20 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April IS. 
planting out next May, and making a reserve stock of 
such as 1 had plenty of, for exchanging with my friend 
through the coming season, I would call to mind all 
such plants as I found difficult to keep through the last 
two or three winters, and of them I would make another 
reserve stock before I slackened the propagation now 
on hand; and this stock I would keep in pots, plunged 
to the rim, all through the summer, and they would be 
ready to house and winter in the same pots in which 
I they would pass the winter with less risk or loss than 
j was ever known under any other system. 
But while we have it in hand, let us glance at the 
summer management of this part of our labour, and 
then mention a few plants that are known to be the 
most troublesome to keep over a long winter. As soon 
as the cold,frames are well thinned, t& make up the 
next planting, and the hurry of the planting season is 
just over, we shall have no want of pots, and of room 
to keep them well employed, for another month or so, in 
getting through the reserve stock to the plunging 
ground out of-doors; when all the plants in this stock 
are put into single pots, and are well established in 
them, the season is kind enough for getting them 
plunged, the size pot best for this purpose is that called 
forty-eight’s; all the pots of one kind of plant should be 
plunged in a row, or rows together; sifted coal ashes is 
certainly the best material for plunging in ; but old tan, 
leaf-mould, sand, or any loose, light soil will do; if you 
water tho rows as they are plunged, you will see at once 
if the pots are all level; this is a great point to be con¬ 
sidered, for if any of the pots lean to one side, you can 
never be sure of good watering till they are all on the 
level; a spirit level is not more sure than the little 
water on the surface of your plunging pots, so there is 
no sort of difficulty in seeing that all are as they should 
be as the work proceeds. There is very little danger in 
over watering a lot of pots plunged in coal ashes, and 
very little trouble in looking after them through the 
season. To make good stocky plants of them, and to 
have as many tops as possible for cuttings, it is only 
necessary to see that none of them are allowed to flower 
all the season ; that every shoot they make is stopped 
to a few joints, as often as one has time to look i 
over them; and that the sun plays over them every hour ! 
of the day, or as long as possible. 
Now, if people would but think over this a little at ! 
! the right time, that is, at the present moment, we might 
' expect to hear less and less of heavy losses in future | 
winters, and the more old plants we are able to keep 
well, the more money is saved to buy in new plants as j 
they come into market. 
There are two good, and only two good varieties of 
the American Groundsel, a dark purple, and a red-purple, | 
and they are among the worst plants one can think of 
for keeping over a winter-autumn; cuttings of them slip j 
through our fingers, no one knows how, but hundreds j 
of amateurs find they are very scarce plants in the 
spring; old plants of them, treated in the ordinary way ! 
vanish like autumnal cuttings, and they never, by any j 
means ever yet tried, come good from seeds. Practised 
gardeners, however, find them as easy to do as Tom , 
Thumb Geraniums; but they propagate their store 
plants of them at the end of April; plunge them, as I 
have just said, stop them, take them up, clean the pots, 
and place them on a high shelf in the greenhouse, and 
keep them rather short of water, till next January, 
when they begin to force for spring cuttings. All other 
difficult-to-keep plants, or such as do not answer to be 
taken up for potting, as Heliotropes, Petunias, and so 
forth, ought to be on this reserve list. D. Beaton. 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT. 
A perfect shoal of inquiries respecting this plant, 
Mimosa pudica, came on me last season, especially from 
young ladies. Apart from the interest of the plant 
itself, I had myself to thank for the aroused curiosity. 
Some years ago, having a large batch of seedlings, I 
had somewhat liberally distributed them, and though 
few of the recipients managed to keep the plant long, it 
enabled tliem, while alive and somewhat healthy, to 
present an interesting feature in vegetation to their 
neighbours, and to raise a laugh by some sly joke at 
their expense. I have even now a vivid recollection of 
the first time I saw the plant, carefully nursed in a 
cucumber frame, when houses were not so plentiful as 
now, and the confusion that mantled the cheeks of a 
pure-minded maiden, when, conscious of her blameless¬ 
ness, she fell into the trap the sly old gardener had pre¬ 
paired for her — the leaves dropping at her slightest 
touch—whilst the experiment, oft repeated, enabled him 
gently to touch the under part of the foliage without ex¬ 
citing the irritability of the plant; and thus showing, 
from tho ordeal, how pure and simple-minded he was. 
Last season the inquiries about this plant were so re¬ 
peated, that having none of my own, I was under the 
necessity of getting one from my neighbour, Mr. Fraser. 
This plant belongs to a group of the Lejumes, distin¬ 
guished by their beautiful pinnatifid foliage, and all of 
them being more or less sensitive; the chief difference 
in their general appearance taking place during the 
night, when the foliage generally not merely collapses, 
but turns the under side uppermost. The whole of the 
tribe is worth watching for this peculiarity alone; and 
this can hardly be done without a more vivid impres¬ 
sion of the necessity of manifesting intelligent kindness 
to all things having life passing over the mind. From 
these, the present subject is chiefly distinguished by its 
foliage collapsing and drooping at the slightest touch; 
this sensitiveness increasing according to the strength 
of light and the vigour of the plant; and the same 
causes acting as a rule of proportion in restoring the 
plant to its previous position; its irritability, a name 
for a vital phenomenon which we cannot comprehend 
or unravel, being dull and sluggish in a dull, cold, 
miserable day. 
The plant is an annual, as commonly cultivated, 
coming from the warmer parts of Brazil, but we had it 
growing nicely, for many years, in a plant stove; and 
there becoming not a large', nor very handsome, but still 
a fair-sized, shrub. Treated as an annual, every person 
may amuse himself by possessing one who has the 
convenience of a Cucumber-frame. Seeds sown in light 
sandy soil, in March or April, and covered with a bell- 
glass, or a flat square of glass, will be ready to pot in 
small pots in the course of a month, and will want 
another shift in another month : requiring a fair amount 
of water and shade, while in this young state, from the 
mid-day sun. A little peat or leaf-mould will be useful 
in the soil, and a moist atmosphere, with a little sulphur- 
fumes from a tile or two painted with flowers of sulphur, 
in its neighbourhood, will keep off its great enemy, 
red spider, without a frequent or drenching operation 
from the syringe. One plant had better remain in the 
frame for the purpose of ripening a pod or two of seed. 
As the flowers are not greatly attractive, when a couple 
or more of pods begin to swell, it will keep the vigour 
of tho plant to pull or cut off all flowers as they appear. 
Other plants from the frame, after being a little hard¬ 
ened off’ by more air, will stand in a window or green¬ 
house, where there is plenty of sun and little draught, 
and where a thin muslin shade can be given during the 
months of July, August, and September. When the 
seed is ripe and gathered, the plants may be thrown 
away, unless where a high temperature of from 60° to 
