;m THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— August 19, 1850. 
when I should prefer putting them in a pit or hog until 
nearly the middle of February, when they should be 
taken out, and introduced to any tolerably warm room, 
j such as a room over a kitchen, or even a cow-house or 
stable. Here they may either be on the floor about two 
or three deep, or, what is better, placed ready for plant- 
ing, in boxes or baskets, one deep, each having the 
nose or eye end upward. 
This has of late been much the custom with the 
farmers in this neighbourhood, as to their very early 
Potatoes. They place them in boxes singly, and take 
the boxes just as they are into the field. J he Potatoes 
have little sprouts about half an inch long, sturdy as an 
i Oak-tree; and they thus are planted, with their first 
I sprout uninjured. If- Errington. 
WELLINGTON ROAD NURSERY. 
I had just discovered, in time to save my credit, that I 
could not go grouse shooting this season. I cannot even 
go “into the country" during the long vacation, unless 
I can get home the same day, or early on the morrow, 
and all through these experiments and Experimental 
Garden. Talk about the difficulty of detecting the fatal 
drug from the Bean-like seeds of Strychnos nux vomica 
in the animal organs, why, I could detect it in a field- 
mouse, a polecat, a badger, and a colly dog, before I 
was of age ; but whip me if I can detect a little cater¬ 
pillar which eats off the pistil of certain kinds of plants 
after they are sweetened with the pollen of certain other 
plants, and yet that is the least difficulty of all my 
labours. Still, I have a good deal of time on my hands 
at certain periods of the day, and it struck me, as soon as 
the shooting fit was over, that I might do worse than 
call on those nurserymen who are near enough who 
contributed handsomely to the Experimental Garden, in 
order, in the first place, to thank them personally, and, 
in the second place, to see their ways of doing such 
things as would he good for our readers to know about. 
The Wellington Nursery being the nearest of them, I 
called there first, and for the first time in my life. I 
took the'bus from the “City” to the “Swiss Cottage.” 
The rout is by Newgate Street, Holborn, Oxford Street, 
turned to the right at Orchard Street, through Portman 
Square, and by the Baker Street Bazaar, crossed the 
Now Road, got to Park Crescent, then to Park Road, 
out of which runs Wellington Road, and 1 was put down 
at the gate of the Nursery; but all that you have to do, 
in any part of London, is to look out for the Swiss 
Cottage on the 'bus, and tell them to put you down at 
the Wellington Road Nursery, if you want to see how 
correctly I have made this report on progress. 
I have seen some wonders in my day, but they will 
never cease. The most wonderful thing I saw that day 
was the stock they had of their new bedding dwarf 
Dahlia, named Crystal Palace. Mr. Barnes, of Stow- 
market, is the best propagator of the Dahlia I know, 
and 1 am sure that if he had that stock of this one plant, 
and three spring months before him, he could and 
would produce from it a sufficient number of plants to 
supply every garden between the Straits of Yenikale 
and the Bay of Agapulco; and this Dahlia is not a 
florist's flower, as 1 can tell from the Experimental, but I 
a bedding-plant. My plants are not fifteen inches high I 
yet, hut they were in bloom by the beginning of the i 
month. The Cottage Gaudenf.ii deserves, say, how J 
many clasps? for fighting against the “fancy” to get! 
into the Zelimla strain, the French strain of Pelar- | 
goniums, and the right strains for bedding-plants. Out I 
of one hundred and sixty-three kinds of bedding 
Geraniums now in the Experimental Garden, there are 
1 only four or five which would or could pass as 
I florists' plants. 
Tn the show-ground of this Nursery are arranged, in 
long beds, all the kinds of the best bedding-plants that 
will bear to be turned out into very rich soil. The 
ground seems to be one-half rotteu dung, and, except 
the very dwarf Scarlet and Variegated Geraniums, 
none of the bedding Geraniums will do to be planted 
out of the pots in it. Those, therefore, who find any 
difficulty in growing the Qolilen Chain, have only to give 
it the richest light compost to push it on as freely as Tom 
Thumb, comparatively. There is an edging of it here 
all round one of these long nursery beds, which may be 
twenty yards from end to end, the very finest plants I ever 
saw of it, and I have seen as much of it as most people. 
The plants average a foot in diameter, and the leaves 
touch all round. This edging is round a bed of a new 
Verbena, the most singularly beautiful of all the race. It 
is a purple variety of Verbena pulchella, with the edges of 
the petals as distinctly marked with white stripes as the 
Phlox Mayii, or Radetsky. The bed is completely carpeted 
with this creeping, low Verbena, and every flower in it is 
marked alike: the name is Imperatrice Elizabeth. There 
are pans full of it in the show-house grown after the 
manner of Aehimenes, and in that way it will be a most 
valuable kind in the country for decorating the break¬ 
fast-tables, and for standing about the rooms. With a 
little stopping it may be grown for such purposes as if 
it were turned out of a mould. Dowu the centre of this 
bed is a row of standard aud half-staudard Fuchsias, 
the stems being clear from two to three feet. A circular 
bed in the flower-garden thus planted, the Fuchsias in 
the centre being longer in the legs, and the legs shorten¬ 
ing as you advance to the sides, would look extremely 
well by itself; or, to make it more complete, though less 
rich, the edging might be of that little gem of a Fuchsia 
called Tom ’Thumb, say three rows of it, unless the 
plants were more than a year old. A large bed of the 
Flower of the Day, with an equal quautity of the Va¬ 
riegated Mint, the finest combination, and the most 
lady-like, that can bo made of bedding-plants, with 
standard appropriate Fuchsias, and an edging a foot 
wide of the Golden Chain, would he my model for 
luxury embedded, if there is such a word ; and if I live 
another year, the best bed in the Experimental will be 
of that ilk, if I could beg, borrow, or run off with one 
hundred good Golden Chains; but as everyone here and 
abroad who grows the Golden Chain owes me a debt, 
who knows but I may have some of them to spare next 
year? Another of those long beds was edged with all 
the new kinds of Variegated Geraniums; and seeing 
them thus, all in one view, I should say that the Moun¬ 
tain of Snow and Fairy Nymph are the two most telling | 
for their ivory-like whiteness, while Favourite (Ivory's) 
aud Brilliant are the best two for masses of bright 
flowers. Llowever, Mr. Kiughorn’s new ones aud a few 
others were not out on this competition. I have one of 
all the Variegated Geraniums that are “ out,” aud a 
good few that are not “ out;” but I want one thousand 
good cuttings, of sorts, to complete my hobby of seeing 
how comfortably we can put Luxury to bed between us. 
I should like to see him or her so soft and easy bedded, i 
that you could see the marks of a lady’s finger on the ! 
face for a week. There is a new Variegated Geranium 
here with a bright horse-shoe mark between cherry and 
crimson, and if it holds good, it will be the end'of the 
tether in that direction. 
Among the other fancy-leaved and coloured Geraniums, 
one called Countess of Bective is the best flower, which 
is in the way of Kingsbury Pet, but that class will not 
bed ; they arc house plants, autumn aud late autumn 
conservatory kinds. 1 claim that strain as my heritage, 
the Shrubland Cream and Tricolor being the first of 
them, and the best two of them yet for trusses. Aurora 
is another of them, which I saw here, and Mrs. Lawton 
a third; and a beautiful cherry-cheek-like charmer it is. 
