THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 22 
104 
he partly withheld. Are you sure the soil in their pots has been rpiite 
dry. The amount of dryness which a pine will endure is truly 
astonishing. 
Mummy Wheat (77. G. II., Kin soil ).—Someone of our readers 
has kindly sent a few grains of this for you. If you will let us know 
your direction they shall he forwarded to you. 
IIi malayaii Pumpkin Seed (A. N. U., Birkenhead ).— Send us 
your direction. 
1’orous Saucers (A Constant Reader). —The saucers for flower¬ 
pots, which you obtain at Manchester, let the water pass through 
their pores. Try giving them a coating of hot gas tar, and then 
paint them. 
Diseased Vine Leaf (T. 73.).— This seems most severely attacked 
with mildew ; hut it is too dry, and we arc too much in the dark as 
to where it is grown for ns to say more. 
Memoir of Clement Hoarf. (A Lover of Vines). — We shall 
he very ready to insert a biographical sketch of this gentleman, if 
those who possess the materials will send them to us. 
Stocks (11. C .).— The annual kinds must he sown in February, 
but the biennial, Brompton stocks, you must not sow until May or 
June. The age of the moon when you sow is of no consequence. 
You cannot tell which seedling will produce single or double flowers 
until the flower-buds are well formed. If any of the double specimens 
happen to have any stamens not changed into petals, or flower leaves, 
these would he advisably employed to impregnate the single blossoms. 
Worms in a Ward’s Case (A Subscriber). —Water the soil 
with lime-water, which will either kill them or drive them to the sur¬ 
face, where you can catch them. 
Plan for Greenhouse (An Amateur). — We cannot furnish 
you with this. You will find full general directions on the subject at 
p. 1 iy of our first volume, being No. 12. 
Pea Sticking (Rev. ./. S. Lievre). —The result of our experi¬ 
ments has been a full confirmation of the efficacy of the supporters 
of which we gave a drawing at p. 271 of our second volume ; only, in¬ 
stead of placing them perpendicular, we find that the most efficient 
position is leaning inwards, so as to touch at the top, like an inverted 
A. Your other question next week. A letter passed yours. 
Potato-planting (TV., Birmingham). —As your ground “is 
rather strong,” throw it up into ridges, and let it remain through 
the winter. Plant in February during dry weather, and keep your 
sets between layers of earth until then. 
Potato-planting with a Dibble (.1. 717., Dublin). — Opening 
a trench with the spade, and planting the sets at the bottom of it, 
may be the most expeditious mode, and may be generally practised 
near Dublin, but it is not the best mode. It is accompanied by one 
or all of the following objectionable consequences : irregularity of 
depth, irregularity of rows, and trampling on the dug soil. Wc al¬ 
ways have a sufficient space for one row dug, stretch affine across, 
and with a blunt-ended dibble, two inches in diameter, with a mark 
to show when it has been thrust in eight inches, make holes at the 
required distances, into each of which a set is dropped. The spades¬ 
man, or digger, fills with his spade the holes 11 as he follow's the 
setter. We should indeed like to have some of yonr Queen's Cluster 
potatoes that produced “ from 40 to 120 tubers a stalk this year.” 
If you can send us a few we will gladly pay the carriage. 
Gesnera Douglasii and Zebrina (Lancustriensis). — Your 
plants, so healthy and strong, showing flowers which do not open, 
will be more likely to please you in that respect if you gradually 
lower the temperature from 75° during the day to Go 0 , and at night 
from Go° to 50° or 55°. If you were to continue the same too-high 
temperature, and gave them in addition a close moist atmosphere, 
you would very likely get scaly tubers instead of flowers, as men¬ 
tioned in the article upon the acliimencs. Such heat is very proper 
for starting and growing, but not for flowering them. We have 
plenty at present in a cold house, but the frost will soon speak for 
them. In such a house as you have they will be very beautiful all 
the winter. The subject will be adverted to ere long, meanwhile see 
that the roots of those done flowering are kept in a temperature not 
lower than 40° or 45°, as if lower than that they are apt to be injured. 
Room opening into Greenhouse (IF. .!.).—The back wall of 
the room leading to the greenhouse being only seven feet from the 
glass on a south aspect, is very suitable to grow camellias on, and will 
seldom want the aid of the greenhouse. You had better plant as 
many as will nearly fill the space at once any time next February or 
March. Being fourteen feet long, four plants will not be too many, 
and you can remove any of them afterwards when they get crowded. 
Plant the old double white, or the white fimbriuta, the double varie¬ 
gated, the red imbricatn, and tricolor or donklaeri, or you can make 
another selection from our former lists. 
Geraniums Cut Down (IF. 717. 77.).— Having cut down your 
plants at the beginning of October, they have sent out shoots about 
two inches long, and you ask whether you should root-prune and re¬ 
pot them ? No ; it is the safest treatment not to shake them out until 
the end of January ; and do not disturb your rooted geranium 
cuttings until March. 
Tropceolum tricolorum (Ibid). —After your tubers have been 
potted about a month, two small shoots have made their appearance. 
This is quite right; the more shoots they make from the bottom the 
better. See you not do give them much water till the trellis is nearly 
covered. 
Dolichos lignosus (Ibid). —Let this evergreen twiner, as well as 
Cobuea scundens, remain without shifting in their pots, seven inches 
in diameter, until next March, and then move them into pots two 
sizes larger. 
Fuchsias (Ibid). —It was too soon to cut down fuchsias about the 
beginning of October ; the best way is to leave them out of doors as 
late as it is safe to do so without fear of harm from frost, then to cut 
out the green parts, and store them for the winter anywhere where 
the frost cannot reach them. Could you not get a small stove to heat 
your domestic conservatory ? If not, you will have to cover the glass 
in very severe frost, and keep your plants almost dry. 
Pegging-down Roses (Beta). —Your China, Tea-scented, and 
Bourbon roses, from cuttings of last year, had better be pegged down 
in March, after the winter frosts are over, as, in all probability, a few 
of the shoots of such young plants will be more or less injured by it, 
if we should have a severe winter. The plan of pegging-down roses 
is not, however, a good one, and less so with Chinas, Tea, and Bour¬ 
bon, than with the old sorts, and the reason is this, the bent shoots 
will not grow any longer, and a fresh supply of stronger shoots will 
issue from below the bent parts, and run away with the nourishment 
which ought to reach the horizontal branches to enable them to bloom 
finely. 
Tropieolum Tticoi.orum (Hunch). —Your tubers have each 
thrown up two strong shoots, and you need not mind that they have 
not come up in the middle of the pot. The “fine old Scotch gen¬ 
tleman,” whom you name, says the more shoots which a tropceolum 
sends forth the better. They prove that Mr. Denyer, of Gracechurch- 
street, from whom you bought them, sends out creditable bulbs. 
Coil all that grow, and take care that the pots arc not watered much 
till these very tiny shoots get up, and are well clothed with leaves ; the 
tubers will supply them in the meantime with sufficient nourishment, 
but the soil must not get quite dry. If you water once in three weeks 
until the end of January it will suffice. 
Leaves for IIot-beds (Ibid). —Tree leaves for making hot-beds 
next spring should be “ in the dry” all winter, and if that is not 
convenient, they ought to be in thin layers, so that they neither heat 
or get rotten by damp, until within about five weeks of the time when 
they will be required. 
Removing Sea Kale and Rhubarb (J. TV.). —These roots, 
which are two and three years old, and must be removed, had better 
be taken up forthwith. Injure them as little as possible, and replant 
them forthwith. 
Geranium Cuttings ( Nilesperandtim ).—Boxes nine inches wide, 
and as many deep, will do for geraniums; but those “struck this 
autumn” had better not be moved until spring. Charring the inside 
of boxes is the best mode of keeping them from decay, and you may 
paint them after. Holes through the bottom of each box three inches 
apart, and half an inch in diameter, will allow the drainage water to 
escape. 
Orchids for a Greenhouse (A. TV. II .).—We are not quite 
sure w'hetlier you mean the same kind of house as we gardeners 
term greenhouse; by that term we understand a house that requires 
no artificial heat beyond just keeping out the frost. If you mean a 
house of this kind, there are very few, if any, orchids that will exist 
in it, excepting one or two species from New Holland, such as Den- 
drobium speciosum, arid tetragonum, and other small species from 
the same country. Your question about whether there are any in 
Epping or Hainault forests is rather a strange one. There may be 
some terrestrial species in those woods, and curious plants they are, 
if any grow there. West Kent is the most prolific of British orchids, 
and you may obtain them from a florist, Mr. R. Sims, near Foot’s 
Cray, Kent, at moderate prices. 
Heating by Gas (A Tiverton Subscriber). —You have placed in 
the middle of your small greenhouse a lantern-shaped tin case, without 
holes and quite close, and supplied with oxygen by the means of a pipe 
brought from without, and in which tin case the jet of gas burns, the 
noxious gases ascending through the pipe which is carried up through 
the roof. Now this being contrary to our advice given in the 48th 
Number, you have forebodings as regards the probable results, al¬ 
though the noxious gases are supposed to be confined within the tin 
case. In your apparatus you need not have any fear of injury from 
the gases given off from the burning gas; and we shall be glad to 
know, when the winter is over, the size of your greenhouse, the quan¬ 
tity of gas consumed in heating it, and to what temperature you could 
keep it during frosty nights. For a very small greenhouse a tin case 
holding a gallon of water would be sufficient for supplying a flow and 
return pipe on the hot-water system of heating. The size of the 
boiler is of little consequence, but to supply it with heat as fast as is 
necessary is the important point. Your young plants, with their roots 
through the holes in the pots, may be shifted now into pots a size 
larger, if you take care to disturb the roots very little. 
Swede Turnips (IF. C. G.). —For producing seed you may plant 
these at once. Mangold Wurtzel, for the same purpose, store in 
sand or ashes in a dry outhouse until February, and then plant 
them. Your suggestion we will think over. 
Coal Dust (77. A .).—This will be quite as beneficial an applica¬ 
tion to a heavy soil to render its staple more open, as if the dust was 
previously reduced to ashes. We cannot tell you within the compass 
of an answer to a correspondent “ the characteristic points of a good 
Chrysanthemum.” Mr. Fish will do so, we dare say, one of these 
days. 
Filtering Rain Water (.4 Constant Subscriber).— You must 
adapt to your cistern the plans figured at pp. 141 and 21fi of our first 
volume. We know it to be effectual. 
Name of Plant (A Smatterer ).— Yours is Sphenogyne speciosa, 
a half-hardy annual, native of South America. 
London: Printed by Harry Wooldridge, 14", 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 22nd, 1849. 
