50 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Apkix, 22 . 
lustre. There were several others quite as good as these, 
but not so well marked as to shade or tint. Two gentle- 
j men, who were criticising the collection at the same 
! time, assisted me, and agreed with me as to the most 
marked for colour, and that is the point I wished. One 
of them spoke of Quintin Durward, a hyacinth that was 
j not there, as being an excellent forcer. 
There was a very old-fashioned plant on the same table; 
a variety from Coronilla glauca, the finest plant of it I 
ever saw. I never saw much of it about London, but in 
J some parts in the country you see it in every greenhouse. 
A fine specimen of it would look well on a side-table 
in a drawing room, at night; but what I mention it for 
more particularly here, is for an edging plant to a bed 
of scarlet in the flower-garden, an idea which first 
occurred to me that very day, when the plant was being 
lectured upon ; but I have been so accustomed to these 
things, that I shall stake my new cottages on this plant 
being the best one we possess for an edging, if properly 
managed; and it is as easy to keep as a common myrtle, 
and as hardy, if not more so. You could also keep it 
clipped on the edges, and over the top, and so get it 
more in character for a small geometric garden. One 
might keep a few dozens of it for years, by taking it up 
in October, trimming the roots, and also the branches, 
so as to take up little room in a cold frame, and every 
morsel of it will root in the spring like verbenas. Mr. 
Jeffries, and Mr. Salter, at Ipswich, or Mr. Barnes, at 
Stowmarket, could furnish large quantities by next 
autumn, as everybody thereabouts grows it. Sometimes 
the leaves come of a golden-yellow, and there were 
some of that colour on this plant, and if these could be 
kept true, by making cuttings of the yellowest parts 
every year, we should have another golden-chain for 
edging. In a highly-kept garden, where colours are 
much studied, Mangle's variegated geranium —the best 
of the silver leaves for edging among the geraniums— 
cannot well be edged round a bed of scarlets, because 
the flowers are pink, making a bad, weak shade against 
the scarlet. I often took the pains to pluck off the 
flowers of this sort in such situations, when I knew 
that a party of true critics were to look over the grounds; 
and the same with the flowers of the golden-chain gera¬ 
nium, because the trusses are so small that they make no 
show. The variegated sweet Alyssum, is, on the whole, the 
neatest we have after these two geraniums; and as the 
flowers and the leaves are silvery white, it comes in any¬ 
where, and I am quite sure that my new foundling—this 
variegated Coronilla—will do the same. 
In the summer of 1848, there appeared a very curious 
kind of new peach, from China, in the garden of the 
Horticultural Society; it was sent over by Mr. Fortune. 
What made it particularly striking in the fruiting, was 
having the fruit borne in clusters, in twos and threes, 
or more, on the same spur; there was not much said 
about it then, except as a botanical or pomological 
curiosity; but since then, some accounts of it appear in 
reports from the garden, and the other day we had a 
fine specimen of it in bloom at the meeting, in Regent- 
street, which took us all by surprise. I have not seen 
a finer thing for many years. There has not been a 
more striking, hardy plant for the shrubbery, introduced 
since the scarlet currant was sent home by the unfor¬ 
tunate Douglas. It is as hardy as a common peach or 
the almond ; the flowers are double, but not quite, and 
they are of the brightest crimson colour, and would 
look, at a short distance, as much like those of the 
Pyrus Japonica as can be; every bud of this beauty 
ought to be increased this next summer, and every one 
who has room for a gooseberry-bush ought to get a 
plant ot it next October, if not sooner. No doubt it is 
to be had in many of the Nurseries, but nine-tenths of 
the gardening world have no idea of such a fine thing 
being in the country at all. It was thought of so much 
interest at the meeting, that the plant had to be removed 
up to near the chairman, that all the ladies might see 
it under better light. There was also a double-white- 
flowering peach exhibited at the same time; a pretty 
thing enough in its way, and would have been thought 
a good deal of had it not been for this crimson variety. 
What a fine addition these will make for our early 
spring flowers, when they come to be large bushes, like 
the almonds, in our shrubberies ! Ask every nurseryman 
you meet, or to whom you write, if he has the double- 
crimson peach on sale, and what is the price of it; thus 
a knowledge of the plant will soon spread abroad like 
wild fire. In the lecture on these new peaches it was 
said, that the Chinese have a whole collection of them, 
differing from each other by the colour of the flowers. 
I did not hear if the fruit is good to eat; but we had a 
dish of the finest strawberries I ever saw, with per¬ 
mission to taste them all round, and we all came to the 
same conclusion as our lecturer, that strawberry forcing 
could not be pushed any farther. It is really a luxury 
to be allowed to taste fruit, fresb from the country, in 
London. We owe this relish to Mr. M'Ewen, gardener 
to His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, at Arundel Castle. 
He did not tell the Society, however, the way he managed 
to have whole pots with all the fruit in them ready for 
table at the same time, and the thing being a complete 
secret among a few of our best gardeners, and as all of 
them know that I cannot keep a secret (I never could), 
they will not think me out of order here. In these days 
of high gardening, it is considered a point of the highest 
excellence to send fruit to table on the plants, and the 
strawberry not giving all the fruit ripe at the same time, 
they bit upon an excellent plan to force them to do so. 
When they are just going out of blossom, the young 
things are cut off, like thinning grapes, except so many to 
every stalk, and every one of this so many must be of 
uniform size, so that they have a good chance of ripen¬ 
ing all at the same time. When they are full-swelled, 
they are looked over a second time, and if one appears to 
be too forward, or to lag behind, it is cut off also ; then 
the whole must be ripe the same day; then the pots go 
to table ; and if there is a gallant officer in the party, he 
is allowed to cut oft’ the first stalk with five or six enor¬ 
mous large ripe strawberries on it, and hand it round to 
the ladies, after that, first come, first served, in the old 
way. Mr. M'Ewen sent us a lot of pots with fruit all 
in this condition, and an extra plateful of the finest 
fruit for the whole of us to taste, as I have just said, 
and we all wished him much success with the rest of 
his crops. The kinds he prefers for forcing are Keen's 
Seedling and Alice Maud. D. Beaton. 
FIRM AND LOOSE POTTING. 
Times change, and men and methods change with 
them. Every age has its peculiar characteristics, nay, 
every division of that age has its eccentricities, its cry, 
its vaunted discovery. What holds true in manners, 
science, and politics, is equally true in gardening. What 
wonders we should ere now have seen, if the results 
from working out supposed new ideas had been at all 
proportionate to the pertinacity and magniloquence dis¬ 
played in keeping them for a time before the public 
attention. How often has,, the new beacon light that 
was to guide to unheard of success proved but a very 
Willrwith-the-wisp, that left us floundering in the morasses 
of disappointment. And, nevertheless, the raiser of 
that light might himself have reason for rejoicing in 
its radiance. His fault consisted not so much in advo¬ 
cating a certain mode, as in the forgetting, or overlook¬ 
ing, collateral circumstances, that were quite as essential 
i to success as the one condition to which he gave such 
I prominent notice. Besides, it must not be forgotten 
