330 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Febuuahy 2. 
shall appear in their place. When the plants are fit to 
handle, plant a few in five-inch pots singly, there to 
endure tho winter; when they are about five inches 
high let the terminal point be pinched—this will bring 
us to about the second week in November, and by 
this time the pots will be filled with their fibres ; 
and such being in reality the case, they will bo in a 
position to endure a good deal of dryness, which, as a 
winter procedure, is essential. And now, until April, 
all that they need will be a situation in some house, pit, 
or frame, where thoy will enjoy from 50° to 55° through 
the winter, and as much light as can be afforded them. 
By the end of this period it will be found, under such 
treatment, that thoy are somewhat of what gardeners 
term a woody character, rather than such a soft, pliant, 
and watery annual as we too often find them by ordinary 
culture. 
But, be it observed, let them be kept, as to watering, 
' in a niggardly way all this time; they must scarcely be 
i permitted to grow, only to keep the first-formed leaves 
I tolerably fresh. In tho axils of those few simple leaves 
lay the germs of shoots already in a latent way ripe for 
development, only waiting better skies; perhaps we 
might, in this case, borrow a phrase from nautical men, 
and say, “lying-to under bare poles,” which may be 
translated—“ waiting in a patieut position for favour¬ 
able circumstances.” And if our warm-blooded seamen 
may be allowed to be occasionally quiescent, surely a 
gardener may; and if such is followed by a proper 
course of action it will pirove that such plans, although 
at the moment inexplicable, were not matters of mere 
whim. 
And now we have our little half-shrubby Tomato 
plants brought to the middle of April, by which time 
they will be about ten inches in height, and possessing 
one main stem only, so hard in texture as to require no 
support, and to stand any breeze. The terminal point 
should have the first blossoms formed, and tho plants 
should now be well hardened off, keeping them still 
within some structure, or cold frame, or pit, close to the 
glass, and where they will enjoy a puff of wind occa¬ 
sionally. 
I may here observe, that they should be grown up to 
this time entirely in a sound loam, not a particle of any¬ 
thing else with it. This I recommend strenuously ; and 
I may as well show why. If they were grown in any 
light mixture rich in humus, they would grow too fast 
to solidify, they would require watering frequently, and 
tho whole plant would bo thrown into a false position. 
Now, my object is to make the solidification of the stem, 
&c., keop pace with the growth; and if in strong loam 
they will go for weeks without water; and this it is 
which makes them such sound plants. 
Thoso who plant them against walls will be enabled 
to get such plants out about the middle of May; indeed, 
I they must about follow the rules of the “ bedding- 
system,” and they should be planted on the ground-level, 
or rather above it. This is most important, in order to 
avoid over-luxuriance, which is the bane of the Tomato 
in our climato, nine cases out of ten. As for tho soil 
they arc filled up with, that matters little, so that it be 
} rather light; and henceforth their culture is pretty well 
' known. I may hero observe, however, that we seldom 
I uso shreds in nailing them; we just drive the nail 
j through the centre of the stem—a rough procedure, cer- 
I tainly, but this is rather a benefit than otherwise, as it, 
1 doubtless, administers a wholesome degree of punisli- 
i ment to these proud revellers in the damp air of our 
! British skies. If tho summer prove congenial, they 
will, despite these precautions, run too much into a 
1 rampant foliage, and this must be occasionally reduced 
! by cutting some of the big leaders half away, and by 
destroying every sucker and superfluous side-shoot 
betimes; and in addition, they must have ono or two 
root-prunings; being in an elevated position, this is j 
easily accomplished by just thrusting down the spade 
parallel with the wall, at about a foot distance, and cut¬ 
ting through every root. The worst pest, now-a-days, is 
the Potato fungus: this has taken possession of the 
Tomato, and no marvel either, being of the samo 
family. There can be little question, I think, about its 
identity: certain it is, however, that this odd plant has 
become liable to a pest of the kind ; and 1 have found 
sulphur a great check to it. I have not half-exhausted 
the Tomato subject; there are other phases under which 
to view its culture, and I may have to return to it. 
R. Ebbington. 
MEETING OF THE HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY.— Januaby 17, 1854. 
We do not expect to see much of gardening at these 
meetings in the middle of January in any year, and 
less after so hard a winter as we have just experienced. 
Nevertheless, we had some rare things to look at and to 
think about, besides some excellent fruit and flowers. 
The rarest thing that I have yet seen at the Regent- 
street Meetings was a bunch of the Luculia gratissima 
in flower; not from the lower ranges of the Himalayas, 
its native place, but from the open air in Devonshire. 
Fifteen years back, it was not unusual to meet with 
this plant, at Christmas, in flower in the stoves about 
London, not so good-looking as the one from Devon¬ 
shire, it is true, but still in bloom, and sweeter than a 
violet; confined heat, or any degree of forcing, except 
for a month or so when it starts in tho spring, being 
next thing to death to it. This rare experiment was 
tried, and succeeded, in the garden of J. Luscombe, Esq., 
of Combe Royal, near Kingsbridge, South Devon. The 
plant stands out there trained against an east wall. I 
suppose the wall of the dwelling-house, for there is a fire 
on the other side of the wall, and the heat from it, was 
greatly in favour of the Luculia outside ; in addition to 
this, ‘“a ragged mat” was placed over it in cold weather; 
and in the coldest time, when the thermometer was down 
to zero about London, they placed a frame of rough boards 
in addition ; that was all the protection that this plant 
ever received there; and here we had a sample from it 
in bloom in the middle of January. Mr. Luscombe 
grows Oranges and Lemons against the common walls of 
his kitchen-garden just with the same kind of protection, 
and sends up specimens of them every year to the Hor¬ 
ticultural Society. In a general way, the Luculia gra¬ 
tissima requires the samo kind of winter protection and 
management as the tree Rhododendron ; and as it is the 
sweetest plant in the world, I mean tho flowers, and 
never refuses to bloom in winter when it gets the right 
treatment, I should like to hear Mr. Fish say all that j 
can be said about it, so as to get it into general cultiva¬ 
tion. I once had three dozens of them, and I had orders I 
to pack one, four feet high, in full bloom, for her | 
Majesty, and the Queen is so fond of it, that a stock ! 
of it is kept up in the royal gardens ever since. 
Mr. Luscombe sent also, from the open air, cut speci¬ 
mens of the old Linum tigrinum, one of tho very best of i 
all the good old winter flowering plants. When this \ 
plant is done well it is little behind the Allamanda 
catliartica in beauty, as was plain enough from a plant 
sent from tho garden of the Society to this meeting. 
This plant was not quite a yard high, but it was in full 
bloom all over, and every flower was as broad as a shil¬ 
ling, and ns yellow as a butter-cup, and about the same 
tint. Perhaps 1 can tell ns much about this plant us 
anybody, for I had once a plant of it as tall as a man, 
and quito as full of bloom as tho ono from the Society, 
and it kept so for full four of the dullest months. The 
treatment was peculiar, and few gardeners have vet hit j 
