March 13.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
369 
presses down the seeds with a piece of circular wood 
having a peg in the centre for a handle. When the 
surface is thus made smooth, a little of the sifted soil is 
put on, just enough to put the seeds out of sight and no 
more, and many gardeners never cover such seeds at all, 
but rest satisfied with pressing them on the surface, 
then put them into a liot-bed and lay a covering of old 
newspapers over a lot of pots standing together, and it 
often happens that the pots need no water till after the 
seeds have sprouted. The paper covering is a good 
| contrivance at all times; keeping off the sun, drips from 
the glass, and maintaining an uniform damp growing 
atmosphere about the seeds. After the first three or 
four days, the pots must be looked to every morning and 
evening, and as soon as any of the seeds begin to show 
a leaf, that pot should be removed from under the paper, 
and if the seeds are at all of a hardy nature, the pot 
must be removed from the liot-bed to a cooler place. 
When one has a pot of very rare hardy or half- 
hardy seeds at this critical stage, the usual way is to 
remove it to a close cold frame or the inside front of a 
greenhouse, and place a hand-glass over it; if the 
weather is fine, and the sun comes out strong, it is 
customary to place a sheet of white paper or a newspaper 
over the hand-glass from nine or ten o’clock in the 
morning till the sun gets well round in the afternoon ; 
but it is never a good plan to keep little delicate seedlings 
longer in the dark than one can help. In places where 
a large number of seed-pots are to be looked after, a 
front shelf in a greenhouse or vinery is cleaned and put 
apart for this nursing stage, and then nine or ten inches 
of the bottom of the glass along the whole front is 
painted with lime and water with a whitewash brush; 
no other shading is necessary, and this subdued 
light seems to agree with all young things. This is 
exactly the way we do here; but with the hand-glass 
system one side of it could be so painted, which would 
lessen the work and the anxiety of the sower. There is 
nothing so bad as leaving seedlings in a liot-bed after 
they begin to draw, or grow weak, and few things are 
more dangerous than taking them out and exposing 
them suddenly to cold air; very dry atmosphere, or 
much sunlight, and the hand-glass or the smeared front 
glass, or a cold pit that is not damp nor too deep, are the 
usual modes of getting over the difficulty. 
Sowing seeds generally .—Itwill also be sufficient to have 
an inch or rather more of the best soil on the top, and 
the largest Lupine seeds need not be covered more 
than a half-inch thick, and from that down to one-eighth of 
an inch, according to the sizes of the seeds, will be 
quite sufficient, and for them the pots may be watered 
after the seeds are covered. 
From this time to the middle of April a hot-bed is the 
best place to get up seedlings of all pot plants, and 
where a liot-bed is not at hand, the closer the seed-pots 
are kept the better till the seedlings are up and on the 
stage of a greenhouse; a covering of an old newspaper or 
a hand-glass will much assist the sprouting. One great 
error in managing such pots is to allow them to get 
suddenly dry, and then to be obliged to deluge them 
with water; and so it is with pots of cuttings; a uniform 
temperature and absence from strong sun-light, and 
from a dry parching atmosphere, are as essential for 
young cuttings as for seedlings, and both ought to be 
transplanted into other pots as soon as they are fit for 
the change, particularly seedlings, and that is one of the 
chief reasons for saying that an inch of good compost is 
sufficient for the top of a seed-pot. Indeed, it is a 
question if seedlings derive much benefit for the first 
fortnight or three weeks from the soil at all; for if they 
did, the seeds of every family would prefer that kind of 
soil which the full-grown plant would prefer, and that 
we know is not at all the case. 
D. Beaton. 
THE ROSARY. 
Pruning and Protecting Roses. —No rule is with¬ 
out exceptions; so it is said. Rules in gardening, 
however good, must be varied with the seasons. As a 
general principle, hardy roses should be pruned at the 
end of autumn. Why? Because the growth that ensues 
during winter, will concentrate its strength in the buds 
left, and they will break stronger inconsequence. Quite 
right; if we have a winter, such as we generally have, 
when but little growth takes place until March and 
April. But now, in this the beginning of March, 
growth is as forward as we have seen it in the beginning J 
and middle of April; and does not the advocate of 
spring, and late spring pruning, rise in his stirrups, and ; 
tantalisingly point to your young shoots, and ask where 
they will be if March, in a surly mood, should yet send 
a ten or fifteen degrees frost, without a snow wreath as a j 
protecting mantle? He knows and feels that he is right ] 
for once; he may have young shoots longer than yours, j 
but what cares he, the frost may take them and welcome, | 
for he must cut them off at any rate, and there are 
plenty of buds nearer the base, that are not yet bursting, 
and which will not be influenced by frost; and ten to one 
but the events of this year will be duly chronicled, and the 
spring-pruning of the rose be incontrovertibly established. 
But supposing that we should have no severe frost, then 
the advantages of autumn pruning will be seen in 
stronger shoots and earlier blooms. As that, however, 
is more to be desired than expected, it is best to be 
prepared. Laurel branches, and spruce fir branches, will 
prevent any injury unless in extrome cases, and if stuck 
or fastened thinly over the buds and shoots, it will help to 
retard them in fine weather, as well as protect them when 
stormy. Moss may be packed among the stems, and a 
few barrowfuls of it slightly shaken over them, with a 
few extra branches, would save a great number, even in 
severe weather, from all harm. Of course, even more 
attention will be necessary for the Tea, the tender China, 
and the Bourbon roses. These we generally prune in the 
end of March or beginning of April. R. F. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Greenhouse Annuals, to be Grown in Summer 
with the Assistance of a Hotbed. —So long as the 
mind is constituted as it is, anything approaching a 
stereotyped sameness of opinion will be as impossible j 
as it would be undesirable. We never hope for the i 
agreement of monotonous sameness, but we do hope ] 
for the harmony which springs from unity in diversity, j 
To that point in the love of plants and gardening, the j 
readers of this work are fast tending, if the enquiries of j 
correspondents are to be taken as a test of general i 
wishes and aspirations. There is no longer the neces- | 
sity felt for having certain plants because they are | 
fashionable, nor yet for discarding others really beautiful 
because they are “ so common .” People somehow have 
begun to feel that, instead of blindly acquiescing, they 
are quite competent to form an opinion of what is beau¬ 
tiful and pleasing. The love of the beautiful, instead 
of being contracted, is thus continually augmented in 
the range of its operations. The number of rivulets 
increases the body of the stream. Even he who culti¬ 
vates with a keen relish a particular race of plants, is 
anything but insensible to the attractions of a different 
family, growing in his neighbour’s garden, on the other 
side of the dwarf separating wall. If they had grown 
the same kind of plants, there would have been the ex¬ 
citement of rivalry, but there would have been a want 
of that superior delight which arises from contemplating 
fresh and diversified scenes of loveliness. The great 
