307 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— August 19.1856. 
wood and drawing of water; let us speak, if it is but weak 
words, with a stammering tongue, so long as our eyes look 
unto the Lord, and our aim and end is His glory and the 
salvation of souls, and that only. 
LETTUCES IN JANUARY, FEBRUARY, AND 
MARCH. 
“ Well, what of it? why write of it?” says my Lord’s or 
Sir Ronald’s gardener; “we are never without Lettuces. 
What matters it if half are eaten up with snails, or their 
leaves picked off stems three feet in length, as long as there 
is enough, and it is Cos Lettuce? Cos, of course, it must 
he; and, by all means, let it bo firm.” John Bull likes a 
durable article, and this leathery affair, coupled with cold 
roast or lean boiled beef, goodness knows is durable enough; 
therefore any spare space where little else will grow will do 
for Lettuces. A capital place is the top of a ridge between 
Celery trenches, particularly if what little good mould there 
was has been made use of for the Celery. What a nice, 
high, dry, airy place, where you can almost hear llie sultry 
wind whistle through in wending its way amongst the lumpy 
i clods. I dare to say the above is no libel on systems I have 
seen and believe exist to this day ; yet many of those that 
: practise the above would be alarmed on being ordered to 
send in Cabbage Lettuce for salad, for no other reason, I 
believe, than that their great grandfathers did not. Have 
they not got the chronicles of their forefathers’ garden 
transactions to guide them? Indeed, leaving out market- 
I gardens, 1 am in the belief that May is the only entire 
; month in the year when, in a general way, good Lettuce is 
i to be found. Ear otherwise the German, Dutch, and French : 
: they trench deep, manure well, and give the Lettuce the best 
j of ground ; and I have seen grown on their systems as good 
i Lettuces in January, February, and March, as I have seen 
in Covent Garden Market in May and June; not individual 
plants, but whole ranges of frames with Lettuces, following 
I each other in succession with scarcely a single blank, and 
really worth looking at; and anyone that has a few spare 
frames, if following the system 1 am just going to tell, may 
I be equally successful ; but they must bear in mind that 
plants, like children, require careful attention : it will not do 
to wait till supper-time before you give them their breakfast. 
Sow thinly about the 20th of August as much seed of the 
j Dutch Cabbage Lettuce as you require for January and- 
i February, and take care that your frames are ready for the 
j planting on, or as near as possible, the 12th of September. 
If Melons or Cucumbers Imvo been grown in them pre- 
i viously, all you will require to do is to give the beds a good 
dressing of leaf or light vegetable mould, fork it over, and 
mix it well with the soil ; get it also in good condition as to 
! moisture, and plant your Lettuces ten inches to one foot 
; apart, using plants that are just showing their rough leaves. 
, Take away all air about the 20th of October, and shade from 
j the time you plant, if the weather is dry and clear, up till 
j November. Birch or dried Yew branches are very suitable 
! lor this purpose. 
| For those you want in March and beginning of April sow 
j about the first week in September, and plant about the 20th 
of September. Treat them like the above, with this dif¬ 
ference—you must contrive, by shaking up the old beds, or 
; otherwise, to give them a little mild bottom-heat. 
! ’ Pray do not make one sowing do for two. Be also par¬ 
ticular in taking away the air about the 20th of October, as 
the fly is ready at this season to gain a march in case any 
false step is made; and to those that have never tasted a 
German or Dutch salad, 1 say, lose no time in getting the 
receipt. A fig for any other, say I.—D. Ferguson, Clowe, 
j Buckingham. 
TRAPPING EARWIGS AND WOODLICE. 
In these times, when the philosophy of little, or, if 
you will, common things is fortunately being impressed 
upon gentle minds, and even now, while the old Scottish 
axiom of “ every little makes a rnuckle ” occurs to my own, 
I, without loss of time, write to inform you after what 
manner a wholesale destruction of those little pests yclept 
earwigs and woodlice can be brought about by a most 
simple and natural means, humane withal; for the depriva¬ 
tion of life, even in an insect, should ever engage our feelings 
to dictate an alleviation of animal suffering. 
1 always grow a few of that noble-looking plant, the 
Hemcleum giganleum, and this year, when 1 cut. them down 
after their flowering, I observed that the junction of the 
leaves with the stem served as a harbour for earwigs, j 
&o., and the thought instantly struck me, what capital traps | 
for such gentry the inside cavity of the stems might prove, i 
I acted simultaneously with the thought by cutting the stalks 
into lengths, ending about an inch and a half above every j 
joint. I spread them in the sun to become thoroughly dried ; 
and light as a chip, at which state they arrived in about a ; 
fortnight. A score of these tubes offered their services, and j 
I charge them with broad bean or any other leaves; I ! 
strip two or three loaves from the bcan-haulm, and enter ' 
them altogether baseways and lengthways at the joint ends 
of the tubes, which darkens that end of the orifice, and 
causes a cover for the insects to nestle amongst; I then place , 
the tubes slantingly in the forks, or at the bases of the 
standard and wall-fruit trees, and more particularly amongst 
Dahlias, or prostrate them along the ground under an old 
hedge, or anywhere, in fact, where the insects are wont 
to prowl to seek for their livelihood or shelter; and tho 
result soon convinces that there are few better traps than j 
these on the roll of contrivances for tho purpose. My 
first inspection was made on a tube I placed at the base of 
one of my bee hive pedestals, when, upon drawing out the 
leaves, a dozen fat earwigs caused me to exert considerable 
alacrity to despatch them, which made me think twice before 
1 interfered with the remainder. I caused a kettle of water 
to boil, then poured it into a pail, and along with that I 
soon went the round of the tubes, shaking both leaves and 
insects into the hot water, which immediately gave them 
their quietus. By this moans l destroy a great number 
daily, and they must soon, one would think, become exter¬ 
minated. There is an old Yew hedge, with rotten stumps, 
running the length of this garden, and the quantity of j 
woodlice these tubes entrap there is astonishing, and is 
hopeful for my Polyanthuses next spring. Recharge each 
time with fresh leaves, and replace the tubes, and many a 
Dahlia fancier may silently thank me for the hint; likewise, 
they may brush a coat of green paint over the outside of 
the tubes for durability and appearance’s sake. 
And the Rector said, “ Cast those dead corpses into the 
poultry-yard for the fowls to devour;’’ and did they not do 
it?— Upwards and Onwards. 
NEW PLANTS. 
Calceolaria violacea (Pale-purple Calceolaria).—This j 
has also been called Baa violacea , but is now placed in a ! 
very'peculiar section of Calceolaria, named “ Jovellana,’’ of 
which section the New Zealand species, O. Sinclairii, is a 
member. It is a greenhouse plant, blooming in May and 
June, and native of Chili, near Valparaiso and Conception. 
— (Botanical Magazine , t. 4929.) 
Rhododendron Blandfordi.efj.orum (Blandfordia-flow- 
ered Rhododendron).—This is one of Dr. Hooker’s disco¬ 
veries. He found it at from 10,000 to 12,000 feet in the 
Eastern Nepaul and Sikkim Himalaya Mountains. It is a 
slender, straggling shrub, eight feet high; flowers scarlet 
and yellow, hut very variable in form.—( Ibid. t. 4930.) 
Rhododendron camelllefloeum (Camellia-flowered 
Rhododendron).—This was also discovered by Dr. Hooker 
at ah elevation of from 9,000 to 12,000 l’eet in tho Pine 
forests of East Nepaul and Sikkim, and in the mountains of 
Bhotan by tho late Mr. Griffiths. It usually grew as an 
epiphyte on lofty trees; but in more open parts of the 
forests it grew in the soil and on rocks. It has been some¬ 
times called ll.theajlonim. Its flowers arc white, tinged with 
[dnk.— {Ibid. t. 4931.) 
IIeterotropa asaroides (Asarum-like Ileterotropa).— 
This was introduced as long since as 1839, but was lost, and 
is now re-introduced. A had flgurc of it was given in But. 
Mug. t. 374(i, but the present iigure is very good. It is 
closely, or, as Sir W. llooker says, “ too nearly allied” to 
Asanim ; indeed, Thuuberg named it Asavum Viryinicum, 
and it is included under that name in The Cottage 
