92 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 15. 
leave the rest state—in other words, they are naturally very excitable. 
Let the runners spread freely on all sides, and do not meddle with 
them, except by spreading some rich manure among them imme¬ 
diately. This will protect their crowns, and be nearly vanished by 
next March. For new beds get Kean’s seedling, the British Queen, 
and the Elton. Any truly respectable nurseryman will furnish white 
Raspberry canes. 
Heating a Flued Wall (An East Lothian Sub .).—You should 
have stated the length of your wall, and we then could have thrown 
out suggestions better adapted to your purpose. We should say 
that, by your arrangement, one tire would heat nearly forty yards in 
length : of course, two would do it better. Now, if you have a fur¬ 
nace extra, it will be better than having too little power; such need 
not entail any additional expense ; hazard the mere outlay for the 
furnace. You must bear in mind that the farther the heat travels the 
more it becomes dissipated. Much, however, depends on the kinds 
of fruit, and their arrangement on the wall. Pears and plums would 
not be injured under judicious arrangments: they of course would be 
at the end farthest from the tire. Take off your tiles now, and let 
the rain enter; only take care there is a free egress from the boxes. 
The latter should now be surrounded and covered with litter of any 
kind, merely to ward off extremely low temperature. 
Pines on the Hamiltonian System (J. W .)—Your plants 
should have produced fruit before now. Your bottom heat of 84° 
is too exciting, pray drop 10° from now until February. It ought to 
be understood, however, that the suckers from established Hamil¬ 
tonians will fruit more speedy than the original plants. It would 
appear that the older the plants get the sooner they “ show.” 
Have another winter’s patience, moderate your heats, and withhold 
water entirely from their roots for many weeks, and write us again. 
Be sure to ventilate freely. We would not take the vines out; let 
them be fastened as near to the roof as possible. Give more air, even 
on account of the vines, for your case is a compromise, as half gar¬ 
dening matters are. Prune immediately, and use white lead on each 
cut. By all means keep out all the wet you can. Also, pray put 
several inches of litter or leaves on the border. 
Yellow Acacia Cuttings (A Pnest).— You have struck some 
cuttings in 48 sized pots, according to our directions at page 123 of 
vol. 2, and you ask how you ought to treat them ? Keep the cuttings 
in those pots till the end of March; then pot them separately in three- 
inch pots in loam, peat, and sand, mixed in equal proportions. Keep 
them in the hot-bed till midsummer, and then shift them into other 
pots one size larger, using one half loam : after that return them to 
the hot-bed for a month, and by St. Swithin’s-day remove them to 
the greenhouse. Do not expose them to the open air till the follow¬ 
ing summer. 
Gladioli in Pots (It. J. Y .)—If grown singly put one in a six- 
inch pot. Your bulbs of G. cardinalis and G. byzantinus, not larger 
than those of the crocus, will probably not flower next year. A six- 
inch upright pot is sufficient for one large bulb of gladioli, and for 
three such bulbs as you bought. The best way is to put five bulbs in 
a nine-inch pot—one in the middle and the rest at equal distances 
round the side. 
Angle of Houses (W. S. Watson ).—In using the quadrant, for 
determining the angles of hothouse roofs, as recommended a short 
time ago, you must count from the commencement of the arch, and 
not from the middle, and then, wherever the knob hangs, that will 
indicate the angle. If, in your case, it hangs at 75°, then you will 
find the roof is flatter than that marked as 70° in the diagram, p. 257, 
vol. ii. There is a want of definiteness in this respect among gar¬ 
dening authors, for some of them, counting as it were backwards, 
would say that your roof was placed at an angle of 15°; but the 
mode adopted is generally understood from the preceding and fol¬ 
lowing context. We prefer the mode recommended as the simplest. 
Many Questions (AnAnxious Gardener). — Roses. —Young plants 
in cold pits should not be pruned until spring. They may be pro¬ 
tected from frost by sticking fern amongst them, or covering the 
glass with mats, straw, hurdles, &c. Espalier Pears .—You might 
lay in a young shoot here, and there between the main shoots, which 
are a foot apart, but it should have been done in summer, and the 
others shortened. See, however, that the leaves from one shoot will 
not shade those belonging to another. Camellias .—Those that do 
not please you will not be improved in appearance now by setting 
them on a stage for several weeks out of doors, though, if you protect 
them, they may be little the worse. We think they would be better 
housed. See a late article on the subject. Asparagus .-—Do not cut 
or trim your asparagus roots at all that you intend forcing. Take 
them up as whole as possible. Set the crowns close together, and 
if the roots overlop each other, it will not signify if a little light earth 
is worked in amongst them. Fuchsias .—If the fuchsias remain in the 
greenhouse they must be kept slowly growing, and should be pruned 
whenever the buds are fairly broken ; if in sheds, give little water, 
and prune in spring, when the new shoots are half an inch long. 
Geraniums.— Water them when dry, and not atparticular periods ; 
this will depend upon the weather, and the heat and air you give 
them, and as to whether the pots are full of roots, or the reverse. 
Forest Trees (G. B. C.). — We are glad that “ Our Village 
Walks” has aroused you to pay attention to forest trees. The only 
work that we know, combining all your requirements, scientific dis¬ 
tinctions, popular description, and drawings, is Selby on Trees. 
Dorking Fowls (T.P .).—You will see the same question asked 
at p. 82. If we receive an answer we will insert it. 
Mummy W nE at and Black Barley.— Mr. E. Palmer, of Char- 
well-street, Banbury, very liberally offers to supply any of our readers 
with a few grains of these if they will enclose him two postage stamps 
with their address. 
Cankered Parsnips (J. Butler). —The gangrene or canker in 
your parsnips is caused by the w'etness of your soil, which you say is 
“ very heavy.” Take them up immediately, and store them between 
layers of sand or other dry material. Drain your ground by all means, 
and trench it, so as to bring a small portion of “the loose strong 
subsoil” to mix with the surface soil. If in addition to this you mix 
some coal-ashes and bricklayers’ limy rubbish with it, you will improve 
the staple for growing both parsnips and potatoes, and, indeed, for all 
vegetables. Do not plant your potatoes until February, but keep them 
until then in dryish earth or sand. Flour-ball potatoes are good for 
autumn-planting in moderately light soil. 
Hard-water (Dianthus.) —Instead of a pint of gas anunoniacal 
liquor added to 60 gallons, as recommended at p. 9, you may put in 
anjouncejof carbonate of ammonia from the druggist’s. It is all the 
better to make the mixture a day or two before using it. We have 
not forgotten about the flower-pots. Place the supplementary num¬ 
ber at the end of the volume. 
Weigelia rosea (W. R. I.). —This is quite hardy. Paxton’s 
Botanical Dictionary is stereotyped, and, therefore, what has been 
since discovered to be a mistake (a mistake on the right side) could 
not be corrected. Hypericum chinense, or nepalense, is a green¬ 
house evergreen shrub. 
Potato Onion (J. M. C.). —Plant now on the surface of alight 
moderately-rich, fresh-dug soil. Cover each bulb with a little heap 
of leaf-mould or very rotten dung. Plant eight inches apart. Do not 
earth them up, but as soon as the leaves are full grown clear away all 
covering from the bulbs. They will be fit for storing as soon as the 
leaves are dead in July, 
Scarlet Geranium (E. L .).—Your plant has “ three very thick 
brown branches, and the same number of green branches,” and you 
wish to know which you should cut off and fold in paper. The “three 
very thick brown branches” are the oldest and ripest, therefore the 
best to retain on the plant, and \yould also be the best to cut off for 
preserving in paper till the spring; but our friend Mr. Beaton has 
told us long since that that experiment was more curious than useful; 
nevertheless, you may try the three green shoots that way, cutting 
them to one joint from the old wood, and you will oblige us if you let 
us know next February how you succeeded, that being a good time 
to plant the cuttings. 
Ixia Seeds ( L. L .).—The proper time to sow the seeds of ixias, 
and all other bulbs which rest periodically, is that at which they 
naturally begin to grow. Ixias, sparaxis, and some gladioli, begin to 
grow at the end of September, therefore that is the proper time to 
sow their seeds. Sow yours immediately. Upright pots are manu¬ 
factured at all the potteries. 
Guernsey' Lily (A. A., Clericus). —The offset which is shooting 
up from the bulb of your Guernsey lily will be of no use to you. 
When the bulb has done flowering throw the whole away, and use 
the pot for some other plant. 
Ridging (Ibid). —Without reference to the communication you 
mention, we will state the most effectual mode of performing the 
operation described by Mr. Parkins, as quoted in Johnson's Garden¬ 
er’s Almanac. Let abed 
represent a section of the 
ground to be thrown into 
ridges, and trenched two feet 
deep. Measure the ground 
into beds four feet wide ; 
then lay the top spit of the 
bed e on the bed g, and the second spit of c on the bed h ; then 
the top spit of f on h, so that the top soil and the subsoil are 
kept on separate and alternate beds, and may be either mixed, re¬ 
versed, or returned, as the gardener may wish. When the first 
thrown out beds are sufficiently pulverized they are levelled down, 
and others thrown out in the same way. g h i represent the ridges 
thrown out, and left as rough as possible. 
Dahlias (R. Reynoldson),— Any of the florists who advertise in 
our columns will supply them. 
Brambles for Bee-hive Making (A Reader, Pinxton). —Our 
correspondent wishes to know the proper time for getting these for 
sowing together the bands of straw hives, of what age they ought to 
be, and how to manage them ? We will publish an extract from 
your note. 
Johnson’s Gardeners’ Almanack (Columella). —It contains 
fresh information every year. Keep your dissolved bones to apply to 
growing crops in the spring. 
Name of Plant (Rev. A. Slight) —Your evergreen twining-plant, 
as well as we can make out from the dried specimen, is Kennedya 
Sterlingii. Introduced from Swan River in 1834. 
Ash Tree (Ibid).—' This being “a noble-tree, and adding to the 
appearance of the house,” we should not cut down, as it is situated in 
the part of the garden devoted only to ornament. It is quite true 
that very few plants will grow beneath it, but then the grounds might 
be so plotted out that you would not require them to do so ; and, re¬ 
member, when you cut down a noble tree you do that which you will 
never live to see replaced. You may arrange your flowers and shrubs 
—may move and replace them in a thousand modes to be beautiful— 
but a tree, forming a handsome feature about a residence, can never 
have the 'vacancy it leaves replenished during a lifetime of ordinary 
extent. 
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London : Printed by Harry Wooldridge, 147, Strand, in the 
Parish of Saint Mary-le-Strand; and Winchester High-street, 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 15th, 184g. 
