436 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 22, 1883. 
stroyed with frost, should grow Pyrethrum serotinum and 
Chrysanthemum lacustre for whites. We find the former of 
these especially stands 10° of frost without the flowers being 
injured in the least. For yellow there is nothing more 
effective or hardy than Rudbeckia Newmanni, and for purples 
Asters amellus and bessarabicus are excellent among the 
dwarf and larger-flowering Asters. Then for another shade 
of colour—what shall we call it ?—a reddish violet—there is 
Senecio pulcher. These for cut flowers and for furnishing 
large glasses or bowls are invaluable, and should be grown 
by the hundred for cutting late in autumn, and particularly 
in cool damp soils and climates like this. —David Thomson, 
Drumlanng. 
[The quality of the Gros Colman Grape above referred 
to is excellent, and such fruit is quite fit for the table of a 
Duke, however great a Grape connoisseur he may be. We 
have never tasted this Grape half so good when grown and 
ripened in a very low temperature.] 
ANEMONE JAPONIC A ALBA IN POTS — 
PROPAGATING. 
This plant deserves the post of honour amongst hardy plants 
for flowering in the autumn It has lately been much the most 
effective plant outside, and there is no question about its useful¬ 
ness for decoration and for cutting. Some attention is needed 
when planting in order to extend the flowering period of this 
plant. Those placed in warm positions will bloom much earlier 
than those in less favourable situations, and the batch for late 
flowering should occupy a place on a north border. Those 
planted in this position should be so arranged that slight pro¬ 
tection could with ease be applied to them during cold nights 
when the temperature is likely to fall below the freezing point. 
All that is needed is a fight temporary framework of wood over 
which mats could be secured, or, better still, if the framework 
is sufficiently strong to support old or spare lights. Sooner 
than allow a fine late batch of this useful Anemone to be cut off 
by a few untimely frosts, we would recommend the plants to be 
lifted and potted. 
It is an excellent plan to prepare a batch of plants in pots 
for flowering indoors late in the season, and nothing when 
well grown can surpass them for effect or beauty in the 
conservatory or greenhouse. After the plants have been 
raised for outside planting they should be potted in rich soil in 
6-inch pots. After the completion of this operation they should 
be plunged outside on a north border, or in any position not 
fully exposed to the sun. To produce the plants that will flower 
late in the season when required indooi*s is the object to be 
attained, for seldom are hardy plants considered choice or much 
appreciated indoors when their flowers can be gathered outside 
in abundance. 
The pots should be plunged for the purpose of saving labour 
in watering; in fact, they may be entirely covered with the plung¬ 
ing material or with soil. Stimulants will be found very bene¬ 
ficial to the plants after their flower spikes are visible. If worms 
take possession of the pots while they are plunged, a good 
soaking of lime or soot water will quickly eradicate them, and 
the soil can be pressed again afterwards firmly into the pots, 
and the plants top-dressed with fresh compost. Although this 
plant will bear iifting well, and will open its flowers freely 
afterwards, it is decidedly preferable to establish a batch in pots 
for late flowering. 
1 had thought that the old system of propagating this plant 
by division of the crowns had been discontinued, but I find to 
the contrary that it is still practised; and I am inclined to 
believe from the many inquiries that have been made during the 
past year or two that the method of root-propagation is not 
generally known. Some seven or eight years ago I first saw the 
root-system practised on a large scale in a nursery. A small 
portion of root was placed in the centre of 2 and 3-inch pots, 
which were afterwards stood in frames, and in a short space of 
time to my surprise hundreds of small, healthy, vigorous, saleable 
plants were the result. There is no risk to be incurred by the 
root form of propagation, and anyone anxious to increase their 
stock may safely lift the whole, or greater portion of the plants 
they possess, as the case may be, remove their roots, and convey 
their crowns to the rubbish heap. The roots should be cut into 
lengths, and every portion, if only half an inch in length, will 
produce a plant which, if well cared for, will make a strong 
flowering plant by autumn. None need fail with this quick and 
ready system of propagation. If plants have to be purchased for 
a start obtain them as strong as possible (even if a larger price 
is required for them), so that they will possess good roots, from 
which a stock can be obtained. The whole of the roots can be 
taken and cut up, and the tops thrown away; this I should do if 
I wanted as many as possible. After the roots are cut into 
lengths they can be laid thickly together in pans or boxes filled 
with old potting soil amongst which has been intermixed a fair 
per-centage of leaf soil. After the roots are laid in scatter over 
them a little coarse sand, and cover them with about half an inch 
depth of fine soil. If strong i lants are wanted a start may be 
made as soon as I’oots can be obtained, and the boxes containing 
them placed in an early vinery or Peach house that has to be 
started next month. In this position they will soon commence 
growing, and if placed thickly in the boxes will need to be trans¬ 
ferred to others, as soon as they commence rooting, a certain 
distance apart, so that they will have room to grow until it is 
deemed safe to plant them outside. It is better to start the 
roots during the month of December even if they can be obtained 
at once, for they can be kept perfectly fresh amongst cocoa-nut 
fibre or even in the soil outside, until they are wanted. When 
started a little later they can be placed in cold frames, after 
they are well started or planted out of the boxes, on to a slight 
hotbed that has been prepared for them, with about 3 inches of 
old soil on the surface. The hotbed is by no means necessai'y, 
the other houses are free of them, and the boxes set at liberty ; 
and the frame, if a moveable one, can be removed from protecting 
the young plants after they are well hardened, and used for other 
purposes. We prefer planting them out in frames to either 
keeping them in small pots or boxes until they can be finally 
planted outside; they can be lifted with good roots, and do not 
become so crowded as is the case when confined in boxes. 
When the time arrives for planting them outside the smallest 
can be retained for placing in pots for late flowering, and the 
remainder planted in various positions in moderately rich soil.. 
This plant should be grown in quantity, for it is at home in 
almost any position, and is invaluable for the neighbourhood of 
smoky towns, where it appears to grow as luxuriantly and 
flower as profusely as it does in the pure atmosphere of the 
country.—W. B. 
MANURE AND MOULD FROM BEECH LEAVES. 
“ A. F. M.,” at page 292, in a few remarks headed “ Beech Leaves and 
Fungus,” in which he refers to the fact that mould or manure made from 
Beech leaves are often (he seems to think always) hurtful, because of the 
fungus so liable to form where Beech leaves are. There can be no doubt 
of the correctness of what your correspondent states so far, but at the 
same time, while having seen all that he describes, we think it is only 
under certain conditions that mould or manure from Beech leaves is so 
infested, and have used quantities that was perfectly free, and seen them 
largely employed by themselves and in mixture with no evil result. At 
the same time" I do not profess to quite understand the matter, and was 
in hopes someone thoroughly familiar with the subject in all its aspects 
would have done so. The present is only a contribution to the subject, 
and it is hoped some others may benefit your readers with their 
experience. 
In different situations it has been my experience to see Beech leaves 
collected in quantities in autumn and stored in pits, sheds, and otherwise 
as dry and as firmly as possible for use in spring, liberally mixed with 
stableyard litter, in the formation of hotbeds. After serving this purpose 
during the spring and summer months, the beds in some cases being 
made up more than once with the addition of some fresh material, the 
best of the resulting mould we have seen used for all purposes, but 
especially for mixing with loam in which to keep bedding stuff over 
winter, and also for raising seedlings of all descriptions in the following 
spring, as well as for potting up numbers of plants. Many gardeners 
prefer this to pure leaf mould, as it is always richer, often because of the 
careful preparation to which it had been subjected, sweeter, and generally 
drier and more workable. We do not remember a case of this kind where 
fungus proved troublesome. 
Again, about large places where Beeches thrive it is no uncommon 
thing for the leaves to be largely collected, mixed with road-rakings, 
ditch-clearings, and sometimes, sometimes not, mixed with lime and used 
as manure in the farm or in the garden. Under such conditions it never 
(or seldom) generates fungus to an observable extent. 
In one district where we are very well acquainted there is a large 
wood of very fine Beeches. The villagers close by in winter gather the 
leaves from this wood largely for littering their pigs and making manure, 
which they put out for growing Potatoes with the farmers (the latter 
giving the land free, in return for getting their land cleaned and 
enriched), and though we have often seen these cottagers’ plots, we never 
saw anything but the finest Potato crops. Neither do the rakings, partly 
mud but mostly leaves, gathered from a public road that traverses the 
wood have other than a beneficial effect. 
There remains the other side of the picture. Some years s nee a few 
miles from where we then lived a new-come gardener, in his anxiety to 
improve the Vines, lifted and treated the roots as Mr. Iggulden did his 
