April 20. THE COTTAGE GARDENER. Cl 
tobacco for fumigating purposes. Brown's fumigator is 
excellent for amateurs in a small way, for by it, being 
provided with a portable tree cover, any individual tree 
may be cleared of these insects in ten minutes, and that, 
too, with two ounces of tobacco, and not the slightest 
inconvenience to the operator. We thus put our veto, 
feeble though it may be, on the demands of the insect 
world, as regards our domesticated fruits; and we ear¬ 
nestly implore all those who are really interested in 
their gardens, to let no excuse come between them and 
their desire on these enemies ; remembering that not a 
day may be lost, if they desire first rate success, not only 
present but prospective. If we hear of any insect com¬ 
plaints in the autumn, we shall point emphatically to 
the warnings of these pages. 
Disbudding. —This indispensable process must com¬ 
mence immediately, and, as before advised, must pro¬ 
ceed in a progressive way. A too copious application of 
disbudding at any period sadly paralyses the energies of 
the tree, and, is indeed, so very artistical, or rather un¬ 
natural a procedure, that common sense is at once 
offended on the least consideration. It is, however, 
a most unscientific proceeding, and must rather be 
viewed in the light of a matter forced on us. Peaches 
and nectarines first demand our attention; then, per¬ 
haps, pears and apricots, and plums shortly afterwards. 
We disbud our peaches at three or four different periods, 
which extend from the end of April until the end of 
May, by which time we endeavour to avoid longer re¬ 
taining a single shoot, for which a reason does not 
exist. Those who can give the necessary attention, may 
be assured that, if possible, every shoot may be removed 
in this progressive way, which is not required in the en¬ 
suing year. However it is well to make the final 
clearance somewhat late in the spring. This advice we 
offer especially to the uninformed. 
At the first disbudding, let all the back and foreright 
shoots be removed, unless required for a blank; in the 
second, remove those close to the leaders, and one from 
all doubles, or twin buds; and, indeed, single out the 
shoots just as one would single out young seed-crops, 
taking care to leave the lowest young shoot at every 
E oint of junction or fork, as such are practically termed. 
>uring these proceedings, let any shoot about which a 
doubt exists grow some three inches in length, and then 
pinch the point off; such can either be retained ulti¬ 
mately, or removed at the eleventh hour, without any 
derangement of the training plan, or the functions of 
the tree. 
Before we finish these remarks, let us again recur to 
the subject of mulching : this is peculiarly a spring duty. 
As before observed in our earlier papers, wherever a 
case of weakness occurs, when trees have been hard- 
cropped, and make little wood in consequence, wherever 
it is desirable to increase the volume of the branches 
speedily; and, finally, wherever soils are liable to 
drought, there a case for mulching exists. To talk 
about intercepting the solar rays in such cases is mere 
fiddle-faddle, or, rather peihaps we should more politely 
say, an incontrovertible fact; for in very truth, in the 
latter case, it is indeed the solar rays whose fierceness 
we deprecate, and would rather enjoy a permenance of 
moisture, albeit at the expense of a little ground-heat. 
We have mulched a great deal in our time, and much, 
very much, in the past three weeks; and our practice so 
persisted in, we do admit, either places us in the list of 
incurables, or proves that we have profited by long 
experience. Robert Errington. 
MODES OF STOCKING BORDERS: 
GERANIUMS—SHOWY-LEAVED PLANTS. 
Those of our readers who wish to indulge in a few 
nice flower-beds, but have “neither pit nor greenhouse” 
to keep bedding plants in through the winter, go to 
market very soon to purchase as many as they can 
afford, and make up the rest with seeds of annuals, 
biennials, and some of the more showy and easily-to-be- 
got herbaceous plants and bulbs; and, of all things in 
the world, to stock a moderate garden from the shop is 
the most difficult thiug to do well and satisfactorily, 
even with a bag full of money, to say nothing of bad 
seeds, and trumpery little plants got up on purpose to 
turn a penny by speculators, who do not care a straw 
if all your purchases were at the bottom of the sea the 
moment they are clear from his premises. There is the 
chance against the purchaser of getting pot-bound, 
starved plants, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, 
many that were propagated so late in the season that 
they are not half inured to the air by the time they 
ought to be planted, and the first cold night or scorching 
sun is sure to destroy them. I know several places, 
some of them of considerable extent, and where regular 
gardeners are kept, where most of the bedding-out plants 
are bought in every year, and the plan answers well; 
but then it is based on a sure foundation. A respect¬ 
able nurseryman is bargained with, long before planting- 
out time, to supply so many verbenas, petunias, cal¬ 
ceolarias, geraniums, and all the rest of them, at so 
much per dozen, allowing so much space between the 
plants in the beds, so that there is no temptation to 
plant too many for the sake of their price, or too few of 
them when the stock is limited. The price per dozen is 
a private affair altogether, with which public writers have 
nothing to do. Sometimes you may meet with a dealer 
who has ten times more of a particular tribe than he 
knows what to do with, and therefore would sell them 
much below a trade price, and there is no combination 
or amalgamation in the nursery trade to interfere 
between the flower-gardeners and the retailers of cheap 
plants. But if the arrangement were to stop here, our 
frail natures could not in all cases withstand the tempta¬ 
tions thus opened for doing as we would not be done 
by, and by degrees all the mischiefs of cheap dealers, 
bad seeds, and worse plants, would creep in upon us; 
but the system which 1 wish particularly to recommend, 
and which I know has been found to work well, is on a 
safer footing. At the time the first bargain is struck for 
the supply of so many plants, the distances at which the 
different kinds are to be set apart is fixed on, then the 
nurseryman is to plant them, and is to be responsible 
for their doing well for the next six months, or till they 
spread all over the surface of the beds; and if there are 
any gaps where plants have died, by this certain period, 
the price per dozen is reduced so much, so that the 
nurseryman is as much interested in the safety of the 
plants as the owner of the beds, and the sooner the beds 
are full and in good show, the safer he is, and the sooner 
he knows his full price. The price of a plant, or a score 
of plants in a given list, is not the least criterion what¬ 
ever as to the real value of such plants. A Bob Roy 
geranium, at sixpence, may be a dearer plant than a 
Rob Roy at three shillings and sixpence, and so with 
every plant in our Dictionary. 
There is another, and a very safe way of furnishing beds 
with bouglit-in plants, that is, to estimate for the size of 
the beds, instead of for so many plants at regular dis¬ 
tances ; and this is the way I would do myself if I were to 
plant under the circumstances, because 1 know the secret 
of how this would suit both parties better. I would give 
the dealer a map of my beds with their exact measure¬ 
ments, and the kinds of plants I wished them to be filled 
with, and I would allow him to plant as many in a bed 
as he thought proper, or as few as he choose, only he 
must guarantee the whole to be full by a certain time— 
then his large old plants would pay him for wintering I 
them, because one of them would cover as much ground 
as four young ones of the same sort. There are np 
