THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
205 
! Junk 15. 
. 
noon. Next morning have some boiling-water ready, and 
; a small pot with a rose to it; commence at one end; lift 
the dry litter gently but quickly, so as to shake the rascals j 
out of it, and bring immediately the water over their hard 
| hides, which will effectually do for them; continue the 
i process until all are parboiled. Second. Take some small 
[ pots, put a slice of. Potato, Turnip, or fresh, crisp Lettuce- 
leaf in their bottom, and then a little tuft of dry bay or 
j moss, place them by the sides of tbe bed, and in the morn- 
I ing empty the hosts into a pail of hot-water. Third. Take 
a few small bell-glasses, clean-washed inside, with such a 
bait as the above in its centre, and plunge it in the bed, so 
that its edges are level with, or rather below, tbc surface of \ 
the soil. They can get in easily enough, but, like Sterne's 
Starling, they cannot get out again; their feet can do 
nothing in the upright, clean glass, and such glasses 1 have 
frequently hail half filled. All these processes must be re 
peated. Tbe fourth is both a remedy and a preventive, 
though not a particularly delicate one. Keep several toads 
in the bed, and that they may be comfortable in their | 
prisoned solitude, supply them with a saucer of water, and ; 
see that it is not long empty. If you have many Woodlice, > 
they will soon get as l'at as a show pig. If you are fond of : 
the wondrously dexterous, and what Brother Jonathan ] 
would call “cutely clever," try if your eye is sharp enough 
to detect the toad putting out of sight one of those huge 
fellows they call slaters in Scotland. 
Dwarfing tall-growing Lobelias, by stopping the flower - 
shoots, may bo done'; but what benefit will accrue ? We 
! have had these strong and above six feet in height. We 
j have stopped the shoots when six inches high, and had 
| then a number of flowering-shoots, some two feet in height. 
We have stopped that series when several inches high, and 
had flowering-shoots somewhere about a foot in height, more 
numerous than was desirable, and the blooms numerous 
and small in proportion. By this stopping, we have made 
such kinds as Lobelia fulgens and splendens more massive 
and uniform as a bed in a group; but then they lost all the 
grandeur and beauty of plants, with, perhaps, a central 
stem five or six feet high; three or four, from three to foui- 
feet, and several still clwarfer and shorter than that. We 
should prefer growing some naturally dwarfer plant of the 
desirable colour, to systematically depriving these tall 
Lobelias of their natural dignity and elegance. 
We are sorry so say that your accounts of insects are too 
common. Mr. Appleby’s address is, Victoria Nursery, Ux¬ 
bridge.] 
V O T T ING, AZ ALE AS.—ME LO N S. 
“ Not being able to have any peat for three weeks to come, 
will that be too late to pot my Azaleas, which are now in a 
Vinery (a late ono) growing nicely? Shall I keep them 
there till they have formed their flower-buds ? 
“ I have two stout Melon plants, but have nowhere to put 
! them, except a cold-pit, where I can use dung for bottom- 
j heat only. Shall I do any good if I put them out ?— Peter 
, Pindar.” 
j [It will be late enough for forward Azaleas, but from your 
j description, it will do well enough for yours. Let the plants 
I remain where they are, and if for a week or two after 
j shifting, so much the better. Beware of giving a large shift, 
or you may find young shoots coming vigorously next 
! season instead of flower-buds. When tbe points of your 
i shoots begin to plump up, the more sun and air your plants 
have the better will they bloom. 
Your Melons will do admirably in the cold-pit, if you can 
give from a foot to eighteen inches of dung below them. 
In fact, in a warm summer they would do without the dung, 
but they will succeed better with it. Allow about fifteen 
inches of soil, and allow the heat to be getting into it 
before planting out.] - 
; FUCHSIA FULGENS SHEDDING ITS FLOWEK- 
BUDS. 
“ I shall be very glad if you. can inform me respecting the 
treatment of Fuchsia fnhjens. I have been growing it for 
\ two seasons in compost consisting of loam, rotten dung, and 
road drift, in equal parts, with a little silver sand. I grow 
' them in a greenhouse, and can produce fine plants with 
large trusses of buds, but they drop before they bloom.— 
J. C. K. Amateur.” 
[With the dung you incorporate we would use no manure- 
water until,near the end of the season. Do you give your 
plants plenty of air, and a sufficiency of water? We can 
think of nothing else causing your flower-buds to drop, 
unless it be the other extreme—using too much water, with i 
a rather rich compost. As this kind of Fuchsia has large, 
fleshy roots, water should not be given too freely, until the | 
pots are stored with fresh fibres.] 
POULTRY. 
CO-PARTNERSHIP IN A BROOD. 
“ A neighbour gives me a sitting of Spanish eggs, and 
tells me the law among poultry breeders is—‘ That the one 
who supplies the eggs is to have the pick of the chickens, | 
and half the produce.’ Another neighbour also gives some 
Spanish eggs, and says the rule is—‘ That the one who 
supplies the eggs is to have a pair of chickens.’ My question 
is—Is there any standing approved rule on this head ?— 
S. W.” 
„ [We know of no rule for such a co-partnership. In the 
only instance within our experience, where one party found 
the eggs, and the other party the brood hen and keep of 
the chickens until left by their mother, tbe brood w'as 
divided equally between the parties. They made their 
selection in turns—the party who found the eggs having first : 
choice. This is somewhat on the same terms that we have i 
known Potatoes grown. The farmer found the soil and I 
manure, and the other party finding the seed Potatoes and 
labour ; the produce being divided equally.] 
I 
USE OF GYPSUM IN POTATO CULTURE. 
Our correspondent, Levi Durand, Esq., after alluding to 
the alarm excited by the extensive prevalence of the potato 
disease in this and other countries, and the failure to 
discover its cause or a remedy, gives _ us his method of 
culture, &c., as follows: 
Our system, like many others, in cultivating potatoes, has 
! changed materially in the last twenty years, and we think 
for the better. Formerly wo used to lay the ground into 
| ridges, and then plant the potatoes deep in the soil, plowing 
the ground but one way for hoeing, and finally finish off 
I cultivating the crop by “ hilling up ” the potatoes to the 
j size of a half-busliel basket. But we have found, of late 
I years, that this hilling up system is all useless, and worse 
| than time thrown away, either in cultivating potatoes or oorn, 
j as in case of a great drouth, which we often have, great 
j injury is done to the crop. 
j Our plan now is, to plow the ground flat, raking it down 
smooth with the harrow and roller; then mark out the 
rows two feet and a half each way, with the “corn marker" 
drawn by a horse. Then drop the potatoes on tbe angles of 
j the rows, which will bring the rows light in digging; no 
! more hill than what the “marker” will make passing at 
; right angles of the field. After this, put on about a gill 
! of ground plaster, then cover with two or three good hoefuls 
qf soil, and the work of planting is done. 
As to the kind of seed to be used, a variety of opinions 
wexist among cultivators. Some use whole seed or a whole 
potato of large size, while others cut them and put two or 
three pieces in a hill. So far as we can remember, our 
experience has proved that when the largo potatoes were 
cut for seed, that more even, sizeable potatoes would be 
| produced than when one large potato was putrin a hill, as 
then a few large seed ones and a good many small ones was 
i more generally the product. But still other cultivators 
experience may have proved directly to the contrary ot all 
this. Formerly we always saved the large table potatoes 
for seed, cutting them into a suitable size, and then 
dropping two and three in a hill, always thinking that in 
order to get a good crop we must select the largest potatoes 
for seed. After the price of potatoes went up to seventy- 
five cents and a dollar a bushel, as a matter of economy, we 
tried the smaller sized ones for seed, which were not large 
enough for market, and after a few trials with the small 
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