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12 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April G. 
1st. Rather small pots or tubs. Until last season our pots 
were so small that it was difficult to keep them watered. 
2nd. Using loam and peat for soil. 3rd. Using top-dressing 
of cow-dung or manure waterings, when the plants are 
making then' growth, and again when swelling their buds 
for bloom. 4th. When the terminal bud is formed, taking 
care that it is not started again, so as to make two growths 
instead of one. When, therefore, these buds are formed 
early, the plants must be kept in a shady place, and fed with 
a minimum of water, during the hot days in .luly and early 
| autumn; but they should be fully exposed to the sun 
towards the end of autumn, to ripen the buds, and extension 
of growth prevented, by a still less supply from tbe water- 
pail. Thus managed, we have frequently pleased others, 
and if we have not pleased ourselves, it is because we have 
not been able to calculate on the success being uniform. 
Perhaps our friend may supply the missing desideratum 
for our large houses. Good plants, in winter and spring, 
are considered, by many, to equal, if not excel, the Camellia. 
I would advise our correspondent neither to root-prime nor 
repot. Two-feet square ought to grow a large specimen. 
Many readers will recollect the fine specimens at the 
nursery of Mr. Knight, and many were disappointed because 
they did not bloom often. We believe, standing almost 
constantly in the house, and at such a distance from the 
glass, was the chief reason. From your Salvia gesnertrfolia, 
probably you will not got any bloom until next spring now, 
and you may, therefore, either raise fresh plants from 
cuttings now, or cut-in the old plant, so that it may make 
fresh shoots, and have time to mature them before winter. 
Your error consisted in topping your shoots, so far as we 
understand, so late ; you just nipped off all the places that 
would have given you nice flower-spikes. We should not 
care about stopping such plants after the beginning of 
August, and then we should expect the plants to be a mass 
of scarlet in the greenhouse after March.] 
PRUNING ORCHIDS, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
“ For the information of those of your readers, who, like 
myself, are fond of cultivating Orchids, 1 beg to give my 
experience of the advantage of cutting the stems in order 
to produce back shoots. In January, 1853, I bought a 
plant of Cuttlcya crispa, with nine old bulbs, and tiro now ones, 
which latter had flower-scapes, and both flowered well in 
July last. After which, two shoots appeared, one from each 
of the bulbs which had flowered, these progressed favourably, 
and have each a flower-scape looking well. On December 1, 
the back bulbs appearing shrivelled, and no sign of shoots 
in them, I severed the rhizome in two places, and moved 
the plant from the block on which it was to a pot, carefully 
potting it well above tbe rim. For about a month matters 
looked very alarming, the eleven back bulbs getting more 
shrivelled than ever, and at last I almost gave them up for 
lost. However, a crisis arrived; they gradually swelled, and 
are now all eleven as round and plump as possible. Seven 
strong shoots from them, plenty of roots, and the flower- 
scapes on the other two bulbs have not suffered in any way, 
but their bulbs are putting out strong healthy roots. 
“ I have a large sweet Orange, a while Camellia, and 
an Oleander (in tubs), which I am anxious to transfer to 
large pots; would you kindly give me some information as to 
the time and mode of moving them. Am I too late now ? 
] The Orange is about eight feet. Camellia five feet, and the 
j Oleander ten feel, in height. The tubs are about eighteen 
I inches in diameter, the pots a little larger. Would root- 
j pruning at moving time be beneficial ? I may as well state, 
tliat I cannot give tbe plants more heat when potted, they 
I must remain in a cool greenhouse.—E. P. B., Dublin.'’ 
[We do not grow Orchids largely, but Mr. Appleby knows 
all about the practice alluded to, and an intimate friend of 
ours has been very successful. He often thus gets balf-a- 
dosen of “ rises," when otherwise he would only have had 
one or two. Tbe size named as those of the tubs of the Orange, 
Camellia, and Oleander, will grow large plants. We woiild 
pot the Orange now, or during tbe next month, hurting the 
roots as little as possible, but draining well, and removing 
any old, soured soil. The Camellia we would repot when 
the flowers were all gone, and the young shoots one or one- 
and-a-half inches in length, keeping the plants shaded a 
little afterwards. The Oleander we would pot some time 
about or after Midsummer, when done flowering, and the 
blooming-shoots cut out. In neither of these cases would 
we root-prune much if the roots were healthy; we would 
prefer giving the roots fresh food to feed upon, and fresh 
earth, by shaking out as much of the old as possible.] 
ORANGE TREES FAILING. 
“ Two very fine Orange trees (for which, twelve or fourteen 
years ago, I gave twelve guineas) have become thin in the 
foliage, and scraggy in the heads. Some few years since, I 
slipped them from the small boxes in which I bought them 
into large circular tubs, placing the old balls bodily in the 
centre of the new mould. They have never done so well 
since. How are they to be restored ? They stand in a 
conservatory.—Me. C." 
[The state of tbe trees is partly owing to over potting, 
and placing the ball in the centre of the large tub, without 
disengaging and training out the roots. Very probably, 
too, the mode of watering adopted was such as to cause 
the new earth in this large tub to become a sour mass. 
Two remedies present themselves, as the plants -stand in a 
conservatory. 1st. Examine the roots, see that the drainage 
is all right, remove any sour cloggy soil, repot with fresh 
tibry earth, and, if necessary, use a snudler tub, or pot. 
2nd. Prune-in the scraggiest part of the head, and either 
shut in a part of the conservatory so that you may give 
plenty of heat and moisture, to make fresh shoots, or, what 
would be better, surround such plants with a layer of sweet 
decomposing matter, such as dung, and leaves, Ac., and if 
persevered in, the heat, moisture, and nourishing gases, will 
cause a fresh growth soon to appear. The modes of making 
a rude hospital for such plants was alluded to in an early 
number.] 
MODES OF HEATING, Ac. 
“ What conflicting statements are to be seen on the sub¬ 
ject of ‘ Heating.’ No. 271 contains a letter from Mr. 
Golightly, complaining dreadfully of the Pohnaise system 
of beating. He allows no part of the plan good, even the 
smell on entering the house bad. He certainly does not 
say how he formed his stove. Perhaps it was his first 
attempt; and being deficient in perseverance, did not try to 
mend an error. Many iu the North of England find the 
plan answer, besides its champion, Mr. —-■ the nursery¬ 
man at Stoke Newington, who supported Pohnaise after Mr. 
Meek’s death. In your last part for February, an advocate 
for Pohnaise starts up, and manfully states, he not only has 
the old flue system at work, but liot-water; and even this, in 
his opinion, must give way to I’olmaise. I have had two 
stoves at work for several years ; one, a brick-arch furnace, 
with nine inches of air under the ash pit, and six inches, at 
least, all round the furnace. After it had been built a few ! 
days the heat was most agreeable and sweet, and the plants 
looking most healthy; moisture, produced by placing iron 
pans on tbe flue which runs under the bed and foot-path. 
When the stove was built, the house was thirty feet long and 
ten feet wide; divided olf ten feet at the stove-end as a warm 
greenhouse; and twenty feet as a mixed greenhouse. The 
stove, being built of common brick, is now worn out, and 
must be replaced soon ; and, again, I have widened the house 
three feet at each side the full length; consequently, I 
found, this winter, the stove not large enough to dry up i 
damps at the furthest end of the greenhouse. I also wish to 
make the warm end a regular liot-house for Melons on the 
south half bed, which is hollow, and covered with flat pan¬ 
tiles; the flue assisting in heating. I bring the cold air 
from the greenhouse, and at the top of the hot-chamber 
have au opening into the grfeenhouse, to regulate and reduce 
the heat if too great. My present furnace is only about two feet 
six long by twelve inches wide, sloping off to form a larger 
arch. Would you recommend a larger furnace ? or should 
I set up a copper boiler, which I have by me, and conduct 
an inch lead-pipe into a wood or brick-and-cement gutter? 
The bed to be heated is ten feet by seven. I am only afraid 
the fire-beat required to warm the hot house and give 
off heat to keep out frost in winter, would, at the same 
time, almost make the water boil, or, at least, give 
off too much steam when none was required. I have 
built a brick Arnott stove, which warms my hall well, after 
Mr. Rivers' plan, as mentioned in his orchard-house. Would 
