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THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
and of all plants, these are the most easy to learn how 
to make proper nosegays with; for we must be told, 
now and then, that we are as Red Indians in this 
branch compared with the French. There is not one 
out of fifty, in all England, who can put five different 
fiowers together without lumping them. We are the 
best growers of all the nations; but the taste for making 
beautiful nosegays for the hand, or in arranging flowers 
in the rooms, is only on the threshold in England at 
the present day. 
It was mentioned once, in The Cottage Gardener, 
that Martynia fragrans, which is so difficult to get up, 
has been found to vegetate out in the open air much 
better than in pots; and some one told me lately, that 
by filing oft' or cutting the hard shell of the seed with 
a sharp knife, so as to see the kernel, was a good plan 
to get it up in pots like other seeds. It is certainly a 
plant well worth growing for cut flowers, and as a single 
plant against a wall, or in a mixed border. Viscaria 
oculata is one of the very best of annuals; but except 
in large places, I do not find it anywhere, and few know 
it except regular gardeners, which surprises me, as if 
you only cast the seeds in the open border you have it 
up in abundance, and no trouble. 
One of the most useful annuals we have is the 
Brussel’s Sprouts, and the last Saturday in March is 
the best time in the year to sow it, for those who, like 
me, want to cut and come again; but, as they do not 
want it for flowers, it is out of place in my list of odds 
and ends. 
DELPHINIUM SINENSE. 
This Chinese Larkspur is the most useful kind of all 
the Larkspurs, yet no one advertises it or even mentions 
it in lists. We have" splendid” this, “ splendid” that, and 
splendid everything you can think of, and “ splendid” 
puzzles to the bargain, and we shall probably, in a year 
or two, have splendissima in Larkspurs, and yet there is 
not a seedsman in England, or in Europe, who can fur¬ 
nish you with a packet of true blue annual Larkspur; 
and what is more splendid in a Larkspur than true blue, 
it you could have it. This Chinese Larkspur is true 
blue when it comes true to itself, which it seldom does 
without great care ; then it is a hardy perennial plant, 
which any cottager can keep in sand over the winter, 
like carrots ; it is also the best blue flower for a whole 
bed of all the blue plants in England, and it flowers 
from June to November, and is no more than 18 inches 
high; aud yet, it one of our readers want to have it, he 
must vvrite to the Editor, as if the Editor of a journal 
like this could find time to attend to a seed-shop. I may 
here, once for all, say, in plain English, that none of us 
who are connected with The Cottage Gardener can 
possibly give any information about where any particu¬ 
lar plant or seed can be had, except Mr. Appleby, who 
is now on his own account in the trade; as for the rest 
of us, you may just as well write to Sir Charles Napier 
for a Larkspur, or Blue-bottle, or anything in the trade; 
and what is worse than all that, when we, the said 
writers, see such questions, we are but too apt to slight 
the other questions in the same letters; and if one of 
us wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer about this 
income tax, and, in the next sentence, asked him if he 
knew where wo could buy such aud such gloves, we 
could only expect to be paid in our coin—to be slighted 
in our turn. 
THE LAST WINTER. 
I here is one very particular question which we all 
wish to have answered as fully as can be before the 
spring is out, and that is, a full and particular account 
of all the trees, shrubs, and bushes, that have been hilled or 
half-killed this last winter. v\lso, what bulbs stood it with 
such and such protection; and here is an answer for 
two plants ol doubtful hardiness from my own garden. 
March 30. 
I bought a good-sized plant, from Mr. Jackson, of the 
Stauntonia latifolia, from India, and I divided the roots, 
so as to make three plants from the one ; this took some ! 
time in nursing, and it was the end of last June before | 
I could get them planted out, so that they did not grow 
more than a tew feet before the end of the season. I | 
gave them no protection whatever, and they are not the 
least hurt; they lost a few inches of the turning tops 
and that was all. 
The next plant which 1 am desirous to see more cul¬ 
tivated is the “Tree Potatoe,” or Solanum jasminoides. 
This climber I planted in 1852, and the winter before 
last it had no covering, but this winter I had the first 
six leet of it well protected with straw and a double mat. 
All the young wood it made since last August is killed, 
but the main branches are quite safe up to ten or ' 
twelve feet, so that it is, practically, quite hardy—more 
so than the common Passion Flower —and no plant 
better deserves a wall. 
Cobeea, Lophospermuin, Maurandyas, and Eccremocar- 
pus, I could not keep with a good covering, aud yeti 
know a plant of Eccremocarpus that was only covered 
the length of one mat, and the branches which were 
quite exposed above the mat were in leaf before the 
middle of last February, but it is in a very sheltered 
corner, near a stack of chimnies, and no doubt the 
warmth of the bricks saved it. Viburnum macrocepha- 
Ivm I lost altogether; but it had no covering, and it was 
never a healthy plant. The tubers of Tropaolum tu¬ 
berosum died in the ground, and rather deep. All my 
Fuchsias stood well, with a single net over them; and 
none of my half-hardy bulbs are hurt. 
D. Beaton. 
CAULIFLOWERS. 
Where due precaution was not taken, the severities of 
an early winter have decimated the Cauliflower plants 
not sufficiently protected; where such has been the 
case, those remaining will be doubly valuable in con- 
I sequence of the scarcity. Now, it not unfrcquently hap¬ 
pens, that in addition to destroying a great number, 
severe weather also injures, to a serious extent, those 
which may be left alive. This, however, ought not to 
have been the case this season; for the early tokens we 
had of its being so, hardened and prepared plants to en¬ 
dure it. This preparatory state of things is one of the 
many beautiful provisions of Nature, whereby she 
sweetens the bitterness of her wrath ; and although, at 
the end of a very severe winter, or, it may be, the con¬ 
clusion of a. frost of unusual hardness, we may have to 
mourn the loss of many of our favourites in the flower¬ 
ing plant way, those of a substantial kind are equally 
; amenable to the same dire laws and suffer accordingly, j 
! Though the month of December and the early part of | 
January were more severe than they usually are, yet we 
have all seen a great deni of injury done by a very mo¬ 
derate frost in March after an unusually mild winter; 
added to which, it often happens that mild weather is 
often moist, and that healthy pulverization of the soil 
cannot take place without the aid of frost, or those dry, 
mellowing winds we sometimes have in March ; so that 
as far as cultivation is concerned, and, certainly, all that 
is connected with an annual or hardy perennial growth, 
a sharp winter is useful rather than otherwise. 
The severities of the winter have, also, I believe, in¬ 
jured, if not annihilated, the great bulk of the Brocoli and 
other greens cultivated in many of the midland counties, 
which it seems to have visited with more virulence than 
the more southern ; aud amongst the general wreck of 
things, the Cauliflower plants have not come off scaith- 
less; but some have escaped, and some careful hands 
have preserved the whole, or nearly so, of their stock, and , 
what to do with them seems to be the question now 
