138 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— May 20, 1850. 
my young friends. I beg also to observe that the privilege 
of contributing to youthful happiness,by genial sympathy, is 
by no means confined to parents : as visitors, not a little good 
is in our power. The gift of a few seeds, with a small 
amount of patient listening and good-natured criticism, will 
impart a fresh zest to the employment, even though our 
visits be but few. Let me cite cases. (Little girl speaking). 
“ Why do you always ask to see my garden? Ma’s other 
visitors never do. Haven’t you one of your own ? ” 
E. —“ Yes; and you shall come and see it some day: but 
what a pretty Larkspur you have ; let us tie it up.” The pro¬ 
mised invitation took place, and on my next visit to mamma, 
the little lady stopped me, as I was departing, with a clump 
of the identical Larkspur in her hand (it vrstsE.grandiJlorum), 
saying,—“ You haven’t any of my Larkspur in your garden ; 
please have some of it.” 
That plant was not the least-cherished of my collection. 
Another instance.—“ I’m so glad youv’e come ! I have so 
many things to show you.” 
E. —“ Very well; go and fetch your hat.” 
Mamma. —“ George has been very busy ever since he 
heard you were coming ; but I hope he will not be trouble¬ 
some.” 
E. —“I hope so, too, for I should regret to find my heart 
indifferent to the delights of youth.” 
One more anecdote, by way of caution to visitors, and I 
have done. 
A mother lay ill in her chamber. Every day her son 
(ten years old) brought his offering of flowers, culled from 
his own garden, to adorn her table. Few and common 
though they often were, the parent appreciated the act; and 
who that knows the strength of maternal love, can tell how 
much it contributed to her recovery ? At length, her health 
improved so far that she announced her hope of joining the 
family circle on her birth-day, then a fortnight distant. Now% 
of all her son's flowers, a Moss-rose was the most highly 
prized. By much self-denial, he had saved enough to pur¬ 
chase it two years before. For the first time, it had several 
promising buds; these, his choicest gift, he destined to be a 
birthday present. The day approached, the mother was con¬ 
valescent,—some buds had opened, and were carefully pro¬ 
tected from sun and shower, while the rest were sure to be 
fit to cut. But, alas ! on his return from school, on the 
evening before the natal day, he beheld his bush shorn of 
its treasures ; a visitor from town, having received a general 
permission to gather a nosegay, had unwittingly dealt the 
most cruel stroke it was in her power to inflict on the heart 
of an affectionate son. Who can paint the anguish of his 
disappointment!—E. 
{To be continued.) 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
GARDENING. 
CUTTING ASPARAGUS. 
“ I have five Asparagus beds, about thirty feet long by 
four feet wide, with alleys two feet wide. At the end of 
March my gardener dug them, leaving the beds about four 
inches above the surface of the ground; but instead of 
leaving them in that state, about a week afterwards, he 
got an idea into his head that the beds did not look 
well in the square state, so he raked the mould away, 
arching the beds but very slightly in the middle, the sides 
being left nearly on a level with the rest of the ground on 
the plot. I have only just found it out, and to my cost, I 
observe that the roots of the Asparagus are certainly not 
more than six or seven inches from the surface of the 
ground, and when the Asparagus is cut the knife injures 
the roots, and the length of the stalks very much cur¬ 
tailed.—H. S.” 
[Two or three inches depth of soil above the crowns of 
the Asparagus plants is quite enough. Never cut your As¬ 
paragus shoots until they are six inches above ground, and cut 
them only half an inch below the surface. Nearly the whole 
shoot is then eatable, and the flavour beyond all comparison 
superior to that which has scarcely seen daylight. There will be 
no injury either to the roots or rising shoots if you cut only 
just below the soil’s surface. All good gardeners adopt this 
plan now. The days of long uneatable “ drumstick Aspa¬ 
ragus ” are gone by.” When you say your gardener “ dug ” 
the beds, we presume you mean slightly “forked” them. 
To dig an Asparagus bed is to ruin it.] 
LAYING OUT A SMALL SPACE OF GROUND. 
“ I have a piece of ground lying on the north side of my 
garden, which is fifteen yards wide and sixty yards long, 
which I wish to convert into a sort of wilderness, with fruit 
trees sccattered here and there. Now, can you give me any 
help as to the laying out of this bit of ground. The ground 
slopes from east to west, and my design is to make hollows 
and elevations in it, to have a rockery in one part, &c. But 
I want your help. I give you a kind of plan which I have 
thought of, that you may tell me if anything of this kind 
would do. I propose having a border of spruce firs, mixed 
with evergreens, nine feet wide, all the way round, then to 
have winding walks in the centre,with clumps of evergreens, 
here and there, for the walks to rise and fall, with dwarf 
fruit trees planted about in the borders. Pray give me your 
advice.— Clericus.” 
[To attempt to lay out a piece of ground, which one 
never saw, by a written description, is about as hopeless a 
task as ever fell to the lot of man to perform. Yours is a 
nice piece of ground, which is of the easiest shape and incli¬ 
nation for a man, on the spot, to make a pretty thing of in 
the way you propose. Your first plan of it, showing a rock- 
work in the middle at A, at one-third distance from the end, 
violates a fundamental principle, it compels you to walk 
down to a rockwork, and that should never be the case ; for, 
if ever you are permitted to look down on rockwork from a 
walk on higher ground, the designer would have been better 
employed dreaming on his pillow. When a dead level piece 
of ground is to be broken up to vary the surface, it does not 
matter which side is made the highest, unless the situation 
of some object or objects near at hand w'ould make it desirable 
to have the right side higher than the left; but in a sloping 
piece of ground, like yours, the higher side should be made 
still higher with the excavated soil, and the lowest side 
should be made still lower. When rockwork is to be intro¬ 
duced, it should be on the higher parts of the highest side, 
and no more than two sides of rockwork should ever be 
seen—to be able to walk all round an artificial rockwork, 
although it w'ere as high ns the monument in London, and 
a full mile round the base, is not, artistically, one whit 
better than rvalking round a flower-pot. After these princi¬ 
ples are understood, the actual form into which such a piece 
of ground is thrown up is a mere matter of taste, and one 
man’s taste is just as good as another’s, providing he does 
not insist on it as a model for others. Your first plan is 
much to our own taste, with the aforesaid precautions, but 
your second plan is a very ordinary conception indeed. We 
publish your letter in full, in order to be able to say that 
none but quacks ever undertake to dispose of such subjects 
as these in the dark.) 
BLOOMING CANTUA DEPENDENS. 
“ I have had for the last two years a Cantua dependens, a 
healthy plant, that grows very much, but I cannot get it to 
blossom. Can you tell me the method of making it bloom 
well ?—P. H., Cambridge." 
[There is no dependence on the flowering of this most 
beautiful plant, by any means hitherto adopted for its 
growth. Our own first recommendation seems yet to be'the 
best, grow it liberally one whole season, from March cut¬ 
tings, and starve it, as it were, from the end of that autumn 
till it blooms. The way to starve it is this : let it remain in 
the July shift-pot all the autumn, and next winter, from the 
end of October, give it no more water than will keep the 
ball from turning into dust. The coldest frame culture is 
best for it all the winter; that is, from 30° to 35° degrees of 
heat all the time, were that possible. If it does not blos¬ 
som with the new growth next season, keep it still in the 
same pot, and towards the middle of May prune every side- 
shoot on it to the last pair of eyes, and the little twigs 
