27G 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
•July 13. 
I 
| 
I 
i 
result of your experiment in June or July, 1855; but if 
you lay it up till the following spring, as the florists do, 
you will not see your ucw crosses till the summer of 
1850. I use 48-sized pots for this kind of seed invari¬ 
ably ; the pots are drained well, and the soil is light; a 
sandy loam, without peat or leaf-mould, both being 
liable to damp the little seedlings in the winter. 1 plant 
one row of seeds quite close to the side of the pot, and 
two inches seed from seed ; this is done with a dibble, 
like planting cabbages. I take hold of the feathery tail, 
and push the seed, head foremost down, till the whole of 
it is just covered, the tails standing up by the very side 
of the pot all the way round, and just two inches tail 
from tail. After this, and with this arrangement, they 
want no more doing to them till the middle or end of 
next April; no potting off into single pots, that is a 
most extraordinary piece of extravagance and trouble, 
and keeps the plants much later in flowering. No 
stimulus should they have till the show for bloom, and 
providing they were all of equal strength, tine plants 
can be proved in the seed-pot; but a batch of seedlings 
never come of equal strength, and by April they will be 
so crowded as to need thinning; then turn out the 
ball, and as the seedlings are just on the outside of it 
they will come apart without disturbing it; and then 
five of the strongest plants may be left in it to bloom ; 
and the rest in fours, or in fives, according to their size, 
should be placed in 48-sized pots in loam as light as 
before. 
The moment a truss is seen on the top of one of these 
seedlings, the top eye or joint should be stopped, and 
the plant will “ break ” abundantly below, before the 
first flower opens. If the colour and shape of the new 
flower come up to your ideas of improvement bo content, 
the substance of the petals, and the number of flowers 
in a truss or head, will improve as the plant gets older. 
Scores of good seedlings have been thrown to the dogs 
for want of knowing this singular property in all the 
races of the scarlet Geraniums, because the petals were 
thin, and very few flowers in the truss. I, myself, threw 
away many thousands, but now, and for a long time 
past, I am satisfied with colour alone; substance in¬ 
creases with age, and a good flower is never, and can 
never be, of a bad shape; the more shapes, in fact, the 
better, in a flower-garden. 
In conclusion, the whole secret lies in one sentence : 
sow the seeds the same day you gather them ; sow them 
round the side of the pot only, and quite close to it, and 
at such distances that the seedlings need not be removed 
till next April, and never give any of them the least 
stimulus till you see the flower-buds. 
D. Beaton. 
DISEASES AFFECTING THE CUCUMBER. 
I he first of these to which I will allude is mildew. 
Every gardener is ashamed of the “ dusty miller” appear¬ 
ance ot this on his Cucumber plants, as right or wrong, 
good cultivators say he has nothing but his own negli¬ 
gence to thank for it. There is a degree of morbid 
satisfaction in being able to rail at frost aud weather for 
our disasters, but when our own conduct comes to be 
the blameworthy point, then there is trampling on 
tender toes with a vengeance. I will not settle the 
vexed question, whether under glass, mildew may or 
may not bo entirely prevented. Under such circum¬ 
stances it is seldom I have met with it. It will be more 
profitable to state the means for preventing its appear¬ 
ance, and for setting it adrift when present. 
I have found the causes of mildew to be chiefly these. 
A sudden check given to the excitements to extension 
and growth ; a stimulus of heat and moisture applied to 
the roots when the atmosphere was cold and drv; a high, 
moist temperature about the branches, and a cold soil 
about the roots, whether that was dry or clogged with 
muddy w'ct; a continued close, moist atmosphere in dull 
weather, when there was not air enough given to enable 
the plant to throw off its redundance of watery juices by 
a free perspiration. The converse of all this will insure 
the absence of the mildew; such as roots ramifying in a 
healthy, open soil, to which air as well as water can find 
access ; a healthy, growing temperature at the roots, cor¬ 
responding with a healthy, airy atmosphere; and 
moisture at roots and in the atmosphere proportioned to 
the degree of heat applied to both. For instance, in a 
bright sunny day perspiration must either be lessened 
by shading, the use of the syringe over the foliage, the 
presence of evaporating pans, the watering of walls, 
paths, as well as roots, to keep a moist atmosphere 
round the plants. Do all this in a sunless, cold day, 
where a dryish atmosphere and dry leaves are more 
needful than damp ones, and the inability to get rid of 
i the watery juices will be a regular nest-egg for fungus 
to brood in. If the soil should get at all cloggy and 
| sour, frequent stirrings, and even removing a portion 
with the lingers and a pointed stick, will be of great 
utility when replaced with nice, light, fibry compost. So 
much tor preventives and restoratives in a gentle way; 
now for more vigorous opponents of the maludy when it 
presents itself. 
For this, sulphur applications hold the first place, in 
unison with that system of culture just indicated. Lime j 
in a quick state is also useful; but not so effectual ns 
the sulphur. If a number of leaves are very bad, they 
should be immediately removed, and in this, as well as 
all other cuts just now, when the juices are in rather a 
disordered state, the cut jiart should be daubed with 
powdery lime mixed with charcoal dust, which will pre¬ 
vent decay and gangrene taking place there. The 
sulphur may be dusted carefully on the parts affected, 
whether leaves or stems, and an opportunity should be 
taken of fine airy days to syringe with the lime and 
sulphur-water, lately and frequently referred to, and 
also to syringe with it walls or boards of pits and 
I frames, before shutting up in an afternoon. Where 
i there are hot-water pipes, the smearing of these with 
sulphur, and not allowing the water to rise above 175° j 
with air on, when the pipes are hot, will both destroy 
and prevent the mildew. These applications, with a 
nice, moist, and yet not too close, a heat, and aright 
healthy state of soil, will soon cause the mildew to 
depart. If plants are very bad, the best process would 
be to replace them by others in a healthy state. 1 have 
no reason for supposing that the disease is constitu¬ 
tional; in other words, that seed saved from a mildewed 
plant will produce mildewed plants again, as a matter 
of course; though, when a choice ean be made, it is as 
well to avoid the risk. We have, however, seen seed 
taken from mildewed plants, and the mildew never 
showed itself on the progenjf. It would have been an 
easy matter to obtain seeming proof that such a disease 
was hereditary, merely by resorting to the causes that 
produce mildew. 
The second disease I shall mention is canker, so 
named, because its appearance is somewhat analagous 
to what takes place in fruit trees—the bark becoming 
first of a rusty, scaly appearance, destroying the skin, 
and ultimately killing the part- to the branches centre. 
This often takes place where one main branch separates 
from another; but quite as often near the base of the plant, 
and where, if loft alone, the plant must soon be destroyed. 
In but rare instances have I succeeded in getting a 
healthy bark to grow over such a cankered part; but, 
taken in time, the plants will not be so injured as to 
prevent them yielding in succession a goodly quantity 
ot first-rate fruit. At any rate, plenty of time will be 
given to socure fruit-bearing plants in succession from 
