4 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 1. 
the Rivers’style; this will both economise room, and 
avoid “hope deferred,” &c. 
Were we commencing an orchard-house, we would 
estimate the number of trees required, and determine 
the kinds; and these we would purchase in two distinct 
lots; one half established pyramids, root-pruned, the 
other “ maidens,” with a clean shoot, about two years 
from the graft or bud. The latter being potted, might 
be placed, alternately, all over the house with the esta¬ 
blished pyramids, thus enabling the latter to receive 
plenty of air and light. As soon as any became over¬ 
grown, too coarse, or barren, we would plant them out 
as dwarf standards in the kitchen-garden, keeping always 
a successional stock rising. To those who have already 
commenced this practice, we may say, mind that the 
young trees are carefully watered according to their 
needs, and the pots shaded, if possible, from sunshine. 
The latter is a point, we think, that lias escaped Mr. 
Rivers, and one we hold to be of considerable import¬ 
ance to many things in pots. Double pots might be 
had recourse to, twigs of bushes stuck in, or bushy and 
low pot plants placed before each pot. 
We have much more to say on this subject, and will 
soon return to it; our space is, for the present, ex¬ 
hausted. R. Errington. 
GRAFTING FOR THE FLOWER-GARDEN AND 
PLEASURE GROUNDS. 
The easterly wind was so dry and cutting, and so 
prevalent throughout the greater portion of March, that 
grafting in general must have been delayed this season 
to a later period than usual, but we are still in good 
time for fancy plants of almost all sorts, and there are 
few things which may not be increased in the spring 
from grafting. For the first time for many years these 
easterly winds have been very much in my favour, or 
rather in favour of my new cottages, exemplifying the 
adage of the ill wind that blows good to nobody; and as 
to grafting, the most extraordinary thing I ever heard 
of was, that many hundreds or may be thousands, of 
standards of the new Siklcim Rhododendrons would be 
soon in the market. The seeds of these, amounting to 
forty or more new kinds, were collected by Dr. Hooker, 
during his late mission to the East, and, as far as I re¬ 
collect, the first of these seeds were only sown in Eng¬ 
land in 1850, certainly not earlier than the end of 1849, 
and now they have this large stock of standard-high 
plants of them, which will be soon on sale. One of the 
most dwarf of these new rhododendrons is really a 
most beautiful thing. It flowers when only six inches 
high, and in two years from the sowing of the seed. It 
is the one I noticed at page 381, and is called Rhododen¬ 
dron ciliatum. We had another specimen of it in bloom 
on the 16th March, shown before the Horticultural 
Society, from Chatsworth, and another lecture on its 
great merits for the cross-breeder, with more particulars 
about the habit of it, and so forth. On the Indian hills 
it never grows above fourteen or fifteen inches high, but 
spreads out into a dense bush, and what is much better 
than all that, it is a genuine variety , and not a species at 
all, and will soon run into as many varieties as the 
Chilian calceolarias. The two specimens which we have 
had before us are as different from each other as chalk 
and cheese, and they, too, are quite different from their 
own mother, which we were told is faithfully represented 
in colour in a large work recently published on these 
very plants. The mother plant has lilac flowers, different 
fiom all other colours in the old rhododendrons. The 
first one I saw was a light blush; the one from Chats¬ 
worth had the flowers pure white, and if these flowers 
were shown without the plant, or without any leaves, 
you would say immediately it was a new white China 
azalea, belonging to the section of variegata, only the 
flowers had not so much of the florist in them as in the 
latter. Ciliatum means fringed like an eye-lash, the i 
leaves and their stalks being fringed with white hairs in | 
that way. Everybody must get this new rhododendron 
as soon as he can for spring bedders, and what a j 
charming race for filling up the flower-beds in the 
winter. 
Rhododendron caucasicum was the one most recom¬ 
mended to cross with this dwarf section in the lecture. : 
Somebody had been stupid enough to pluck off three 
blossoms from the little plant shown on the 16th ult.— 
probably they were too far gone for great folks to see 
them—but every blossom ought to have been crossed, 
and the pods saved, though the faded flowers might be 
an eye-sore to every one in the room. There was abund¬ 
ance of time to prepare and force another rhododen¬ 
dron to meet this one since the flower-buds appeared. 
To pretend that it is a genuine species, and ought to be 
kept as such, is a story not worth listening to. 
Many of these Sikkim rhododendrons are said to be 
very difficult to grow. A friend of mine, a nurseryman, 
has lost none of them, and at this moment he has hun¬ 
dreds and hundreds of them pricked off in pots, and in 
cold frames, with only a single mat to cover them all 
this winter, the lights being opened every day, and 
thrown quite back during mild weather. Those who 
find them difficult to grow have not the right kind of 
peat for them, and they ought to graft many of them on 
the common R. ponticum, aud the stronger kinds on 
the North American large species, and quite close to 
the ground. It is not clear yet if these new Indian 
shrubs and trees, as some of them are, are quite hardy 
for our climate; but if they were grafted on these hardy 
stocks they would have a much better chance; and this 
brings me round to the object of this paper. 
A great field is yet open to us for cultivating many 
half-hardy plants in the open air, by grafting or budding 
them on kinds of their own kindred that are known to j 
be quite hardy. It does not matter much whether you j 
have a small plant or not to use as a stock in the 
spring. A tree as large as a horse-chesnut will do; if 
you dig down to the roots, and find some of them of the 
size of one’s little finger, they will do to graft on as well, 
if not better, than little plants. Mr. Rivers told us last 
summer he could never get the Pavia polystachia to 
graft or bud in the usual way. What a triumph it 
would be for an amateur or a cottage gardener if he 
could do at once what this great nurseryman could not 
do after all his practice, and his travelling among our¬ 
selves, and on the continent. Let us just try an experi¬ 
ment on purpose for this very plant. Take the roots of 
any other Pavia, or of a horse-chesnut, j ust where you find 
them—the sap is now on the rise—cut ott‘ its progress 
upwards by cutting the root from a larger one, but by 
no means disturb the other end of it—that might spoil 
the whole process; so let this little root, be it ever so 
long, remain as it is, only graft the Pavia on the upper 
end of it, and then bury the grafted parts in the soil 
again all but the top bud of the graft, and see that the 
root lies in the old natural position ; if this experiment 
fails, give it up for other means in the autumn. Now 
this is really a very simple way of getting many things 
to grow or “ take,” as we say, that would not easily be 
made to unite by any other means. All the Crataguses, 
or fine thorns, might thus be propagated out in the 
fields or hedges, if one had no little thorns for stocks. 
All the Robinias on Cobbet’s locust-tree, or common 
Acacia ; all the Caraganas on C. frutescens; all the 
Brooms and Cytisuses on the laburnum roots; and all 
and every family in the same way, on some roots or 
another within their own affinity, and also bear in 
mind to work the more tender on the hardier kinds. 
Stransvesia glaucescens is a beautiful, but rather tender 
