ArRiL 13. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
21 
70° can be given in winter. These, with a little pruning 
and fresh potting in spring, make fine plants in the fol¬ 
lowing year. Treated as an annual, sow again in March 
in a hotbed. 
ARDISIA CRENULATA. 
This plant, found plentifully iu the West Indian 
Islands, would never be admired for its small, whitish, 
spear-headed llowers. The leaves aro pretty and 
singularly notched, but the great beauty is the- small 
red fruit, about the same size as the currant, and 
which frequently remains for two or three years; the 
fruit for that period, in regular stories, being found 
on one plant some two feet in height, with a story of 
flowers, for tho succeeding crop above them, and sur¬ 
mounted with a corona of young shoots, that will bring 
flowers by-and-by. What a beautiful fruitful Holly 
would be on a lawn, this Ardisia would, and much more, 
exceed in a plant-house; being one of those plants, 
that placed in a proper position requires a very 
minimum of care and attention, as it makes few 
enquiries respecting soil, and bears moisture and 
dryness with more impunity than most other favourites. 
It generally finds a suitable residence in a plant stove ; 
and there it requires but little care. We have several 
times had it more beautiful in a warm greenhouse, with 
a temperature in winter from 45° to 50°, and the assist¬ 
ance of a cold pit iu summer, than even we had it in a 
stove ; and as many enquiries have been made, if such a 
plant could be had healthy iu a greenhouse, I shall say 
a little of its treatment for this purpose. 
The first essential for having a fine show of red fruit 
in winter is a temperature seldom below 45°, and rather 
as much as 48° or 50°, than below it. Even in that 
temperature cold water should never be given to it. 
If not near the heating apparatus, the supply of water 
wanted will not be much. In such circumstances, it 
will bo a striking object during the winter and spring 
months. The whole treatment will have a bearing 
on merely keeping the plant in health without growing 
it. By the end of May it should be kept close in the 
end of the greenhouse, with plenty of moisture and 
little air, and better still, be transferred to a cold pit, 
where growth may be encouraged by a somewhat close, 
shady, moist atmosphere. By the middle of August 
more air and light should be given, and by the end of 
September the plants should be transferred to the 
greenhouse. If kept in a plant stove it will grow and 
bloom continuously. Loam and peat will grow it ad¬ 
mirably, but it is not at all particular. I have seen good 
plants which had not been shifted for years, and so care¬ 
lessly watered that the pots were half empty. 11 is easily 
propagated by half-ripened shoots.in sand, under a bell- 
glass, and plunged in bottom-heat. The seeds will also 
vegetate freely, though they take more time to make a 
plant than cuttings. They are frequently self-sown in 
plant stoves. 
MIGNONETTE IN EARLY SUMMER. 
because, with a little rough matter at the bottom, and 
the finer soil at the top for sowing in, the plants turn 
out beautifully and receive scarcely any check. The 
only fault I have to turf is, that the roots do not ramify 
freely through it; and, consequently, a miserable habit 
of growth is thus produced. By adopting any of these 
modes, and protecting the young plants either under 
glass, or any other covering that would keep out extreme 
wet and cold, this general favourite may be had pretty 
early in the borders. I have tried a plan which answers 
admirably with dwarf annuals possessing fibrous roots; 
namely, making a very slight hotbed, covering it a 
couple or three inches with very rotten dung, lumpy 
leaf-mould, and pieces of turfy loam, beating that firm, 
and then covering with two or three inches of fine soil, 
and then sowing the seed in rows; but though this 
answers beautifully with many things, the plants rising 
in patches and never feeling tho moving, it has rarely 
answered so well with Mignonette as the tiles or the 
turf. 
I have not lately been under the necessity of having 
Mignonette early in pots or boxes, and many amateurs 
have told me, that they had more trouble with their 
autumu-sowu Mignonette than with all their Geraniums, 
Calceolarias, &c. I fear that the trouble is not likely to 
be greatly abridged: the trouble of watering carefully, 
to keep the plants from beiug over wet or over dry ; the 
trouble of giving air to keep them sturdy, and yet not 
giving it when it was too moist or too parching; 
and the trouble of keeping frost out of the cold frames 
and pits, with the usual attendance of litter and no 
small amouut of crashed glass. Were I under the 
necessity of having a great supply in Mayor June, I 
should now be inclined to put up some moderate 
hotbeds; in the beginning of March, till them with pots 
and sow in any common rich soil, thin, and give air, 
and water, and after being duly exposed, and the pots 
getting a twist round several times to prevent rooting 
through, the plants would be gems for windows and 
balconies iu May and June. 
The first idea I obtained of this excellent plan was 
from Mr. Wood, of the Bedford Nursery, Hampstead- 
road. Some years ago, I have seen thousands of pots 
there that could hardly have been equalled by the very 
choicest pots that had been receiving attention for an 
extra six months. Though such a thing is not to be 
got every where, I am sure, if Mr. Wood sees this, 
he will excuse me for stating that he largely used spent 
hops as his heating medium ; as many might get that 
material, where it is now neglected. By-aud-by, nothing 
that will yield heat by fermentation will be lost sight of. 
Not very long ago, I saw a great mound of refuse from a 
llax mill, and yet several people who liked a moderately 
early cucumber could not get them, because they could 
get no dung to produce them. 1 have found few things 
yield a more equable lasting heat than this flax refuse. 
R. Eish. 
Many of our friends complain that they cannot get 
Mignonette so early as they used to do out-of-doors. 
I 1 can easily believe it, as I find it but seed thrown away 
to sow it earlier in our cold ground than from the 
middle to the end of May. This would give the odour 
of the plant very late to those who prize this unobtru¬ 
sive looking thing above all the flowers in the garden. 
To have it iu bloom, , say in the end of May, or the 
beginning of June, I have, at various times, adopted 
various modes of treatment; such as sowing in pots, 
j in semicircular drain tiles, with the ends clayed up, or 
j mossed up, and in small ruts formed in pieces of turf 
I three inches in width, and from two to two-aud-a-half 
' inches in thickness. So far as fitness and economy are 
j concerned, I prefer the drain tiles, either small or large ; 
WOODS AND FORESTS. 
THE OAK. 
“ Than this tree a grander child the oarth bears not 1 
What are the boasted palaces of man, 
Imperial city, or triumphal arch, 
To forests of unmeasurable extent, 
Which time confirms, which centuries waste not ? 
Oaks gather strength for ages ; and when at last 
They wane—so beauteous in decrepitude ! 
So grand in weakness ! e’en in their decay 
So venerable ! ’twere sacrilege to escape 
The consecrating touch of time.” 
In ancient times these giant sons of earth were 
looked upon with veneration; the nobles of the land 
held high court under their leafy shades, and received iu 
simple dignity the ambassadors of rival powers. The 
