264 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
kerb-stones of houses at work, or on a back shelf; 
and their forcing may proceed at first with a tem- 
perature of 60°; advancing gradually to 70°, by 
the time that the leaves are fully developed. The 
young shoots require stopping when about five or six 
leaves are developed; this will cause them to form 
fruit at almost every eye. As before observed, drought 
is fatal to them ; they, therefore, require regular 
watering, using occasionally weak liquid manure, 
especially when swelling their fruit. 
R. Errington. 
THE ELOWE R- GARDEN. 
Propagation. —Of all things connected with gar¬ 
dening propagation on a large scale, whether by seeds 
or by cuttings, to furnish the annual supply of flower- 
garden plants, is the most enticing. To convey to 
the comparatively uninformed on such subjects, a 
clear idea of the processes connected with busy pro¬ 
pagation, even for one week, is altogether impossible 
for the pen of the most ready writer. The machinery 
must be seen in active operation to be rightly un¬ 
derstood or appreciated. I have seen ladies of the 
highest rank willingly undergo the fatigue of stand¬ 
ing 1 by the hour, in a cool potting shed, to wit¬ 
ness the stirring scene ; and X can testify from 
a long experience, that the oldest and best prac¬ 
tical gardeners in the country look forward to the 
time of spring propagation with renewed interest, 
year after year;- even the dullest boy on a large 
establishment, who one would hardly trust to draw 
a handful of radishes last June, is now sure to be 
smitten with the fever of propagation, and must try 
his luck on cast away pieces of plants from under 
the potting bench, as soon as the coast is clear for 
his private experiments, or when the men retire for 
their meals; and he will have his pot full of cuttings, 
in some out-of-your-way corner, at all hazards. 
Amateurs, too, in their own way, are just as much 
excited in this way, as any of us; but, unfortunately, 
their hobby but too often takes an uneconomical turn, 
and, instead of pushing on a really useful process, to 
multiply a host of good common plants, they must 
expend their energies in endeavouring to rear seed¬ 
lings of such things as are perfectly useless. Coffee- 
trees, tamarinds, dates, sugar-canes, ginger, cotton 
plants, and a thousand others of no better stamp, are 
the only things which are worth spending time and 
money on, according to the creed of seedmongers; 
and, after tailing annually, for the last twenty years, 
to rear one single useful plant from a thousand pack¬ 
ages ot foreign seeds, they will renew their wonted 
attempts this very spring, with all the ardour of new 
beginners. And all that can be said, by the rest 
of the gardening world, against such folly can have 
no effect on this passion tor new seedlings, let us 
drop the theme, and rather endeavour to direct part 
of this enthusiasm towards such plants as we know 
to be more suitable for the sober flower-gardener, 
and address a new class of aspirants; as, no doubt,’ 
there are many of our readers who may reasonably 
be so termed. Perhaps, a general sketch from actual 
practice, on a large scale, as carried on in the gardens 
here at Shrubland Park, this present season, will be 
as instructive as any other we could mention by 
way ol introduction. More so, at any rate, than to 
trace out one from the imagination, including in it 
all the best points of practice which prevail in the 
present day; because, in no plan, however extensive, 
can a gardener embrace all the best jiractice of the 
day in any one season; and nothing is so well con¬ 
[February 14. 
ducted in one place, but it may be improved on— 
more or less—in another. 
I mentioned last week, that we have given up here 
our former practice of propagating a large stock of 
soft wooded plants in the autumn, and now we only 
keep a sufficient stock over the winter, to supply the 
first batch or two of spring cuttings; and it follows 
then, that, with our extensive grounds, we are obliged 
to make a strong effort early in the spring, to get up 
many thousand plants in a short time. Some years 
since, we erected a long range of tank pits, by which 
we can command a steady bottom-heat, day and night, 
for a whole season; and one division of this range we 
call the “ propagating-liouse,” and it is as convenient 
as any propagator could wish for : there is a potting 
bench at one end of the passage, with conveniences 
for pots, crocks, and soil, so that, as soon as a cutting 
pot is ready for the cuttings to be potted off, the 
whole process of dividing the cuttings into sizes, 
potting them in nursing pots, watering them, and ar¬ 
ranging them on shelves or in bottom-heat, is done 
without moving from the same apartment. And this is 
the way our propagation was performed, when the 
greater part was increased in the autumn. But my pro¬ 
pagator now calls this the “old way,” and yet he has 
adopted a much older plan, indeed, the oldest on 
record, and a great deal less inconvenient for himself. 
But, so it is, and all our propagation is now carried 
on nearly on the old hot-bed system, but without 
linings : the beds are made of one-tliird stable dung 
and two-thirds leaves, prepared just as Mr. Errington 
mentioned the other day; and by the middle of J a- 
nuary, the beds were made in deep brick pits, about 
seven feet wide, having two-inch hot-water pipes run¬ 
ning close under the front glass, supplied from a pan¬ 
boiler, such as is used in “ back kitchens;” it contains 
twelve gallons of water, and costs something like ten 
pence the gallon, and is very efficient. On the top 
of the dung we place a thickness of three inches of 
pure white sand, such as is sold at five shillings 
a bushel in some parts of the country ; but we have 
a pit of it not a hundred yards from the garden. 
There is no kind of covering for a dung hot-bed 
for cuttings so good as this sand; no steam or bad 
smell can rise through it, and the hot vapour from 
the dung keeps it partially moist for a very long time, 
so as to be an excellent conductor of heat. One divi¬ 
sion of the range, that next the boiler, is appropriated 
to cutting pots, and the next division for forcing 
plants, in order to produce young tops for cuttings, 
and for nursing the young stock, as soon as the plants 
are in a condition to be removed from the cutting-bed. 
The light next to the boiler, or end light, has almost 
always a bottom-heat of from 90° to 100°, owing to 
the flue passing across the pit at that end to a chim¬ 
ney in the back corner of the pit. The top-heat of 
this division, which, by the way, has pipes all the way 
round it, is not allowed to fall below 75°, day and 
night, as no resting time is allowed to the inmates; 
and sometimes on a sunny day, the heat is above 
100°. It will thus be seen, that the growth for cut¬ 
tings, the striking of them, and the next stage of 
nursing, are all effected by a dam]) close dung-heat 
principally ; and if I had not witnessed the effects, I 
confess I could hardly believe that the difference be¬ 
tween this mode and the new way, by close tanks, 
could be so great. You may vapour-batli a tank-house 
three times a day, and use ammonia water for that 
purpose, only be careful not to use it strong, and yet 
you cannot obtain anything like the growth that is 
obtained by this dung heat; and not only that, but 
the young shoots formed in a close hot-bed will strike 
