THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
; some great people would not believe this, and threw 
i dust in the eyes of those who did. But if seeing is 
I believing, any respectable person may now see what 
I kind of wood this Indian Cedar is, by calling at the 
rooms of the Society in Regent Street. We had 
■ il plank of it in the room, cut from a young tree in 
India, it was eighteen feet long, four feet six inches 
wide, and four inches thick, without a knot, and hardly 
any sap wood ; it smells delightfully when they burn it, 
and even when it is worked by the carpenters it per¬ 
fumes the whole place. We had a series of Indian 
drawings showing the range of the Himalayas, the 
Deodar forests, with temples and all sorts of buildings 
made of this wood in the foreground. Those who did 
not know it before, or who did not learn it from Dr. 
Royle’s illustrations of the botany of this range, may be 
told, that the climate where the Deodar grows to the 
greatest perfection is very much like the climate of the 
Morven range, in Argyleshire, in the west of Scotland, 
only that the warm season begins two months earlier on 
the Indian range; but as to wet and dry, cold and dreary, 
snow, sleet, rain, and hail, thunder, lightning, and all, 
there is no difference between the Scotch hills and 
Indian mountains, only that the thunder is louder in 
India, so that wherever the Lai'ch will grow and thrive, 
the Deodar will do the same, and is a much faster 
timber-making tree, and the wood is superior in every 
respect to that of Larch ; but Mr. Appleby has booked 
all that part of the subject, and we must wait his turn. 
D. Beaton. 
GOSSIP ABOUT VARIOUS MATTERS. 
DRYING-UP THE FOLIAGE OF PLANTS. 
“ I had a few nice plants,Geraniums, best kinds; Cine¬ 
rarias, ditto; a few Epacrises,Chorazemas, &c., and being 
anxious to grow them well, I spared no pains on them. 
In the late frosty weather the temperature ranged at 
night from 45° to 55°, and during sunny days 1 gave 
air as freely as kept down the house to not more than 
■ > higher. In fact, I do not see how you could have 
managed them better, and yet I am so annoyed, the 
hard-wooded plants look sickly and as if they were 
scorched with the hot air of a furnace, and many of the 
best and youngest leaves of the Geraniums have been 
scalded, as if the steam of a boiling tea-kettle bad 
passed over them. I watered from a cistern in the 
house; and to my surprise, though some authorities 
said, “ Water once or twice a-week,” I found my plants 
dry every morning. I think there is some little thing 
wrong; do explain what it is; and then I shall not 
mind my present disappointments.” 
Most willingly. No doubt, you tried to do well, 
and there is always hope in the men or women who 
" will not give up.” Bruce learned perseverance from a 
spider forming its web. Muugo Park gained self-reli- 
! mice, and a firmer trust in Providence, by tbe sight of 
| lb® t in y green moss in the desert. Life is an, aggregate 
of Littles; not the great striking episodes of existence, 
hut these next-to-imperceptible Littles alike form and 
* demonstrate human character. The keener the obser¬ 
vation, the more will this truth be apparent. Look at 
that boy ! Mark with what new fledged zeal he attends 
these pretty window plants, watering the roots, spong¬ 
ing the foliage, giving them air and sunshine according 
to their needs. But a fresh attraction presents itself; 
the plants are comparatively forgotten ; they meet, un¬ 
protected, the mercies of a frosty night; the wreck is 
huddled into a corner; gardening is abjured for an age, 
i.s other once favourite pursuits have been; and if you 
follow that youth into the world, you will find, that un¬ 
less influenced by other minds, he will be a thing of 
March !). 
fits and starts for life. But glance over the way, at 
that lad, the owner and regulator of that sweet window 
balcony, that passers-by pay homage to as a gem of 
taste and beauty. He could tell you of the tricks of Mr. 
Frost; of disappointments he has known; of failures he 
has experienced ; of bright hopes of bloom and flowers, 
not merely deferred , but scathed and blasted; but, in¬ 
stead of souring his mind into a sort of contemptuous 
passiveness, they whetted his spirit to increased intel¬ 
ligent effort and persevering exertion. “The boy will 
be father to the man.” He may never be distinguished 
for wealth; his name may never be whispered amid the 
exclusive casteships of society; for, even in a golden 
age, he may place no absorbing value on either; but, 
unless greatly changed by deteriorating influences, men 
will place the fullest reliance in his indomitable spirit 
and unswerving perseverance. No stick-in-the mud will 
he be. No mole-hill difficulties will ever swell out into 
impassable mountain barriers with him. 
Two little things would help to produce the result 
complained about. General rules are excellent things 
in their way; but they are chiefly valuable when an 
intelligent judgment brings them to bear on varied cir¬ 
cumstances. The temperature referred to was quite 
proper for a warm greenhouse, and with an outside 
temperature ranging from 30° to 40°, no harm would 
have resulted from an average temperature of 50°. 
Even the plants would not have suffered much at that 
temperature in a sharpish frost, if by covering the house 
you so far checked the radiation of heat, and the evapo¬ 
ration and the loss of moisture. But as you do not 
speak of any protection, and whether you use flues or 
pipes, do not say anything of evaporating pans upon 
them, I can easily imagine why you found it necessary 
to resort to the water-pail often, with an inside tempera¬ 
ture of 55°, and an outside temperature of from 20° to 
10°. By an inordinate use of fuel, you not only dried 
the moisture out of the soil of the pots, but dried the 
air in the house, which thus sucked moisture out of the 
stems and foliage, and then that air—lighter from heat, 
and lighter from holding moisture as vapour—ascended 
to the roof, where the moisture was either condensed 
into ice, or trickled down the sash-bar, or the air thus 
moistened found its way out by the laps, and other air, 
cold and dry, found entrance. This process alone, kept 
up for any length of time, would not only demand fre¬ 
quent waterings and syringings, but, even with these 
would exercise a debilitating influence on the constitu¬ 
tion of the plants. 
But this would be greatly increased when the second 
little error in the circumstances was committed, (and 
committed very frequently by those who should know 
and practice better), namely, giving so much air after 
such a cold night, merely because the sun shone bright, 
though it might be freezing sharp all the time in the 
shade. You thus introduce a cold air, parched enough 
to chap and roughen your own hands and cheeks, 
among your nice plants that were receiving a moderate 
roasting the previous night. But what is to be done? 
The health of the plants, economy in labour, and 
economy as respects the fuel heap, point to one practice. 
Those who read what has been said about protection 
will see one remedy. Failing that, the plants, in severe 
weather, would be more comfortable for short periods at 
38° than at 48°, let alone 58°. Even at that temperature 
some evaporating pans on the heating medium would 
be useful when there was an average of from 20° and 
onwards between the internal and external atmosphere. 
At this temperature there will be little drain on the 
juices of the plant. Besides, at this comparatively low 
temperature at night, the plants will stand an amount 
of sun heat without much or any air, which they could 
not do if the heating medium was hot. The less air 
admitted during such dry, frosty weather the better, 
