292 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August o. 
not to excite the buds, but to fill the pots with roots by 
the time the extra heat is gone; then the plants will 
’ receive no check in being moved to the shelf in the 
I greenhouse. “ But why not leave the plants in the 
frame?” Because, if you did so, you must thin them 
to something like a foot apart; because even then they 
would not be so well supplied with light as in an airy 
greenhouse; and because, finally, if you left the pots 
without placing’ them on some hard substance to pre- 
j vent the roots going freely into the dung, you are likely 
to be rewarded with bettor leaves than fruit. 
But the second mode is more simple still, on a similar 
border, or on a steep, sloping bank. But out your young 
plants a foot apart; attend them carefully; protect a 
little during winter; and in March or April cover them 
with shallow boxes and glass sashes. In ordinary 
seasons you will forward the fruit a fortnight; in dull 
weather they will scarcely be forwarded a week; in 
bright sun, after flowering, they will precede those in 
the open air nearly three weeks. 
But now, secondly , supposing that we grow the plants 
in pots, what is to be done with them afterwards? 
Throw them away? No; that used to be the custom; 
gardeners know better now. It is now getting common 1 
to plant them out carefully, and here, as in a lady’s 
postscript, is the gist of my article. What are the 
objects? First, to obtain from early-forced ones a 
second crop in September, or towards the end of August. 
This I have done for more than a dozen of years. I 
question if I shall not be disappointed this season. Con¬ 
trary to usual custom, owing, I suppose, to the heat and 
dryness of June, the plants which bore a heavy crop in ; 
March are now again in full bearing, and I have been ! 
picking eigbtdays before this (20th July), when they were 
of little or no use to me; others, however, keep throwing 
up buds. Now, as respects this second crop, I never 
got much from plants turned out as late as June; and 
that would be the case with most of our greenhouse 
friends, and yet to them I would also say, plant out 
your plants carefully ; and my reason, 
Secondly is, That these plants icill produce more abun¬ 
dantly, in the open air, next season, than any other 
young or old plants treated in other respects in a similar 
manner. I have proved the matter for years, and de¬ 
monstrated the fact to hundreds. It seems to make little | 
: or no difference whether the plants fruit in the autumn 
or not. My common Keen’s Seedling have been fair. 
Those under the treatment, in armfuls. The theory of 
the thing I will not now enter upon, as when the matter 
was mentioned in conclave there seemed to be diversity 
of opinion. Of the fact itself, there can be none, 
especially in all soils that are stiff and cold. It applies 
to all kinds, early and late—early forced, or merely for- j 
warded in greenhouses. Many adopt the system now as 
a mere matter of routine. I lately met Mr. Judd, whose j 
Queens—so much admired at Chiswick, in May—had, a i 
few days previously, taken off the honours at North- j 
ampton, and his practice entirely coincides. He told j 
me that in his cold ground he could do no good with 
British Queens, Alice Mauds, &c., from planting young 
plants, but that his turned-out forced ones did well. 
One word more. Such plants do not continue to be 
prolific. I have had them good for several years, by 
extra care in thinning and surface dressing, but in 
general they do splendidly the first year; fairly the 
second ; and but so-so the third. Where room is scanty, 
they should never stand above the second year; fora 
! splendid effect, never after the first summer. 1 trust 
I that our friends in future, who place thirty or forty pots 
in their greenhouse oven, will give each plant, when 
i done fruiting, a space of fifteen or eighteen inches 
square in good ground. R„ Fish. 
LYCOPODIUMS. 
“ There is no plant without its use,” is an old pro¬ 
verb, and it is true if applied to the family we are about 
to write upon, namely, those moss-like plants congre¬ 
gated together under the above name. Mr. Fish in¬ 
dulged us lately with a very pleasant paper upon 
“What’s in a name?” He instanced two, that made 
the plants bearing them popular at once—the Flower of 
the Day and the Mountain of Light, and now we can 
add two others, the Silver King and Attraction. These, 
as our friend Mr. Beaton well knows, are only striped¬ 
leaved geraniums, but their names are dispersed, through 
the pages of The Cottage Gardener, we might almost 
say round the world, at least wherever lovers of plants 1 
live and cultivate “the stars of the earth.” Now, if 
the short-lived plants bearing these pleasant names 
are rendered attractive thereby, we may claim the same 
attraction for the Lycopodiums. It is true, some of our, 
perhaps, more-learned-than-wise botanists have at- j 
tempted to change it to Selaginella, but we think the i 
first name has a hold too firm upon the plant-growing \ 
public to be changed hastily. We remember the late 
Mr. Loudon put all his gigantic power forth to change 
the name of Dahlia to Georgina, but the first name was 
so established in the public mind that the attempt 
proved a failure; the genus remains Dahlia, and will 
do so to the end of time, and so we opine will the name 
of Lycopodium. 
We commenced with stating that there is no plant 
without its use, and we must try to prove the use to 
which these pretty plants, the Lycopodiums, may be put. 
And here we must confess that their usefulness as 
an article of food, or as medicinal plants, is very 
doubtful, but it is as ornamental plants that we claim 
for them a place in every greenhouse and stove, or even 
on shady rock work in the open air, for the species 
belonging to the genus are widely spread on the face of 
the earth. Some are natives of the heath-clad moors of 
Britain ; others inhabit the Swiss mountains ; whilst a 
third group are found in the shady woods of that far-off 
country, China ; but the greater part are natives of the 
hot climates of the Brazils, Java, Borneo, and Singapore. 
From these hot countries collectors have sent them to 
Europe, either purposely or accidentally, as package for 
more valuable plants; by these means the species have 
been multiplied to a considerable extent, and they are 
cultivated with such success, and are considered so 
interesting and beautiful, that the Metropolitan Societies 
give prizes to collections of them, though not obliged to 
do so by the schedules, in many instances. 
As matters of ornament, they may be grown in various 
ways, but the principal mode is in pots, to be placed in 
situations where nothing but their relatives, the true 
ferns, would exist, or at least thrive. Then, again, as 
plants to be cultivated in fancy baskets, there are none 
that fill such a situation with better effect; though they 
do not produce flowers, yet the pleasing green of their 
foliage and stems, and their pliability, which enables ! 
one to peg them down and train them in any direction, 
render them pleasing objects for the eye, wearied with 
glaring colours, to rest upon. Then, again, as plants 
for the Wardian Case, or parlour greenhouse, as it may 
be termed, there are none that exist longer in it, or 
are more beautiful. In all these ways we have grown 
them to our entire satisfaction. All the exotic species 
love to grow best in the shade, and, therefore, if in pots, 
they may be placed underneath other tall-growing j 
flowering plants, and are very useful there to hide the 
pots, or the soil, or even the platform and stage. 
There are two species, or, rather, perhaps, one species 
and a variety of it, that lose their principal beauty if 
placed in the full light. We allude to the Lycopodium 
casium and the Lycopodium caesium arboreum; in deep 
