October 11. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
23 
as a small quantity thinly spread on the children’s 
bread would make it much more satisfying, for bread 
alone does not appease hunger half so soon as when 
accompanied with butter, lard, &c. In my neighbour¬ 
hood the poor are so extremely poor, that it is impos¬ 
sible to think that they could make even blackberry 
jam for their children’s food; but in some cases this 
might be done, and I think with profit. Where bees 
are kept the honey would turn to good account if kept 
for this purpose, instead of being sold for a trilling 
sum, which is soon spent. One or two hives at least 
might be kept for the children’s use, and they would 
certainly thrive well upon it. If the cottager’s wife 
would send her children to gather blackberries, she 
might make them, in return, excellent puddings at 
scarcely any expense, for by simply stirring the fruit 
into flour, with sufficient water to make it all hold 
together, and then tying it up in a cloth, she will not 
need suet, and a very little sugar or treacle will give 
it proper sweetness. Apples cut into small pieces, 
gooseberries, and indeed any fruit made into puddings 
of this kind are very good, very cheap, and therefore 
very useful; and during the blackberry season dinners 
of this kind would be cheaper than bread, and the 
fruit would be more safely eaten than when devoured 
in a raw state by hungry children. A hedge of black¬ 
berry plants has been recommended in The Cottage 
Gardener as a fence, and admirable would be its 
use and appearance too. The cottager might have 
a beautiful, useful, and secure boundary to his garden, 
if he were to throw up a bank, and plant it with 
blackberry plants. He might cover the inner side of 
the bank with strawberries, and make it profitable 
too. No space need be lost, and every spot of ground 
that is turned to account adds to the beauty and the 
profit of the little homestead. How many beerhouses 
would be closed, how many empty seats in churches 
would be filled, how many suffering village shop¬ 
keepers would thrive, how many light hearts and 
happy faces would be seen, if cottagers would but 
“ study to be quiet,” “ do their own business and work 
with their own hands,” that they “ may walk honestly 
toward them that are without, and that they may 
have lack of nothing.” A parish then would be indeed 
one blooming garden; “ trees of righteousness” would 
beautify it; there would be “no breaking in, or going 
out,” and “ no complaining in our streets.” 
True happiness, whether in a palace or a cottage, 
consists only in walking closely and humbly with 
God. Let the cottage gardener remember this, and 
his path will then ever be one of pleasantness and 
peace. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Beer-drinking (A Tee-total Subscriber ).—We cannot do more 
justice to you, as an able advocate of a good cause, than by inserting 
the following extract from your letter:—“This week you have stepped 
out of the garden and put your foot into the mash-tub ; and here you 
must not be angry if you find yourself at once in hot water with all 
your teetotal readers, and I hope you have a legion of them. At p. 
338 you say, ‘ Not that we would debar the cottager from a moderate 
quantity of wholesome beer,’ &c. You know that there are thou¬ 
sands of intelligent and good men who are now trying to convince 
the cottagers, the artizans, and all the industrial classes of England, 
the true philsophy of drink. They have introduced joy and comfort 
into thousands of cottage homes by dispelling this same delusion 
about wholesome beer, and it grieves them to find a writer like your¬ 
self, with whom they cordially sympathise in your general advice, 
confirming a prejudice in favour of a beverage which has wrought 
such deadly ills in every rural district in our beloved country. Do 
not let any little imaginary pleasure or benefit connected with ‘ a 
drop of beer’ blind your poorer readers to the danger of the pot; 
experience proves that it is very easy to give it up altogether, but 
very difficult to drink only a little. Good Will Shakspeare gave good 
advice when he said, ‘ Oh ! that men should put a thief into thei r 
mouth to steal away their brains 1 ’ ” 
Dahlia Sportive (C. S., Mile End). —Your dahlia having dark 
flowers on one branch and light flowers on the other is not uncom¬ 
mon, it is a variableness to which all flowers are liable; next year 
probably the flowers will be all dark or all light. You can move your 
cherry-tree as soon as the leaves have all fallen. 
Wasps in April (J. S. L-). —It is possible that you might catch 
queen wasps at that season by hanging bottles of beer and sugar 
syrup about your south wall; at all events every one destroyed at 
that season prevents the formation of a nest. 
Erecting a Small Greenhouse {Ibid). —If we were situated as 
you are we should refer to p. 119 of The Cottage Gabdenee, and 
follow the directions there given ; obtain the rafters, bars, &c., all 
ready cut and planed, from Mr. Montgomery, of the Brentford Saw 
Mills, Middlesex ; buy the requisite glass from some wholesale house, 
and then, by the aid of the village carpenter and bricklayer, put it 
together. You might erect that described in our 52nd number in 
the same way. We cannot subject our correspondents to private 
applications. 
Fumes from Pig-styes {J. B.).— Cleaning the stye out daily; 
sprinkling it and the dung heap with chloride of lime is the most 
effectual mode of mitigating the stench. 
Wintering Geraniums (W. H. IF.).—You will have seen what 
Mr. Beaton said in our last number. From that, and our answers at 
pp. 304 and 307, may be obtained all that can be said on the subject. 
Either your frame or your stable will do for their winter quarters, if 
you pot your rooted cuttings and follow' the advice there given. 
Exhausted Cucumber Beds (J . W. II.). —These will not do to 
grow radishes in during the winter; but they will answer well for win¬ 
tering cauliflower and lettuce plants, for production early next year. 
Poultry Feeding (J. II .).—Our correspondent (as well as our¬ 
selves) will be obliged by Mr. Haynes, of Daneford, writing us a 
detailed account of “how he feeds his fowls, the time and quantity of 
each meal, and any other information he is so fortunate as to possess 
relative to management which affords him the good return he has 
described.” 
Dressing Flower Borders {Beta). —Dig the flower beds as 
soon as the plants are removed: leaving the surface rough for the 
frost to crumble. Your wood ashes will benefit the flowers next sea¬ 
son, if worked in now. 
Moving Anemone Seedlings (P. H.). —You have prepared a 
bed for their flowering next spring, and ask when you ought to move 
the young things which are healthy and growing a little ? Seedling 
anemones should not be disturbed while they are growing. It 
weakens them and retards their flowering. You had much better 
plunge the box or pots into the ground early in the spring. 
Scarlet Salvias not Flowering {J. L., Tranmere). —Your 
salvias have grown to a great size this year, but have scarcely flowered 
at all. Our own salvias behaved in a similar manner this season. 
Cut them down on the approach of hard frost, and remove the 
bottoms, with all the soil that will adhere to the roots, and keep them 
free from frost, in sand. They will spring up in March or April, 
when they may be divided into small pieces, and planted out in light 
poor soil, which has been deeply stirred. Your question about plants 
to flower in the spring w r as answered to another correspondent last 
week. 
British Queen Strawberry {H. L. Jenner ).—We have no fear 
that you will not be able to cultivate this strawberry near the sea, in 
Cornwall, although the soil is “ like so much Irish snuff.” The 
British Queen does not dislike a light soil, provided it is rich and 
trenched very deep. We should trench the soil three feet deep, and 
mix thoroughly-decayed stable dung throughout the texture of the 
soil to that depth. Your being near the sea is also in your favour, 
and so is the moistness of the climate. 
Sea-kale and Asparagus {J. A.).— You must have dressed 
your sea-kale beds too soon; the leaves surely were not dead. How¬ 
ever, as you have done it now leave them alone. As to your asparagus 
beds, you will have seen full directions for dressing them in our last 
number. 
Heating Greenhouse {Constant Subscriber). —Situated as your 
greenhouse is, it might be heated very easily by means of a boiler 
fitted at the back of your breakfast room fire, and with a pipe running 
from the boiler round the greenhouse. A Walker’s stove would also 
answer your purpose. You could obtain it through any respectable 
ironmonger. 
Model Flowers (W. R. W. Smith ).—Thanks for your sugges¬ 
tion—we will adopt it as soon as we can. 
Fig Over-luxuriant {Rev. T. G. Simcox ).—Your ten years old 
fig on an east wall, on a poor hungry soil, grows too rank, and upon 
stopping the shoots you find it bleeds much, and you ask our advice. 
We would take up your fig and replant it, raising the bed or border 
a foot above the ground level, taking care not to make it wide—say 
three feet at the most. The soil should be any poor fresh soil, with 
which some old lime rubbish may be incorporated. No pruning will 
avail whilst the tree has an unlimited range of root. You need not 
fear the tree bleeding to death. Figs will undergo almost any amount 
of this. In fact, it is difficult to kill a large fig, except by intense frost. 
Geranium Cuttings Crowded {R.J. Y).—Pot them now, rather 
than in the spring, into pots about 5 inches in diameter, usually 
called 48’s. 
Sisyrincihum Bermudianum {W. M. H). —If, ns you say, “ the 
place where this was found (near Corfe Castle) has not certainly been 
cultivated, or had any care bestowed upon it for 50 years,” and if 
it has not come from any chance sown seed, we think it might be 
