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TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— May 13, 1850. 
only hope, seeing how backward the whole race of 
amateurs seem to be, under the false idea that it would 
be of little use to them to compete with gardeners in 
the race of improving any thing. Than this, however, 
there never was a more erroneous idea under tho sun. 
The very best of gardeners in the country can do no 
more than make both ends meet, let alone experimental 
! gardening altogether. It requires a good deal of atten- 
I tion and time to carry out a single experiment; but 
i some one, who can step out of the circle of routine, 
| makes a hit every season. Look at Tom Thumb; look 
I at tho now Variegated Geraniums ; look at the new 
! Golden Hamburgh Grapes ; Melville’s most extraordi¬ 
nary cross between the Scotch-hale and an early Cab¬ 
bage, which is as true and genuine as any on record. A 
young German wrote to me the other day about crossing 
Kidney Beans, with a view of getting better kinds to 
force. If he has the well-known perseverance of German 
gardeners, and is in real earnest, I have no doubt but 
lie might upset the whole trade in that article, and 
introduce far superior kinds of his own making by 
judicious crossing ; for it seems as if the greater number 
of our best vegetables have “ come by chance.” 
But to return to the stove. If I had one, what I 
should do, at present, would be to procure a two-year-old 
plant of each of the following Geraniums:— Sulonia, 
Lady Mary Fox, Diadematum rubescens, or regium, The 
Countess, Sir William Middleton, and Quercifolium super- 
bum, making six distinct sections of bedding Geraniums, 
and they the best representatives of each section. I 
would grow them as well as for a show, cut them in Octo¬ 
ber, and house them in the stove, as I said before; then 
1 wonld make a scrupulous selection from among the 
fancy Geraniums for pollen plants to force in the spring, 
and if I should fail over and over again, I would still 
keep on the experiments, till I was quite certain in my 
own mind that no one else could beat me on the same 
plants. The whole experiment, except the superior 
growth of the plants, is founded on old practice, which 
is now forgotten. 
About sixteen years since, Mr. Catleugh, Mr. Gains, 
and other great men in the fancy, wrote, as a grand dis¬ 
covery, that Pelargoniums of tho very best, and of all 
below them, could be struck from cuttings in the open 
air; and ten days ago I put my finger on the very book 
which tells that that was the “ common way” of striking 
them a hundred and fifty years ago! At tho same time 
and place, two of our very best gardeners in England 
were teasing me to hear them read out of another book 
that root-pruning fruit-trees and shrubs was highly 
recommended in sixteen hundred and something; but 1 
wished them and the trees in the garden of Eden, or 
out of hearing on the banks of Jordan, sooner than be 
disturbed in a public library making notes for the use 
and guidance of The Cottage Gardener, who, as one 
of the best speakers before the Horticultural Society 
remarked the other day, has his weekly allowance of 
“scientific instruction” served out to him on equal 
terms with his betters in the drawing-room. 
But the best news I heard this season is, that spring 
flowers and autumn-sown annuals are gaining ground 
fast and freely ; and that such as are “ full of them” will 
not attempt to bed-out more than old Calceolarias, old 
Salvias, and some old Geraniums, till after the 20lh of 
May this season, and for the future; 60 that Verbenas, 
Petunias, and the smaller kinds, may be just coming 
into bloom by the time they are put into the beds. Tho 
earliest spring-sown annuals are time enough to put in 
at the beginning of March. Two hundred yards of edg¬ 
ing of blue Nemopliylla, sown then, is now nearly in 
bloom ; it will last till Midsummer, aud be succeeded by 
Lobelia ramosoides. D. Beaton. 
Death or Wit.t.tam Stephens, Esq. —This most liberal 
promoter of gardening in all its branches died on the 
20th of April, at his residence, Prospect Hill, near 
Reading, aged 72. An additionally painful interest is 
occasioned by the occurrence of his widow’s death only 
four days afterwards. We extract the following just 
remarks from the Reading Mercury: —“ The late Wil¬ 
liam Stephens, Esq., and his respected lady, have, after 
a life full of good works, been together removed ; the 
emphatic language of Ruth has been realised—‘where 
thou diest will I die, aud there will I be buried.’ They 
rest together from their labours, the labour which light¬ 
ened the burthen of the desolate and the oppressed, 
which cheered the afflicted, which dispensed the spiritual 
support, and the temporal nutriment; in these labours, 
truly of love, they were as one, and as one they have 
passed away, to a more glorious inheritance. It is 
perhaps not incumbent upon the journalist to speak 
with eulogy of those who, blessed with tho power of 
doing great good, have, without ceasing, exercised that 
power, yet it is but an act of justice to record the right 
use of the taleut entrusted to the faithful steward. 
Possessed of very ample wealth, Mr. William Stephens, 
for a great portion of his life, lent his aid to further and 
promote the extension of the Word of God; year suc¬ 
ceeding year found him ever at his post; his purse, his 
influence, and his talents were devoted to the great 
cause, he laboured early and late, in the heat of the day, 
and up to the eleventh hour. Of his charities, the 
numerous recipients, near and far, will bear better tes¬ 
timony thau the columns of a newspaper, although few 
beuevolent lists ever appeared without his name: to 
promote public benefit, and to assist private struggles 
with adversity, was his one great work, and in this, his 
faithful partner, through all the passing scenes of fleet¬ 
ing life, lent her kind aud willing aid : they both truly 
fulfilled their vocations, and are gone down to the dust 
leaving an example, like a beaming light, to throw rays 
over a wide circle of lamenting friends and neighbours.” 
THE CALCEOLARIA. 
The pretty Slippenvort is a native of high altitudes 
on the mountains of Peru and Chili. By the time the 
plants come into bloom the sun has been melting the 
snow on the tops of the Andes, still far elevated above 
them; and thus, though exposed to a powerful sun, the 
melted snow-water, as it trickles down the face of the hills, 
keeps the roots comparatively cool. Whether this be 
absolutely the fact, I have not had the pleasure of deter¬ 
mining by a visit to their natural habitats; but nothing 
is better ascertained by practice than that the modes of 
management, which such circumstances would suggest, 
are the most successful, namely, giving the plants a free 
circulation of' air whenever it is a few degrees above 
the freezing point, and keeping the roots cool and moist. 
Weakness, delicacy of growth, and clouds of Green 
Ely, are the rewards for an opposite treatment. On the 
other hand, I have seen a weakly plant in a pot soon 
restored to luxuriauce when turned out into a moist 
border. I have noticed a fine florists’ flower in a large 
pot injured in health by the sun beating on the pot, 
and again restored by the pot being plunged in a larger 
one, the space between filled with moss, and that 
moss kept moist. We all know how the shrubby ones 
grow and flower in the open ground in summer. Then- 
own dense shade, and the keen absorption of moisture, 
keep the roots cool. Were I to write a volume of 
minutiae, I could not present clearer indices for culture 
than these facts supply. 
This family is naturally divided into two groups, the 
herbaceous and the shrubby; the former having large 
flowers on long flower-stalks, the latter having small 
