THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 26 
320 
small pots, or four in a five-inch pot, and well watered, 
, syringed, and smoked for the green fly, and shitted 
again, if necessary, until the first or second week in 
June, when the plants may he turned out into nice 
mellow soil, in front of a south wall, in front of forcing- 
houses, or on a south border, when a good quantity of 
green fruit will be obtained in September and October. 
To obtain beautiful plants with ripe fruit, for the 
greenhouse, the plants would require to be shifted sepa¬ 
rately, or three in a sis or eight-inch pot in May, and be 
kept rather close until they were moved to the green¬ 
house about the end of June. Good drainage should be 
given, the soil should be light and rich, plenty of water 
given both to roots and foliage, and green fly started as 
soon as one presents itself. Nice Chili plants may be 
grown separately in six or eight-inch pots, and, if not 
potted every year, they should have the old surface-soil 
removed, and fresh added, of equal portions of loam and 
rotten dung. In addition to this, they will drink in 
manure-waterings with avidity. When a number of 
kinds arc grown, few things look more beautiful in a 
house in the autumn months than nice plants well 
stored with ripo fruit, of various shapes, sizes, and 
colours. 
The Caper Plant. —Some well-to-do people would 
think the best beef but poor fare without a supply of 
Horse-radish and mustard, and to them Caper-sauce has 
an indissoluble association with boiled leg of mutton. 
The plant from which the true Caper is obtained is the 
Capparis spinosa, a rambling, trailing-like, spiny shrub, 
that flourishes in dry soils somewhat calcareous, and in 
situations fully exposed to the sun, in the south of 
Europe, the Grecian Archipelago, the Levant, and the 
northern shores of Africa. It has been tried in many 
parts of England, but, though it has lived many years, 
it has seldom produced many flower-buds unless when 
under glass. In an orchard-house, or fastened to a 
conservative wall covered with glass, there is no doubt 
but it would grow and produce its flower-buds in abun¬ 
dance. In such circumstances, or even on dry, warm 
positions in the south of the island, the practice followed 
out near r l oulon would be the best to adopt, namely, to 
get the bass of the shoots well-ripened in the autumn 
by a strong sun, and withholding water; and then, to¬ 
wards winter, cut the shoots well down, and cover the 
stools with moss, or earth, as we do with large Fuchsia 
plants that we intond to furnish us with strong flower¬ 
ing shoots from the bottom next summer. 
When grown in a pot in the greenhouse, the pruning 
should not be anything so severe, but the treatment 
should be regulated, so as to supply a great number of 
young shoots not over-strong, and yet strong enough to 
yield abundance of flower-buds. A twelve or eighteen- 
inch pot will grow a nice plant; and loam and peat, 
with a little chalk or lime-rubbish, will suit it. It is 
easily propagated by pieces of the shoots, and divisions 
of the roots, and also by seed, when obtainable, but then 
it should be sown as soon as ripe. The plant can 
scarcely have too much sun after it begins to grow. 
I ^ As an ornamental plant, the Caper is rather attractive; 
the flowers are numerous, large, white, with veins of 
lilac and red at times, and the centre filled with almost 
numberless stamens. The fruit is also used for Capers, 
but the chief supply is obtained from the flower-buds, 
which are picked when half the size they would be 
before they expanded. They are then placed, as they 
can be obtained, in a vessel, and covered with vinegar 
holding salt in solution. To keep them nice and green, 
a preparation of copper is often used, or they stand in 
a copper vessel, or, when arranging the Capers accord¬ 
ing to their size, they pass through fine copper sieves; 
but, in this respect, those who eat them just run the 
same risk as those who indulge iu the use of nice green 
pickles generally—that groenness boingthe consequence 
of copper in one shape or other. The public, however, 
will have their pickles green, and they get them—a 
doctors bill, a shortening of existence, are minor con¬ 
siderations. One of the best and easiest-procured sub¬ 
stitute for Capers is the green seed of the Nasturtium. 
Castor Oil Plants. —Our young friends are quite at 
liberty to trace a connection between these stimulants 
to eating and the produce of this latter interesting 
plant, ft is the Ricinus communis of botanists, and 
Palma Christi of gardens, owing to its spiny capsules, 
and its broad, palmate-like foliage. When at home, in 
Africa, it must have a splendid appearance, as it there 
takes the form of a tree. In our gardens it is a tender 
annual. I have sometimes seen it prove its hardiness, 
the seeds having fallen on the ground, and sprung up 
the following summer. In general, however, it is best 
to sow a few seeds in a hotbed in the middle of March ; 
harden them off by degrees, and transfer to rich soil in 
the open garden in the beginning of June. If the 
plants have had a shift or two previously they will 
become all the better specimens. The oil is obtained 
from pressing and crushing the seeds when ripe, and 
its strength or virulence will greatly depend on the 
amount of pressure, that coming from the outer coats of 
the seed being much milder than that supplied from 
the interior parts. The oil obtained from the seed of 
some other spurge-w r orts is excessively acrid. 
R, Fish. 
BADORGAN, THE SEAT OF F. 0. MEYRICK, Esq. 
This place is situated iu the pleasant Isle of Angle- 
sea, in North Wales, and the gardens are managed by 
my friend, Mr. Ewing, the inventor of the so-named 
Glass Walls. I had for some time been desirous of 
seeing these structures, in order to judge for myself, and 
try to form a correct opinion as to their fitness, utility, 
or beauty, as garden buildings. The one erected in the 
Horticultural Gardens, at Chiswick, I have never seen ; 
but I judged, and I think rightly, that if there was any 
merit or usefulness in them, I.should be most likely to 
see it exemplified in the gardens under the charge of 
the inventor. I had read, in various gardening publica¬ 
tions, some brief accounts of them, and, iu some in¬ 
stances, a large amount of a depreciating character of 
their usefulness. 
I had occasion to visit North Wales on business, and 
resolved to take time by the forelock, and pay these 
celebrated gardens a visit, even at this dull time of the 
season. I endeavoured to divest my mind of every idea 
I might have formed for or against Glass Walls pre¬ 
viously to reaching the place, and I think that I am 
now prepared to give a fair report of them and the 
fruit-trees growing within them. 
For the benefit of such of the readers of The Cottage 
Gardener as may not know what is meant by Glass 
Walls, as exemplified at Badorgan, I will try to describe 
them. In the first place, there are a certain number of 
square brick pillars, in two parallel lines, built so as to 
receive and support, at the level of the soil, two lines of 
bearers, inclosing a space of ground, as near as I could 
judge, twenty inches across. Upon these bearers there 
is set up, quite perpendicular, two rows of glass lights, 
or frames, with pillars between them. Their height is 
eleven feet, and the top is glazed also. Every other 
light is on both sides made to open by means of a long 
rod with cranks attached to it, and a revolving wheel 
at the end. I saw them shut and opened witli the 
greatest facility. The top of this double wall of glass 
is ornamented slightly with carved bordering, and the 
whole presents a light and elegant appearance. Inside 
there is a trellis to which the trees are trained. Peaches 
are planted on the south side of the trellis, and Apricots 
