334 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 26 . 
are charged 10s. Gd., and beautiful standards of Blandij- 
anum are from 42s. to 63s. Erectum and The Duke of 
Norfolk are two shades of rose of the first water; the 
first is 10s. 6d., and his Grace 21s. Brazanum is in 
the same way, and nearly quite as good for 21s. A 
group of these fine high-coloured ones, planted in a 
recess on the lawn, and backed by a rising ground 
covered with evergreens, would be the richest thing one 
could plant or desire in the finest garden in England. 
Then, for cheaper plants of the same colour, but not 
quite so good, we have Atrorubrum, 7s. Gd.; Cruentum, 
7s. 6d.; Floribundum cocdneum, 7s. Gd.; and Vestitum 
coccineum, 21s. The best scarlet is Soleil d'Austerlitz, 
21s.; Towardianum, 10s. Gd., a fine, large, rosy-lilac; 
Leopardii, a still better lilac-rose, with crimson dots, 
10s. 6d.; Sherwoodianum, 5s., in the same lilacy way, 
and a very profuse bloomer ; and, last in this tint, 
Everestianum, 3s. Od., flowers in very large showy heads. 
The best purples are— Purpurea elegans, 3s. Gd.; Cur- 
rieanum, 7s. Gd.; Maculatumpurpureum, 5s.; and Atro¬ 
rubrum purpureum, 5s. The two best whites are Olori- 
osum, 5s., and Album elegans, 3s. Gd. Luciferum, 3s. Gd., 
and Perspicuum, 3s. Gd., are the next best whites, and, 
with Veitcli’s Alba multi flora, would be sufficient to dot 
over an acre of Rhododendrons. The following I noted 
as good, superior varieties:— Blatteum, 7s. Gd., shaded 
purple; Bicolor, 2s. Gd., rose, with a white eye; Can- 
didum, 3s. Gd., white; Maculatum purpureum, 5s., spotted 
and shaded purple; Lady Anne Baird, 21s., a beautiful 
rose; Piotum, 2s. Gd., a fine white, with yellowish spots; 
and Victoria, 5s., a purplish scarlet. All these are of 
the very best that were exhibited this season. 
To make this paper more complete, I ought to give 
selections from Ponticum and Maximum for underwood, 
and other places; of the best dwarf ones of the breed of 
Dahuricum, for the outsides of clumps, beds, or borders ; 
and also the best forcing ones of the Catawbiense and 
Arboreum breeds; but I must see all these in the best 
nurseries before I venture on a thoroughly useful list. 
D. Beaton. 
MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF THE VARIOUS 
DEPARTMENTS OF GARDENING. 
Eve nr man is a centre of influence. He influences 
others, and is influenced by them in turns; and what 
is the most startling fact of all, that influence is not 
bounded by the present, but extends to all future ages 
and epochs. Let our young friends ponder the re¬ 
sponsibility of their position. 
If one thing more than another renders writing here 
a labour of love, it is the knowledge that so many young 
professional brethren are readers. I would wish them, 
in their studies, to avoid the contracted, and embrace 
the expanded. They have now opportunities for gain¬ 
ing knowledge, which we, in our early days, sighed in 
vain to obtain. If they use their opportunities, they 
may soon be a-head of their present instructors; but 
whilst they study gardening, they must neglect no light 
that a collateral science would yield. Every depart¬ 
ment of knowledge is merely a section of an harmonious 
unity. The more parts we are somewhat acquainted 
with, the more easily shall we comprehend the ins and 
outs of that to which our attention is specially directed. 
In these days, to approach to be a great gardener, a man 
must be a little philosopher. In his present social posi¬ 
tion, the gardener cannot be expected to be more; he 
will find it difficult to manage with less. 
True, some of our staid supports of society may 
cite poetry about “ a little knowledge being a dangerous 
thing,” and speak of smatterers in a way not the most 
alluring for youth. Honest men that they are! they 
wish to keep any little distinction they possess, not by 
advancing, but by impeding others coming up to them. 
A conceited smatterer ever brings a mixture of con¬ 
tempt and pity in his train, but even a smattering, 
when joined to humility, and earnestness of purpose, 
will conjure up many make-shifts, savings of time, and 
savings of shoe leather; matters of no little moment, if 
a first-rate gardener told me the truth the other day, 
when he stated that double the amount of labour 
had to he gone through now, that would have been 
deemed almost impossible twenty years ago. Besides, 
as “ Rome was not built in a day,” so I have an idea 
that there was a period when the greatest philosopher 
must have been a very little one. 
Our young friends, then, must not pay too much atten¬ 
tion to the wise saws of these respectable stand still gen- [ 
tlemen. “ Let the cobbler stick to his last," is one of i 
their favourite axioms; and so say I, if a man is content 
to be a mender of shoes, or, as Johnson would say, “ a 
bungler ” all his life;—in other words, if a gardener is to 
be nothing more than a digger and a lioer. Great cob¬ 
blers there have been, and are; men who have done, 
and are doing much for humanity, but they managed to 
improve upon, or throw aside the old last. Arkwright 
might have been a tolerable barber, but if lie had stuck 
to his razors, his shop, and his soap-box ; and if Watts 
had never troubled himself about the lifting of the lid of 
the tea-kettle that supplied him with hot water; ages ' 
might have passed away before society possessed the ad¬ 
vantages of the steam-vessel, the locomotive, the weaver’s 
loom, and the spinning Jenny. If our knighted gardener, 
Sir Joseph Paxton, had confined himself to the mere 
routine of his duties, leaving builders to plan structures 
for plants to live in, is it likely that we should have had 
a Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, or the well-founded ex¬ 
pectation of a more brilliant one at Sydenham, which 
the humblest gardener will be unable to visit without 
gaining some ideas for home practice ? 
Descending from such matters, wo find the same prin¬ 
ciple in active operation in the various departments of 
gardening. Exclusive attention to orm department will 
seldom insure great success there, unless there is a 
general knowledge of all the others. With that general 
knowledge, success ought to be greater than when the 
attention is greatly divided, or no benefit would flow 
from the division of labour. We thus possess the ad¬ 
vantages of generalization of ideas and concentration of 
thought. This would not be the case did writers and 
readers confine themselves to their particular depart¬ 
ment, never going beyond them for an illustration, but 
rigidly standing “like tubs on their own bottom.” 
Writers would sink into monotonous, the same-thing- 
over-again calendarists; readers would only peruse that 
which from the heading they thought would suit them, 
and thus lose most of the advantages and pleasures that 
gardening would yield to them. This applies chiefly to 
amateurs. To such, with leisure aud intelligence at 
command, we must look for most of our improvements, 
and thus they will pay back, with interest, the debt they 
owe us for our practical details. Though not greatly 
trespassing across our departmental limits, these details 
will be interesting aud useful, in proportion to the breadth 
of view with which they are developed. The man whose 
hobby is a greenhouse will thus find it his interest to 
know something about orchids, cabbages, aud pine- i 
apples. Just think of acting in a contracted spirit, and ! 
contemplate our friend, Mr. Beaton, wandering like an | 
outcast conjined to his flower-garden. Could he, or 
dared he have entered a plant-stove, aud told, as 1m did 
so nicely last week, how the denizens usually associated 
with a brow beaded with perspiration might be seen in 
their glory in a sheltered, airy grass-plot out-of-doors? j 
Would he have been allowed, without a struggle, to enter I 
a greenhouse, turn it pretty well inside out, and, from 
some of its choice beauties, select material for such gor- 
