THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
247 
January 16 .] 
bed might be made with a Humect in the centre; but what plants do you 
propose to follow ? Follow “Aunt Harriet ” to the letter with your gera¬ 
niums, Climbing roses, when they have covered the trellis, should be 
cut close, not before. 
Endive (A. B. C.). —Endive is blanched like lettuce, by tying up the 
plants when they are quite dry. 
Weeping Ash (Ibid). —It may be trained in any direction on a house 
by fastening the shoots with ties, or nails and shreds, as they grow ; but 
i the only advantage it will have there over the common ash is, when it 
I reaches the top that the shoots may be trained downwards again. We 
would not plant it against anything, or any other tree. The weeping 
ash will graft easily on the common ash in April, the same way as you 
would graft an apple tree. 
Newly-planted Shrubs (Novice). —You have done quite right by 
placing a lot of leaves over the roots and soil, to keep them down ; at the 
end of April remove this covering two or three inches from the stems, 
and let the mulching remain all next summer. The best evergreen roses 
are mentioned in all the former volumes several times. No evergreen 
climbing rose can well be grown as bushes, but as you are a recent sub¬ 
scriber we shall name the best evergreen climbing roses, and in the order 
of their superiority :— Felicite Perpetuelle, Princess Louise , Princess 
Maria, Myriantlies, Odorata or Triomphe de Bolwyllen, Adelaide d 1 
Orleans, Spectabile, Rampant , Brunonii, and Banksiafiora. 
Hardy Plants (B. B.). —You ask for the names of “half a dozen 
hardy and half-hardv plants.’* Before we can answer you, w*e must know 
if the plants are to be trees or shrubs, climbers, herbaceous plants, or 
bulbs. We are not aware of any recent additions to the best annuals. 
Flower-garden (Naval Officer). —Your plan surprised us. We, 
too, have been in every clime and kingdom—bay, bight, strait, and 
“road-stead,” from pole to pole, in our own little library, and we have 
often thought that if we had the good or bad luck of having It.N. affixed j 
to our clanship, we would make our flower-garden represent the globe I 
on a flat surface—not in two half globes, as the geographers have it—but 1 
by cutting up the old ball iftto four or six pieces—all the seas would be 
in grass, the great continents in masses of trees, the adjacent islands in 
clumps of shrubs, and the Archipelago in flower-beds ; the great routs 
through “ the highway of nations ” we would lay out in concrete walks. 
Then, in the evening of our pilgrimage, we could communicate with the 
whole without the aid of the submarine telegraph. Instead of all this, 
however, you have chosen the perfection of geometric forms and lines, 
and the result is a perfect gem of the first water. If the “retaining wall” 
could have been placed so far back as to give an equal length and breadth 
on each side of the bow-window, Euclid himself, with the best analyst of 
perspective at his elbow, could not have made you a better plan for the 
locality, which we last saw when you were probably at the Antipodes. 
We shall write again as soon as we have studied your “log.” 
Flower-garden (IV. P. H .).—“The man” ruined the effect of your 
garden by making 1 twice or three times too large, leaving all the rest 
screwed up to the smallest compass. The situation is only fit for a 
regular geometric figure—working both ends alike from the centre oppo¬ 
site the entrance. You must have experienced the full force of our aver¬ 
sion to long sharp points in flower-beds. As it stands, we would make a 
rosary of 1 ; 2 and 7, scarlet geraniums; 5 and 8, yellow calceolarias; 
6 and 9, blueish, or purplish verbenas, or heliotropes , or lobelia race- 
mosa; and the rest with such low things as you might fancy yourself. 
Covering a Wall, &c. (A. B., Renfrew ).—Digout a trench eighteen 
inches deep and two feet wide on the lawn side of the wall, fill the trench 
with the best soil you have, and plant ivy, as large as you can buy it, 1 
about two feet apart. Water it well the first two seasons, and by that 
time your wall may be completely covered. In the neighbourhood of 
London, you could cover the wall at once, with established ivy plants in 
pots from seven to ten or fifteen feet high. Moneywort (Lysirnachia 
Nummularia) is the best plant for your vase, and see that it has plenty 
of water in summer, good soil, and good drainage. 
Flower-garden (T. P. S.). —To study a whole map of the Chinese 
Empire would be nothing to that of reading the plan of your flower- 
garden on a page of post paper, with a multitude of writing in thirteen 
different directions. Our poor old head became giddy the first night 
turning the page round, and round, and round again, and then we could 
j not make it out. But now having mastered your composition, we are 
I quite at home with you. Your own plan for a flower-garden for that 
j exact place could not be improved on by any one in Liverpool; and your 
arches, as far as we can judge, will look extremely well when once 
I covered ; but do not confine them to roses only. Have a proper mixture, 
f which you may easily select from our previous list, and have them all 
! planted in good soil before the end of February. Rout out the whole of 
I the present hedge, and plant a row of Gloire de Rosamene rose instead ; 
but first read what we said about it last summer, and go on accordingly; 
but add a little fresh soil. You shall have the names for your beds next 
j week. 
Lichen Pyxidatus (T. M. W.).— Why do you use such bygone 
botanical works? they are of no authority. No wonder that you did not 
find this moss in any other book than “ Green’s Universal Herbal.” We 
suppose it is the Cenomyce pyxidata of modern authorities. It is one of 
the commonest of the mosses on banks and other dry soils. 
Raspberry (A Subscriber). —Any respectable nurseryman will supply 
you with the varieties you name. 
Peas (Twig) .—Your list is a good one, and your peas should be sown in 
the order in which we enumerate them. Prince Albert, Early Charlton (if 
these are sown at the same time, the latter will come into gathering just 
as the first is over), Ringwood Marrow, Imperial Marrow, Bishop’s Long 
Pod, Hair’s Dwarf Mammoth, Fairbeard’s Champion of England, 
Knight’s Tall Marrow, Tamarind. This is the order in which we should 
sow them until the end of May, but after that time we should only sow 
Ringwood Marrow, Early Charlton, and Prince Albert, these being the 
quickest growers. 
Bees (B. B ). —1. Mr. Payne has not published a fourth edition of his 
“ Apiarian’s Guide.” 2. You have advocated adapting boards, and I 
found their use last season in enabling me, by passing a divider between 
them, to remove a small super with ease. Now, how is this to be done 
with the hive havingTaylor’s shade—Manual, p. 37, 4th edition j—the inner 
rim is to stand up half an inch, and the super stands outside. A divider 
cannot be introduced without lifting the super, and thus breaking the 
combs—the object sought to be avoided. The super is placed outside the 
rim, the adapter must be inside, of thin mahogany, and twelve inches 
square. It may be necessary to cut off the corners to allow the under 
rim of the shade to fit over it; at the depriving time the shade is 
removed 3. No adapting board required with Taylor’s bar-hive. 4. In 
boxes placed upon stocks it is certainly right to have a bottom (easily 
removed) with a four-inch hole in it. This fixes the combs, and renders 
them less liable to break down in carriage. 
Pruning Newly-planted Trees (J. S.). —It is best not to prune 
newly transplanted trees till the spring—this we have stated already more 
than once ; and when the planting is deferred till the spring, pruning 
and planting must run close on the heels of each other; but a better 
plan than either, when home plants are to be removed, is to have the j 
pruning effected in September, or, in the case of evergreens, five or six 
weeks before their removal. 
Rhododendrons (Ibid). —When the soil is favourable these will 
grow on steep banks as well as on the flat—witness the fine rhododen¬ 
drons growing on the common soil on the burning slopes at Malvern 
Wells. When the soil is unfavourable they are better on the flat system, 
more shaded if possible, and the surface of the beds to be covered with 
a thick layer of moss. Rhododendrons have had as much quackery 
about their treatment as any plants we know. Chalk and calcareous 
earths they do not like. 
Meslin Bread. —A correspondent at Newcastle-on-Tyne says, “In 
your Cottage Gardener last week regarding the proper quantities of 
flour and rye to mix for Meslin, too much rye is stated. Being constantly 
in the habit of getting it ground myself for sale, the quantities I can 
state as used here are two-thirds wheat and one-tliird rye, which makes 
a most excellent brown bread.” 
Sugar Beer. —J. E. W. writes to say: “It may be interesting to 
some of the readers of The Cottage Gardener to know, that the 
difference between this beverage and that in ordinary use consists more 
in name than in reality. The constituents of barley necessary for the 
manufacture of beer are gluten and starch, part of which are converted 
into sugar either by the process of malting or that of mashing; and it 
is from the sugar that the sweet- wort is formed. Sweet-wort may be 
prepared from raw sugar in the manner already recommended in The 
Cottage Gardener ; and if it is analyzed it will be found to be nearly 
identical with that procured from malt—the chief difference being that 
slight traces of alkaline salts will be found in the malt liquor. 
Camellia Leaves Browned (J. N.). —We can hardly make out the 
reason. There are traces of scale and thrip; and as it has been sent you 
as a present, we think it might have been injured by being too long shut 
up when it was growing freely. Take off the discoloured flowers, and 
syringe with clear soot and sulphur water, but we give you no great 
hopes of success until next season. If all right at the root, you may cut 
in the straggling head about April or May ; and the closer and hotter you 
can keep the plant afterwards, with plenty of moisture in the air, the 
better it will break, and all trace of disease and insects disappear. If 
such treatment would render your greenhouse too hot—if you cannot 
manage the matter there during the summer—erect a temporary place 
for such a fine plant as was lately recommended for unhealthy oranges. 
Mulching over Rose Pots (A Subscriber).— Quite right; the water 
used will thus carry a portion of nourishment to the roots from the 
decayed dung you have placed on the surface. 
Mosses and Ferns (Lady Bird). —There is no such work on the I 
Mosses as Mr. Moore has written upon the Ferns. Asplenium Filix i 
feemina is the correct botanical titles of the Lady Fern. Wherever it is I 
called Aspidium it is an error. You will do no harm to your Ferns, whilst j 
you increase the beauty of their effect, by growing among them such 
flowers as oxalis, dwarf campanulas, primroses, orchises, and snowdrops. 
Adiantum formosum is a New Holland fern, and most of the Doodias are 
from the same country; but there is no such species as the one you 
mention, neither do we know Pteris marginata. 
Double Scarlet Thorn (A Nurseryman, Chelmsford).— It was 
Mr. Beaton, and not Mr. Fish, who wrote about this; and you will have 
seen what has passed between Mr. Rivers and himself upon the subject. 
Vinegar Plant (T. W.). —It was once said to be a native of Italy, 
but at page 94 of our second volume the subject was set at rest. It is a 
fungus native of vinegars in our climate, and capable of propagation by 
offsets. 
Himalayaii Pumpkin Seed. —The subscriber having a few saved 
last year, will be happy to forward a couple to any person on receipt of 
