48 THE COTTAGE GARDENER. [October 24. 
flues oi- pipes we make sure from frost. We store large 
numbers of them in the same pots and boxes that they 
were growing in through the summer, first cutting them 
well down and scraping off the surface soil, and for four 
months they hardly get a drop of water. We still prefer 
“Harry Moore’s plan” of keeping them in the same 
pots and soil from year to year, and make up for the loss 
of strength in the soil by liquid manure after the end of 
May. Harry’s own boxes of them have been very much 
admired this autumn; they are now five years’ in the 
same boxes, and he keeps them down in the cellar in 
winter; but his cellar is very dry. No one can possibly 
keep a geranium in a damp cellar. 
In cold pits we now use pots for bedding geraniums, 
except for some fancy sorts. They are planted in light 
soil, and the glass taken off every fine day, and the dead 
leaves are picked off occasionally. We have one range 
of quite low pits, which hold about seven thousand of 
youug plants this way, and there are no means of giving 
them artificial heat—nothing save a single mat to keep 
the glass clean—with powerful coverings of stubble and 
loose straw over; and we have less trouble with them 
that way than with older plants in pots with their leaves 
on. Roots of old Salvias, such as th e fulgent, splendens, 
and chamcedrioides, we keep much after the same way. 
We keep them to plant out in mixed borders with 
Phloxes, Pcnstemons, and a host of other old border 
plants ; but for beds we make up a young stock from 
cuttings every autumn. Old Fuchsias will keep in cold 
sheds without any danger, but all of them for the flower- 
garden will keep just as well in the borders, with a few 
inches of leaves placed over them, and many of them 
will do without any covering. There is no better way 
of keeping a bed of Tigridias than by covering the bed 
with dry leaves and then thatching it to throw off the 
wet. The bulbs of these are very ticklish to keep if 
they are taken up in the autumn, as they are seldom 
ripe enough before the frost sets in; and unless they 
are quite ripe they decay from the bottom by the score. 
One single mat is sufficient to save the old Linum 
Jiavum, the gayest little yellow bedder one could wish at 
midsummer; and for a front border of Ixias and their 
allies, with a great number of other little bulbs belong¬ 
ing to the Amaryllis tribe, which are mentioned in our 
dictionary, nothing is better than thin boards with 
feather edges nailed together; as that sort of covering 
will throw off the wet, of which they are much more im¬ 
patient than of cold dry winds or a little frost. 
It is very strange how little is attempted to be done 
with the scores of neat little bulbs that would flower in 
the spring and early summer in front of a cottage close 
to the wall where little else would grow. The reason 
must be that so little is said of them in books and 
periodicals since Mr. Sweet died. He used to keep the 
whole country alive with such fine tales about them 
month after month, but now one hears very little about 
them unless some new little bulb comes to be figured. 
I am quite sure there are no less than one thousand 
species of this class of bulbs that would afford endless 
amusement to any one who would take the trouble of 
preparing a front border for them. They are like 
children, they always want something doing to them, 
and there is constantly something new to be learned 
about them. I should be afraid to say how many hun 
dreds of pots full of them I saw last summer with Mr. 
Appleby; and he is just as fond of them as everybody 
knows he is of those strange orchids he writes about. 
I wish he would lock up those orchid bouses for a 
month and treat us with various dishes of little bulbs ; 
at any rate, I hope he will cram them into the dic¬ 
tionary, that I for one may have another turn at them, 
as people used to say some years back I was bulb mad. 
But I have sadly forgotten them, and am now over head 
and ears with tire Amaryllis again, and I have made a 
strange discovery in them this very season. The Gan- 
dalabra plants, called Brunsvigias, are true Amaryllises, 
which is known to many already; but few would dream 
of their breeding with the purple Vallota ; but they 
have done so; and if I could send the breed, and tliat 
between the Vallota and the Cyrtanths to California, 
where they could enjoy their proper climate, we should 
some day see the whole race flowering with their leaves 
on, which none of the older family ever did before. The 
Galochorts of the golden regions would then be eclipsed 
on their native soil. But, alas ! a man ought to talk 
about such things at five and twenty, and not at the 
age of D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Cool Greenhouse without Artificial Heat. —In 
the list of plants given last week, I do not think that I 
mentioned the Begonia Evansiana, referred to in a late 
article, as the only one of the family found growing in 
cottagers’ windows. As it is herbaceous, dying down 
every season, all that is necessary in winter is to keep 
its tuberous-like roots from frost, which may easily be 
done in such a house, by covering the pots with a little 
moss. Indeed, we frequently keep this and other tuber¬ 
ous-rooted things, along with bulbs for summer bloom¬ 
ing, secure enough in a warm shed. This is just one of 
those common things which fastidious gardeners and 
florist amateurs toss their heads at, and term “ coarse 
and weedy-looking! ” No doubt the leaves look a little 
rough—the upper surface has a dash of pale yellow in 
its green—but then, when elevated above the eye, how 
beautiful is the purple dashed with green of their under¬ 
sides, with the huge masses of pink blossoms bending 
gracefully over them. Ear a splendid floral effect, taken 
in connection with the ease with which it is produced, 
this common Begonia deserves to stand in the front and 
foremost rank among all its more prized compeers. In I 
a cold house, without any means of artificial heat, plants 
have borne a dense mass of bloom from June to the end 
of September—are still standing, but are now beginning 
to fade—each plant on an average being four feet in 
height, above the surface of the twelve-inch pot in which 
it was growing, but plunged inside of a vase somewhat 
larger—the diameter of the head being five feet—sup¬ 
ported by one stake in the centre, to which the stronger 
shoots were loosely hasped, and the weaker ones allowed 
to bend gracefully downwards, so that the plant as a 
whole, when in full bloom, presented rather more than 
three parts of a circle, of the above diameter, studded 
with hundreds of its cymes or bunches of pink flowers. 
The vases in which the plants were placed were about 
four feet in height, and tended to show off the plants to 
the best advantage. Several connoisseurs of refined 
taste, w'lio had previously discarded this common thing 
which any old woman might have in her window, have 
been induced again to take it as a nursling under their 
protection. The system of management from first to 
last may, therefore, be acceptable. These plants referred 
to were strong and good the preceding season. In the 
beginning of October, as the flowers were dropping, the 
leaves getting yellow, and the stalks showing signs of 
ripeness by cracking and splitting at the joints, the 
plants were placed against a south wall, in order further 
to facilitate the ripening process. Here, in no great 
length of time, the stalks fell down of their own accord— 
a sure sign that the roots were charged with sufficient 
material to enable them to endure with advantage a 
season of rest. The pots were then placed in a vinery, 
where bedding-plants, &c., were kept during the winter, 
plenty of air being given, and just enough of fire-heat, 
and no more than was sufficient to keep out the frost. 
