THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
[March 7. 
316 
Night-soil ( Oxoniensis ).—This applied, without any mixture, to 
the roots of your newly-planted fruit and rose-trees is far too stimu¬ 
lating for them. It is all the worse that vour soil is light and gra¬ 
velly, for the roots will be quite stimulated enough by the drought in 
summer. Take away the night-soil, and cover the roots with mulch, 
as directed by us to-day editorially. We are glad that you are in¬ 
tending to label each tree and plant botanically, as well as with the 
common names. We cannot suggest any improvement. 
Greenhouse Facing the North (R. Heboid). — We would 
advise you to change its position. Few plants would flourish in a 
house with a north aspect, though wc think such plants as camellias, 
and ferns, and mosses, would do admirably. If you had pits, or 
another house for growing, plants would stand longer in bloom when 
brought to your present one. 
Cineraria-seed (Ibid ).—This may be sown now if you want the 
plants early, but if not kept in a shady place during summer they are 
apt to get rusty and insect-attacked. If sown in May the plants will 
be strong enough to flower about Christmas. In August you must 
grow from suckers, not seed. We know of no reason why asphalte 
should not answer admirably for the bottom of a cold pit. 
Tropceolum Canariense (Ibid ).—This will flourish alike in the 
open soil or in a pot, but it will do better if raised in a pot in the first 
place, so as to attain some size before you plant it out in May. 
Bees (M. P .).—You may hive your bees into a box of the kind you 
describe, but why not put them into a “ Taylor’s Amateur’s Hive ?” 
the best wood hive, in our opinion, ever invented. Room and ven¬ 
tilation being given in a proper manner, and properly attended to, 
swarming mug be, prevented altogether, no matter what kind of hives 
the bees are in. The holes into your upper boxes may be § of an 
inch wide, by 4 inches long. Two windows, one at the back and one 
at the side, in the bottom box, are much better than one only. The 
top of the hive is, unquestionably, the best place to supply food ; for 
the kind of food most proper, see page 240, vol. i. of The Cottage 
Gardener. Sugar alone is useless ; bees can only take it in a 
liquid state. Vox full directions for joining swarms, see page 104, 
vol. ii. 
Bees (R. S. F.). —Our correspondent’s hives face the south-east, but 
are partly shaded. One hive he weighed last year, and found it in¬ 
creased as follows :—June 29 th they then weighed 23lb.; July 7th, 261b.; 
14th, 34lb.; 28th, 33lb.; August 24tli, 37 . In the beginning of August 
he put a small wooden box upon the hive, but the bees never took to it. 
At the beginning of February, when the weather was mild, they came 
out of the hive in the middle of the day by hundreds, and the next 
day there was also many of them lying dead round about the hive, 
and there was also scattered all over the hive, hive-board, &c., small 
drops of liquid substances not unlike honey. Your bees would be 
much better if they were placed where the sun shines upon them fully 
all the day. Your situation otherwise is not at all objectionable. 
August was much too late to put on a box—it should have been done 
on the 22nd of June, three weeks after their being hived. They have 
none too much honey. In the last week of April, put the box again 
upon the top of your hive (supposing it has not been left on); and if 
you can fix a few pieces of white comb to the top of it, so much the 
better ; and follow strictly the directions given in page 41, vol. ii. of 
The Cottage Gardener, and in following numbers ; and, from so 
fine a stock as yours appears to be, you may expect a large supply of 
honey, if property managed. Our advice is, by no means to put a side- 
hive. The drops about the hive-board were the foeces of the bees. 
The dead bees lying about are those that died in the hive during the 
winter, and are now brought out. You should have saved your bees 
that trouble, by cleaning the floor-board as directed repeatedly in 
The Cottage Gardener. In all probability the pieces of wood 
with which you narrowed the entrance were the cause of the numerous 
deaths. The entrance, in all probability, became choked up with dead 
bees, and the living population were half suffocated for want of pure 
air. Stopping up with perforated zinc would have been still worse. 
Remove your bees whenever you will, considerable loss will be sus¬ 
tained ; but if you do it at all, do it immediately. Buy “ Pajme’s Bee- 
keeper’s Guide,” and you will be at no loss how to manage your 
bees in future. 
Plum Pruning (E. Marsden ).—If your plums are young, and their 
desired form not complete, you may shorten the young shoots three 
or four feet long nearly half: but why not have pinched the points 
off in July ? Pray read our back papers on the management of gross 
young wood in the summer season. Four shoots will not form a 
tree ; your pruning now ought to cause abundance to select from. 
Fruit-trees for S.E. Wall (Rhododendron) .—Surely you may 
plant peaches in Shropshire on such a soil (sandy loam), and on the 
south portion ? Mr. Errington grows first-rate peaches and necta¬ 
rines every year farther north than you. Of A/iricots , the Moorpark 
first; the Shipley, a safe bearer, and Royal. Of Plums, Coe’s Golden 
Drop, Greengage, Precoce de Tours, Reine Claude Violette, Impera- 
trice, Ickworth Imperatrice, Jefferson’s early Orleans, Quetsche St. 
Martins. Of Pears, Jargonelle, Dunmore, Fondante d’Automme, 
Beurree Diel, Winter Nielis, Passe Colmar, Urbaniste, Doyenne 
d’ Hiver Nouveau, Josephine de Malines, Hacon’s Incomparable. 
Of Cherries, the early Duke, Elton, Florence, Royal Duke, anil 
Bigarreau. Let us advise you to procure the pears on quince stocks. 
If so, however, you must alter the staple of the soil where they are 
planted, according to directions concerning the quince in our back 
numbers. 
Farming Five Acres for Cows (B. IF.).—You will see remarks 
bearing on your objects in our Allotment article for March. We would 
beg to direct your attention to the Lucerne as to a “soiling” system. 
“Cuttings” of this will help you much during the summer; and you 
will, of course, have an acre or two of hay to carry you through the 
winter. Added to this, plenty of mangold, some Swedes,' and the 
Thousand-headed cabbage, of which you should have nearly a quarter 
of an acre for early feed. Perhaps a little rye cutting may chime in 
with your arable course. You cannot have all; therefore, you will 
have to select and form a system for yourself—the system based in the 
main on the character of the soil. For mangold and Swede culture, 
watch an Allotment number for April. 
Softening Water (J. /?.).—Either carbonate of potash or car¬ 
bonate of soda will soften water, if its hardness arises from holding 
sulphate of lime (gypsum) in solution; but carbonate of ammonia 
is much to be preferred for the purpose, if the water has to be used for 
watering plants. An ounce of cither, to a hogshead of water, is 
enough to decompose all the gypsum it can contain. 
Koiil Rabi (J. Andrews). —A pound of seed will give birth to 
plants enough for several acres. Sow in the last week of this month, 
very thinly in drills, about 10 inches apart, and let your seed-beds be 
proportioned to the extent of your field. The plants will be ready for 
planting out in May and June, in rows two feet apart, and the same 
distance from plant to plant. The soil should be manured and 
thoroughly pulverized, the same as for a crop of Swedish turnips, but 
they require a rather stronger soil. 
Magnifying (A Young Botanist). —You had better obtain a single 
microscope, or lens, mounted on a pillar, which leaves both your hands 
at liberty. 
Flowers for Bees (N. S. H.). —It would be too difficult a task 
to give a list of the plants from which bees collect honey ; it would fill a 
number of “ The Cottage Gardener but it would be more dif¬ 
ficult still to say what they do not collect from. We have found the 
advantage of planting in the vicinity of hives a large quantity of 
the common kinds of crocus, single blue hepatica, black helebore, 
and common butter-bur ; all of which flower early, and are rich in 
honey and farina, wood sage (Salvia nemerosn of Dr. Smith), which 
flowers very early in June and lasts all the summer, is in an extraor¬ 
dinary manner sought after by the bees; and when room is not an 
object, twenty or thirty square yards of it may be grown with advan¬ 
tage : Dwarf marjoram (Origanum humile) and Origanum rubescens 
(of Haworth) and mignonette may also be grown. Cultivation beyond 
this, exclusively for bees, we believe answers but very little purpose. 
With regard to mignonette and furze imparting an unpleasant flavour 
to honey, is what we have never before heard of, and on asking the 
opinion of a clergyman in Essex, whose bees are within reach of seve¬ 
ral acres of mignonette, grown for seed to supply the London market, 
he says, that his honey is always remarkably fine flavoured, which he 
attributes chiefly to the mignonette. And another clergyman living 
in quite a different direction, and who is surrounded by furze, tells 
us his honey is always remarkably good. And Dr. Bevan says, in 
page 63 of “The Honey-bee,” “mignonette, if sown abundantly, is a 
plant of considerable importance to the apiary, from its continuing in 
bloom till the autumn frosts set in, and yielding honey of peculiar 
whiteness and delicacy. Instances are recorded of an abundant crop 
affording a large supply of honey to an apiary near which it was sown, 
when at the same time there was a general failure of all the neigh¬ 
bouring stocks.” 
Sowing Depths (Columella). —From one and a half to two inches 
is the best depth we think at all seasons for beans and peas. The 
depth for potatoes at the present season maybe, in dibble holes, six 
inches deep, so that the top of each set is about four inches below the 
surface. They will not require earthing-up. A seed-bed for annuals, 
&c., need not be deep, and if for flowers will not require any manure. 
Instrument for Measuring Distances (Tooting). —Our cor¬ 
respondent recommends a Perambulator to a former inquirer. 
Retarding Hyacinths (A Young Beginner). —It is doubtful if 
you will be able to keep back your hyacinths for the May exhibition. 
Your only chance is to turn out your pots from the greenhouse im¬ 
mediately, and plunge them an inch deeper than the rims in the 
coldest place you can. A north-cast aspect, behind a house or wall, 
where the sun could not reach them, is the best situation. We have 
kept them in a cold frame with that aspect until those in the flower- 
garden were over. Your plant is the Gouty Houseleelc ( Sempervivum 
tortuosum). 
Lawn of Public Charity (Med. Bac.). —It is too late now to 
sow fine grass seeds on a rough lawn like yours ; the end of Sep¬ 
tember is the best time to sow grass seeds among grass. Try sow¬ 
ing over it a few pounds of white clover seeds ; rake the grass roughly, 
and then roll it. The worst part of the coarse grass ought to be 
spudded out, from time to time, during wet weather. 
Water Plants for Small Stove (C. J. V.). —Unless you take 
to any of the water lilies (nymphcea), the next we would choose is 
Nellimbium speciosum; but where to purchase it, or any other plant, 
we dare not break the rule in such cases. There is such a plant as 
Platycodon grandijiorum, but then it is not a bulbous-rooted plant. 
Flower Sowing (R. 0.). —None of the flowers you name require 
to be sown even in a cold frame. We have said already that Tagetes 
tenuifolia might be sown in the open border in April, but you may 
get it on a little earlier by a slight hotbed ; and if you so heat it, the 
first or second week in April will be time enough to begin. German 
asters may also be raised, like the tagetes, either way, and at the same 
time. Stocks also sow for a first crop now, and again at the end of 
April. Nolana atriplicifolia sow in the flower-bed early in April; it 
will contrast with (Enothera macrocarpa, not grundiflora, better than 
any other blue flower of the same habit, and the cenothera will bloom 
longer than it. 
Names of Plants (A Young Gardener). —No. 1 is a species of 
Cupressus, and we think C. thyoides, or white cedar. No. 2 is a spe¬ 
cies of Juniperus, and we think J. virginiana, commonly called the 
Red Virginian cedar or cypress ; but we cannot undertake to say for 
certain as to the species from the little bits sent. 
London : Printed by Harry Wooldridge, Winchester High Street, 
in the Parish of St. Mary Kalendar; and Published by William 
Somerville Orr, at the Office, No. 2, Amen Corner, in the Parish 
of Christ Church, City of London.— March 7th, 1850. 
