THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— June 24,1856. 201 
but to clear them out at once ; and now, if there is no¬ 
thing on them worth waiting for, drain the place properly, 
place plenty of rubble below, and give them from eighteen 
inches to two feet of good soil, and plant young Vines as 
soon as the border is likely to have settled equally. In doing 
this work, there is no occasion to till all the border space at 
once. A space from three to four feet in width will be 
sufficient for the first year. In doing this work some of 
our best gardeners add annually to the width of the border for 
several years, and tbe plan has two advantages—the plants, 
in a measure, are just receiving repottings, and the reno¬ 
vation is not so much felt, being spread over some time.] 
MATERIAL FOR STANDING POTS UPON.—CLIMB- 
ING SCARLET GERANIUM. — STRIKING CUT¬ 
TINGS. 
“1. I have a cold frame standing in a yard paved with 
bricks : what shall I put in it for the plants to stand on ? 
Ashes are recommended to me, but I have an idea of tan, 
as being cleaner and warmer, and available hereafter. 
“2. The name of a good climbing Scarlet Geranium for 
the back of a greenhouse, unheated. 
“3. A simple plan (when one has no heat) for striking 
cuttings of Geraniums, Fuchsias, &c.—H. S." 
[1. Many would be satisfied with the bricks. We would 
prefer sand for cleanliness to either tan or ashes. If you 
use tan in such a place, it must be in small quantities. 
Any heat for cold frame plants would be injurious rather 
than otherwise. The advantage of cinders (rough ones, 
with the dust excluded), and also of small clean pebbles, is 
that the air circulates among them, and thus all about the 
pot. Do not use sawdust, as some friends are doing. It fills 
the hole in the pot. If the plants are plunged, partly even, 
you will be more independent of extra care in watering. 
2. We do not know one btlt what the frost would be apt 
to kill in winter, in an unheated structure. We have seen 
the Giant Scarlet grow very well in such a place, and 
fiower magnificently, being kept so dry as almost to shrivel 
in winter ; but a small chimney went through one side of i 
the house, from a sort of kitchen, always used in winter. 
3. All the hardier Geraniums will now strike in sandy 
soil in the open air. Smaller and tender ones had better 
be placed under a hand-light or glass of any sort, so as to 
be kept close, and shaded during the day in sunshine, and 
air given at evenings and night, and the shade removed 
when the sun is not bright. Fuchsias will do well now 
under similar treatment. No cold frame or greenhouse 
plant requires artificial heat to strike them now. The 
initiated, by preparing the plants, would only get the cut¬ 
tings to strike a little sooner. We presume you know all 
about making the cuttings.] 
SOWING ROSE SEEDS. 
“ A Constant Subscriber has for several years sown Bose 
seeds, from which none ever came up but two Scotch Roses, 
which were two years before they came up at all; and in 
one of The Cottage Gardener numbers she sees Rose 
seeds sown very early in spring, and comiDg up in a few 
months. Where is the cause of failure ? 
“ Will you inform her, also, if leaf-mould and a little sand 
is too rich for sowing Geranium, Verbena, and Pentstemon 
seeds in for this year ? She has been most unfortunate in 
her seeds.” 
[In all such cases, the old round-about way is the safest, 
though not the quickest. As soon as the Rose-hips are so 
ripe as to begin to decay— but no soonei —say, towards the 
middle of November, gather them, and put each kind in a 
flower-pot, No. 32, and with so much earth that no two hips 
will touch; then plunge the pots in the garden anywhere, 
but not deeper than that you may see the rims, so that no 
one may disturb them in mistake. Have a seed-bed ready 
for them by the middle of next April in the kitclieu-garden, 
and any light, common soil will do. Then turn out the soil, 
seed-hips and all, out of the first pot, on a piece of brown- 
paper, and rub them well between the palms of tbe hands, 
and sow seeds and earth in the bed, cover it one half-inch 
deep, and so on with the rest. In very hot weather, shade with 
some boughs, and the seedlings will come up in hundreds, if 
the seed was impregnated and ripe ; but some will not come 
till next year. The reason why so many Rose seeds are 
lost is, that they are gathered too soon. 
If the seeds were in pots, there should be no leaf-mould. 
Good gardeners can do no more than barely save the young 
fry amid rotten vegetable matter. We sow all kinds of 
seeds in clean, sandy loam, except Pinuses—they want no 
sand.] 
JASMINE NOT FLOWERING. 
“ I Rave a common white Jasmine planted against the 
west wall of my house, which has been trained fan-fashion, 
the shoots being nailed in about nine inches apart, and 
from each of these shoots there are a great number of 
vigorous side-shoots, many of them from a foot to eighteen 
inches long. But although the plant looks so well, there is not 
the least sign of bloom upon it. Will you, therefore, kindly 
inform me as to the best method of treating it to induce it 
to bloom ? It is about ten feet high and eleven feet broad. 
—A Constant Reader.” 
[The common white Jasmine, and the coarse yellow 
Revolutum Jasmine, like the rest of them, produce the 
flowers at the end of little twiggy side-branches, and the very 
long shoots and the strong ones from any part of the plant 
never flower at all; but if there is room for them they will 
make little side-branches next year, which will fiower. When 
a Jasmine of any kind is so strong as not to make a pro¬ 
fusion of little side-shoots, but a host of strong branches, it 
will not fiower well. Instead of root-pruning them, however, 
to cause the branches to be weak and less numerous, the 
better way is to take up the plant very carefully at the end 
of October, and then cut clean out three or four of the 
strongest roots, and save all the rest at full length; plant 
again in the same place, and spread out the roots exactly 
six inches below the surface, and the bloom of the white 
ones will surprise you next summer. The yellow ones will 
not be so good till the second year; but with a view of 
covering a wall with fine healthy foliage, no one plants a 
yellow Jasmine against a dwelling-house now-a-days. The 
Escallonia macrantha is now used in place of yellow Jasmine. 
A white Jasmine twenty years old may be transplanted as 
safely as an Apple-tree eight years from the graft. Mean¬ 
time, cut out a good many of the strongest shoots of this 
season’s growth, and cut back the next strongest to half 
their length ; but let the end shoots extend as far and fast 
as the roots will push them, and at the taking up cut them 
also to half the length ; for we take it for granted that you 
will do us the favour to remove and reset this beautiful 
Jasmine, in order to flower it so as to be a credit to us all.] 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Peas Mildewed (A. 1 ).).—Your Daniel O’Rourke Peas, now suffer¬ 
ing from mildew, probably would not have been so attacked if you had 
put some manure on the surface of the soil over their roots. Cucumbers 
producing only male blossoms usually are growing in a temperature too 
low for their leaves. Trapping is the only mode of destroying Eurwigs. 
We have great doubts whether they are not the gardener’s friend by 
destroying Aphides, &c. 
Glazing {Clericus) Mr. Dane and, we believe, Mr. Rivers use sash- 
bars as rafters, three inches and a half deep and two inches and a half 
wide, and there is a half-inch space cut out on each side for the glass to rest 
upon. These are for squares twenty inches wide and twelve inches deep. 
If you place yours fourteen inches apart, and the width is only ten feet, 
you may do with less sash-bars. You may have your glass at that width, 
and a foot or so deep, at from 3d. to 5d. the foot, 16 oz. weight 
to the foot. At that weight your glass will be about three quarters of 
an eighth of an inch thick. Glass from 21 oz. to24oz. to the foot is 
about one-eiglith of an inch thick. If the glass was more than 21 ozs. your 
sash-bars must be stronger. There is no necessity for a groove below the 
putty, nor yet for a coping to the bar, though you might cut the bars 
with a mushroom-bead coping, and a groove beneath fur the putty and 
glass. 
Ghubs ( I —, Altringham ).—It is impossible to say what they are from 
your description. Lime-water or amtnoniacal gas-liquor might destroy 
them. Send us specimens in a box with a little moist earth. 
Shanking in Grates (/. W. LI/.).-— We believe that this arises from 
the roots of the Vine not being sufficiently active to supply the fast 
grow th of the grapes. This want of activity may arise from various 
