THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 8. 
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ral position as thick as they will stand in a box, and cover them over 
with dry sand. The plants must be quite dry when taken up ; and 
no two plants must touch each other, but have sand between them. 
Himalayah Pumpkin (Q. R. S.) —Your description agrees with 
that of this pumpkin. The seed probably was misplaced. 
Grapes Shanking (II/. X. A Constant Subscriber.) —We will 
write editorially upon your case next week. Your grapes are the finest 
we ever saw grown in a greenhouse. Will you oblige us with two or 
three cuttings from your vine ? 
Moving Asparagus and Sea Kale ( C , H.) —Although your 
asparagus beds are ten years old, yet we should endeavour to move the 
plants from them, doing so next April. We should begin at one end 
of the bed, digging a trench three feet deep, and as many wide, and 
then scratch away the earth from about the roots of the plants, injur¬ 
ing them as little as possible, keeping them covered with moist straw 
until planted, and planting as fast as taken up in your new beds pre¬ 
viously prepared. Your sea-kale plants had better be moved at once. 
Budding Roses (G. Ti.) —You say that “ the w'holc of the wood 
will sliver off from the bark of the bud’s shield, and out of the eye’ 
and undoubtedly it will if you persist in “ tearing it out ” with your 
“ finger and thumb.” Use the sharp fine point of your budding 
knife, and cut the wood out in small pieces. Your vine leaves are 
very much scorched “by the rays of the sun through bad glass.” 
The insect from the potatoes and bulbs is one of the milipedes, but too 
much crushed for us to determine the species. 
Light Soil (X. Y.) —Your roses “ get weaker and smaller ;” your 
white lilies “spindle and die;” and your apple trees “ increase very 
little.” All these facts'dcmonstrate that your soil is too light and dry. 
Vou must improve its staple by giving it heavy manurings of mixed 
chalk, clay, and manure. In early spring open the ground over the 
roots of your apple and rose trees, and at three inches from the sur¬ 
face cover them with long mulchy stable dung, and then return the 
earth over this. Watering in very dry weather will be very beneficial, 
and the mulch will render its application less frequently needful. 
Gladioli still Green (Ibid). —Leave these and the Pavonia 
tigridia until the frost has cut down their leaves; then take their 
bulbs up, dry gradually, and store in a dry place until February, 
when they may be replanted. Turn your Kalrnia latifolia out of its 
pot into the border. It is quite hardy. 
Dorking Fowls (Joseph Richardson, Thorne, Yorkshire).- —Our 
correspondent will be obliged by being informed where he can obtain 
these fowls. 
Cauliflowers (A. Z.).—We give directions from time to time as 
necessary for cultivating these. Salt and lime is a very good dressing 
for ground on which cabbages are grown, but they require rich de¬ 
composing manure besides. 
Ferns (W. L. Watson).— You may dry these between blotting- 
paper like any other botanical specimens, but this is not within our 
province. 
Carpenter’s Physiological Botany ( G .).—You can have this 
separate from the other volumes. 
Heating a Pit ( J. Jl., Helper). —The mode of heating you pro¬ 
pose is just one of the modifications of Polmaise, and may succeed 
provided your house is not large, and you can attend to it yourself. 
Mr. Fish has used the same principle as an auxiliary to other modes 
of heating ; and some of his acquaintances have succeeded by such 
means to their highest expectations ; but others have entirely failed, 
and not having had the opportunity to try it ourselves we should not 
like to advise you definitely upon the subject. Of course, you will 
have dampers for the chimney, and we should propose having the fire¬ 
place wider, that the fuel might rest on the side of the bars. Our 
opinion, however, is, that if not at the first, yet a small hot-water 
apparatus would be cheapest in the end. We saw a nice little boiler, 
a short time since, cast with four flanges for heating two small houses, 
which, at a country foundry, cost only a guinea, and two or three 
inch iron pipes are cheap enough. To avoid casting knees and bends 
these parts might all consist of lead; and, upon the whole, though 
not desirous of throwing cold water upon your plan, we should advise 
you to take an estimate of both methods before committing yourself 
to either. 
Hawthorn Berries (II. II. H.). —The haws which you picked 
up in the Derby Arboretum will grow if perfectly ripened,—mix 
them with a little sand in a flower-pot saucer, and leave them ex¬ 
posed to the wintry weather until next February ; then sow them in 
drills, six inches apart, in a light soil, and bury them an inch below 
the surface. 
Sweepings of Furnace-flues (J. D., Renfrewshire).— Sweep¬ 
ings, such as the sample sent, consisting of much sand, a little 
powdered chalk, and less soot, will do excellently for rendering your 
stiff loam more friable. It might be used for the same purpose to 
the soil for carnations and verbenas. 
Pceony Tubers (Henry, a young gardener). —These tubers, 
which have no crown buds, will not grow at all. Why divide so 
close ? An old stool can be separated into many plants. 
Sweet-water Grape in Pots (Ibid). — it is very doubtful 
whether your plants of this grape will succeed in pots, but you can 
try. The sweet-water is the worst of grapes for pot culture; the 
fruit sets so badly. 
Seedling Ixias (G. G). —These have leaves, you say, two or three 
inches high. They are safe enough ; keep them in the box where 
they are growing until they finish their growth next May. Your 
Ranunculus seed may be sown next February. 
Spent Bark and Stable Manure (A. T. B.).— This mixture is 
good for currants and gooseberries ; also, at the bottom of beds for 
the hyacinth and narcissus ; but the roots of the anemone and ranun¬ 
culus being fine, might be injured by it. As a general top dressing, 
lay the spent tan about an inch thick over your flower borders, and do 
not dig it in until the winter is over. Phloxes will bear it three 
inches deep. 
Lophosphermum Cuttings (Ibid). —You need not. repot these, 
which are rooted, until next March. Your Cineraria seedlings still 
in their first pots will soon require others a size larger. We do not 
know such a tree as Juniperus lambertiana. Perhaps you mean Cu- 
pressus lambertiana, which is now found to be the same as C. macro- 
carpa. If you do, it is quite hardy, and one of the handsomest of 
evergreens. 
Heating a Small Greenhouse (A constant Reader). — The 
cheapest way for you, as “ a labouring man,” to keep the frost out of 
your small greenhouse, would be to have four three-gallon stone bot¬ 
tles filled with boiling water, corked, and put into your greenhouse at 
night and whenever necessary. 
Forest Tree Seeds (J. M II., Gorey ).—In an answer to another 
correspondent to-day, you will find how to treat your haws. Acorns, 
beech-mast, and ash-keys, require no particular treatment. They 
only require to be sown now in rows; the acorns and beech-mast 
about two inches deep, and the ash-keys one inch deep. They may 
be sown either where they are to remain or in nursery beds. Char¬ 
coal is only useful to greenhouse plants used as drainage instead of 
crocks, and a few pieces mixed up with the soil. It should be used in 
lumps about the size of a nutmeg. 
Pear Tree Over-vigorous (A. A. Z.). —Your tree produces 
luxuriant shoots, and is still green with a few blossoms, when the 
leaves of all others have fallen. Your pear case appears to be a case 
of inveterate grossness. The more you get “gardening jobbers” to 
close prune it, the more wood and the less fruit you will obtain. Let 
us advise you first to search for tap roots, w 7 hich cut entirely away. 
Next, apply a compost on the surface, which will coax and increase 
surface-roots, and, as to pruning, we would thin out clean all the 
very gross shoots of the past season, and tie down the remaining ones 
all over the tree, without shortening them. You must give up crop¬ 
ping for six feet on each side the tree for a while. 
Bees (E. F.). — Unless the place your bees are now in be very 
damp, let them remain where they are till the middle of February. 
Had you to remove them three or four miles it might be done now 
with safety, but removing them only fifty yards will, at all times, be 
attended with some loss, perhaps, less in February than at the pre¬ 
sent time. (Q. 11. S.). —You say that the bees you put into your 
“five-glass cottage hive” would not use the glasses. In all pro¬ 
bability the swarm was a weak one, or a late one; see w’ell to it 
that they have at least eighteen pounds of honey in store at this time, 
if not make them up to that weight immediately by feeding. If you 
can, give them honey in the combs at the top of the hive, if not use 
the feeder figured at 136, vol. 1, of the Cottage Gardener. When 
the stock is made to possess eighteen pounds of honey, shut up the 
openings at top, and at the end of April put on the five-glasses, each 
containing a small piece of white comb, and a supply of honey will be 
almost certain. (J. W .G.). —Your bees ought to weigh eighteen 
pounds, and the cottage hive is three pounds more, making in all 
twenty-one pounds. If they do not weigh so much they will do you 
no good. A cast may always be known by attaching itself to the side of 
the hive immediately upon being hived, which a swarm very seldom 
does, but to the centre. 
Error. —At p. 51, col. 2, line 11 from the bottom, propolis is said 
to be bee-bread: this was not Mr. Payne’s mistake. They are very 
different substances. Bee-bread seems to be the pollen of flowers, 
but propolis is a resinous substance well described by the Rev. C. A. A. 
Lloyd at p. 241 of our first volume. 
Caponizing (M. A., Maidstone ).—This is a barbarous custom, 
and its details unsuited for our columns. If you persist in requiring 
information, you will find it in Richardson’s book on “ The Domestic 
Fowl,” price one shilling. 
Distinguishing Classes of Roses (F. L.). —You ask, “How 
can the classes of roses be distinguished from each other by their 
wood, foliage, habit, See.?” and we wish that we could give you this 
information. At present, the classification of roses is in many re¬ 
spects arbitrary; and the classes are so needlessly numerous, as to 
defy the most intelligent florists and rose-growers to give definite 
characteristics of each. We hope, before long, to see the classes 
reduced to less than half their present number, and those which are 
retained marked by easily understood distinctive characters. 
Tan for Gardening Purposes (R. H. B.). —Whenever tan is 
used as a manure it should be in a decomposed state. We do not re¬ 
commend any manure to be put upon the soil about to be planted 
with potatoes. We think that charred tan would do as well as charred 
peat to mix with pig dung, &c. 
Laying Out Flower-bed (S. E. M., Haverfordwest). —People 
differ so widely about the shapes and laying out of flower-beds that, 
we have long since resolved never to give advice on the subject. For 
ourselves, we prefer circular or oval beds, and any with sharp points 
and angles we particularly dislike, but we have no right to dictate on 
matters of taste to others. To make the best of a few small flower¬ 
beds they ought now to be planted with spring bulbs, and about the 
beginning of next April to be planted with the best, kinds of autumn- 
sown annuals, between the bulbs, to flower in May, and then to be 
planted with spring-sown annuals that will transplant in June, or try 
the more fashionable half hardy plants. Follow Mr. Beaton’s notes 
on this subject for more advice. 
Names of Plants (J. P. B. F .).—Your flower is a Heliantlius, 
and we believe it to be II. angustifalius, or Narrow-leaved sunflower. 
(C. G. R.) —The small tree, of which you sent us a leaf and two seed 
vessels, is the Staphylea pinnata, or Bladder nut. It is a native of 
England, and in some countries its nuts are strung as beads by Roman 
Catholics to form their rosaries. The kernels, though bitter, are 
eaten in some countries. 
London : Printed by Harry Wooldridge, 147, Strand, la tac 
Parish of Saint Mary-le-Strand; and Winchester High-3treet, in 
the Parish of St. Mary Kalendar; and Published by William 
Somerville Orr, at the Office, 147, Strand, in the Parish of 
Saint Mary-le-Strand, London.—November 8th, 1849. 
