrots in a young state are now in demand all the year 
round, and not much trouble is needed to have them in fairly 
large quantities. Very sweet and tender they are, and I am 
not surprised at the partiality for them. For a winter supply, 
or to succeed those which may be drawn from the rows sown 
early and intended to grow large, a little seed should be sown 
late in June, more early in July, and again at the end of the 
month, the latter being in an uncovered frame or in a posi¬ 
tion where they can be readily protected with a frame and 
mats during severe weather. If dry weather interferes with 
sowing, and supposing the soil is in a rough state, this should 
be freely watered a few hours before the attempt is made to 
work it, and then the ground will work readily enough. If 
fine and dry, first draw the drills and then water them 
through a coarse-rose watering pot a short time before the 
seed is sown, and this in preference to watering after the 
seed is covered. The dry soil encloses the moisture, and it 
is surprising how quickly all kinds of seeds germinate when 
sown in these moistened drills. It is like sowing seed on a 
hotbed. I ought perhaps to add that one good sowing early 
in July will afford a number of dishes often throughout 
the winter, but a heavy and constant demand is best met by 
making two or three sowings. Early Nantes is the best for 
this purpose, but we usually sow the remainder of the seeds 
of other sorts, such as James’ Intermediate, Altrincham, and 
Long Eed Surrey, and I have seen the latter particularly 
good during the winter. Those who have seed left of other 
varieties of Horn Carrots may partly or wholly rely upon these, 
the seed in all cases being sown thinly in rows about 9 inches 
apart, or broadcast and covered with fine soil, little or no 
thinning being required till the roots are fit for use. Wood 
ashes sown in the drills or mixed with the surfacing soil 
serve to quicken growth and to ward off the disfiguring 
attacks of maggots. 
Leeks no one should be without, especially seeing how 
very hardy and useful they invariably prove. They succeed 
admirably in Celery-like trenches, but can be grown nearly 
as large with much less trouble. They cannot well be too 
large, especially when they are intended to be served up as 
a vegetable. The ground for them should have been heavily 
manured, deeply dug, and in good working order, the Leeks 
being dibbled out when of good strength in rows about 
15 inches apart, and about 6 inches, or rather more under 
favourable circumstances, asunder. The holes may be made 
from 6 to 8 inches deep and 3 inches in diameter, the plants 
carefully raised from the seed beds being merely dropped in, 
having a little soil worked in to cover the roots and receive 
a watering. No further trouble need be taken with them, 
and they will continue to grow till well into the winter, 
blanching naturally. 
Spinach is not always to be had in good conditioa during 
the winter, and a substitute that can be depended upon 
would prove a boon to many. Such a substitute we have in 
the old yet comparatively little known Spinach Beet, and I 
strongly advise any of my readers who must have Spinach in 
abundance to give it a trial. Sown at once, in rows 
15 inches asunder, and the seedlings thinned to about 
9 inches apart, the roots will attain a good size and yield 
great quantities of Spinach like leaves throughout an 
ordinarily severe winter, and these may be picked and sent 
in as Spinach without many cooks being able to detect any 
difference. I have been favoured with an extra good stock 
of this Beet that has been saved in one district for many 
years, but the stocks held by well-known seedsmen are also 
good. 
Parsley is often a stumbling-block to gardeners, the 
majority at different times failing to maintain the necessary 
constant supply. We always raise a number of plants on a 
mild hotbed, and these when they have formed a strong tap¬ 
root are dibbled out, about 12 inches apart each way, on a 
well-prepared border. The plants invariably do well, and 
the Parsley difficulty is obviated. We do not, however, 
depend solely upon this strong and usually very hardy plan¬ 
tation, but sow seed early on a good patch of ground, and 
these plants when of good size are forked out and replanted 
in beds where they can be covered with frames. They are 
dibbled out about 9 inches apart each way, and usually 
cover the ground, and are at their best by the time frosty 
weather sets in. Other beds of Parsley may be similarly 
protected, but the fine outside leaves generally turn yellow, 
and are of little service late in the season. 
Asparagus, or Buda Kale, is one of the most hardy greens 
we have, and I ought not to conclude these notes without 
reference to it. Cottagers’, Scotch, including Bead’s New 
Hearting, Bagged Jack, and Buckman’s Hardy Winter, are 
all more or less hardy and serviceable, but none of them, in 
my estimation, approaches the Asparagus Kale for hardiness, 
productiveness, and quality. There are two forms of it 
perhaps more—in cultivation, one having green stems and 
leaves, and the other dark purple, and I do not think there 
is much that can be said about one that does not apply 
equally well to the other. It is not yet too late to sow the 
seed, but it must be sown Spinach like where the plants are 
to remain. We sowed several rows last season between the 
lines of Bunner Beans, thinning the seedlings to about 1 foot 
apart, and in spite of the unfavourable position they suc¬ 
ceeded surprisingly well, and were available till June. They, 
however, deserve a better position than this, but last season 
we were hard pushed for room, and, as we endeavour to grow 
plenty of everything, were bound to try the experiment. 
W. Iggulden. 
SELECT HABDY AQUATICS. 
It is so seldom that we meet with a collection of aquatic plants, 
or even a selection of them, in private gardens, that a few remarks re¬ 
specting them might serve as a reminder to those who may be 
desirous of giving them a trial. They are a neglected group, if we 
may judge by their absence in places where they might receive every 
accommodation ; their requirements, too, are simple, and the cost for 
after attention is so trifling as to be scarcely worth naming. Water 
is in itself a great ornament to the pleasure ground, and is greatly 
assisted by vegetation of a suitable character, either floating on the 
surface, or imparting additional charms to the landscape around by 
occupying isolated and suitable positions on the margin of the lake. 
Where water plants are met with it not unfrequently happens, and 
especially so with some few species, that they are in overwhelming 
quantities; such, for example, as the Polygonums and Potamogetons, 
which, being abundant in some parts, increase with amazing rapidity 
in lakes, ponds, or even stagnant pools. It is not, however, to these 
that I now wish to refer, or that should be employed unless a lake of 
some twenty acres in extent be in existence, and then a few groups 
will not be out of place. As there is an almost endless number of 
plants suitable either for deep or shallow water, I will only in my 
present note briefly allude to some of the most ornamental. 
APONOGETONS. 
Icannot do better than allude first to what may justly be considered 
one of the gems among hardy aquatics—Aponogeton distachyon, or 
the Cape Pond Weed, which, w'ith its deliciously fragrant and waxy 
white blossoms, meets with more admirers than do the majority of 
water-loving plants. It has, moreover, farther claims upon our 
notice—primarily its usefulness in a cut state, and seeing that its 
flowers in favourable waters may be had throughout the winter months 
its value is greatly increased. In no garden of my acquaintance is this 
plant so easily grown or increases with such rapidity as in the Exotic 
Nurseries at Tooting, where a large space was, and I believe still is, 
