THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
366 
by smoke, that they failed in the open ground, and this 
caused their being grown in pots. Will you tell me what to 
do with them ? My small conservatory has been full of 
blooming-plants since last December, and is now very gay 
indeed, and yet I am obliged to ask such a question as the 
foregoing. 
“ The advice you gave last year respecting O.valis Bowcli 
was so satisfactory that I venture now on another point.— 
G. T. S., Stoke-vpon- Trent." 
[The Squills, and S. prcecox more particularly, ought to 
have been set in the open air as soon as the flowers began to 
fade, and to receive water for about a month after the flowers 
(hopped. The pots ought also to be kept out-of-doors till the 
beginning of December, then to be put under a cold frame till 
the middle or end of January, after that on a warm shelf in a 
good greenhouse or conservatory. They do not like much 
heat or forcing. If the same bulbs are kept from year to 
year, once in three years is often enough to shake them 
out of the old soil, and the middle of August is better time 
than October to pot them. Absolute dryness, when at rest, 
is not necessary for them, nor so good as having the pots 
plunged in coal-ashes, where no water could stand about 
them. Turn out your plants immediately, plunge the pots 
in a north aspect, and keep them out as long as the weather 
is at all fine, and do not attempt to pot them this autumn ; 
at least, do not shake off the old soil, but if you see the 
roots very crowded, put the balls into larger pots soon after 
the new year. Six flowering roots round the sides, and three 
in the middle, of a pot of the 48-size, is the right pro¬ 
portion to make an effective show with prtneox- Mr. Lions, 
of Foot’s Cray, in Kent, lias more kinds of them on sale 
than any nurseryman known. Our own stock of them is 
from him.] 
EVERGREENS FOR A SCREEN. 
“ I wish to hide some out-building. The soil is a deep, 
light, dry loam. Please to inform me what variety of Pine 
or Fir is the most suitable ? I should prefer a fast grower. 
At the same time oblige me by saying what kind of ever¬ 
green forest tree is best adapted for a light, moderately 
deep, and moist soil.—P. B.” 
[For both purposes the common Spruce Fir is the most 
suitable and cheapest plant. If the ground is well trenched, 
and the trees are carefully removed and planted from the 
middle to the end of September they will grow very fast. 
They are as easy to move when from ten to fifteen feet high 
as if they were only two or three feet. They need not 
occupy much room, as their branches will bear to be cut in 
.just as well as those of the Yew, and they would make a 
hedge twenty feet high, through which a bird could hardly 
pass. They are so used in Switzerland, but seldom in this 
country.] 
FOUL PASTURE. 
“ Knowing that one of the objects of your valuable paper 
is to instruct the ignorant, I venture to solicit your advice 
as to the mode in which I should deal with eight acres of 
(pasture, I was going to say) land. This, adjoining my house, 
I thoroughly drained and laid down, but the latter part, I 
presume, was not effectively done, it now appears full of 
weeds and Coltsfoot, instead of good herbage. I enclose 
you some of the kinds by which it is overrun. Can it be 
done by top-dressing, and how ? and ought I not, by buying 
Turnips, Mangold, and grains in winter, to be able to keep 
eight cows upon it ?—J. F., Walsall.'' 
[The prevailing weeds of your pasture are the Common 
Yarrow ( Achillea millcfolia), Common Creeping Bugle (Ajnga 
replans), Common Crowfoot {Ranunculus repens), and Colts¬ 
foot. The two last would indicate that your soil where 
they prevail is heavy; and where the other two are, gravelly 
or sandy. There is no doubt, that by interchanging and 
mixing the two soils, you might improve both, and if you 
break up two acres annually, thoroughly cleanse them by 
fallowing, and laying them down again with proper grass 
seeds and Barley, after Turnips, you might, in four years, 
get your eight acres into good pasture. Your eight acres, 
by good management, ought to find your eight cows in 
Mangold, Turnips, and Grass.] 
Auausx 8. 
POULTRY. 
WILL POISONED CHICKENS INJURE THE DOG 
WHICH EATS THEM? 
“ I was not able to answer your enquiry in The Cottage 
Gardener for July 20th sooner. As regards the puppies, 
they are all doing well. The three fowls I wrote to you 
about, the housekeeper at our place said I must have poi¬ 
soned. I knew I had not done so, and I also thought the 
fowls were not at all poisoned, so I said I would give the 
fowls to the pups, thinking, as I still do, if the fowls had 
eaten any of the strychnine that the same would injure the 
puppies; for if you poison a rabbit, and give a piece to a 
fox or cat it will surely die. But the question is, if any thing 
eats the thing that is poisoned, the same as the chickens I 
named, will that kill it ? I am still of opinion that strychnine 
will be fatal to any thing that may chance to eat it, if the 
same has been twelve months in the body. I do not know 
the nature of strychnine myself. —Josetii Horst. 
“ P.S. The puppies were as hungry as hunters the follow¬ 
ing morning after eating the fowls, &c.” 
[If any animal is poisoned with arsenic, and the dead 
body is given to another animal who eats it, the poison is 
fatal to this one also. The reason of this is, that the 
arsenic is a mineral poison, and remains undigested and 
unaltered in the body of the first animal. Strychnine, on 
the contrary, is a vegetable poison, prepared from the nux 
vomica, (Strychnos mix vomica,) and is digested by the 
animal poisoned by it, and, consequently, we think, would 
have no fatal influence on the eater of the carcase. If the 
chickens were poisoned with strychnine, the above case sus¬ 
tains our formerly expressed opinion, but, of course, we can 
give no opinion upon the disputed point, whether the chick¬ 
ens were or were not poisoned.] 
KEEPING WORMS OUT OF POTS. 
In your No. for 3rd August, page 345, is a plan for keep¬ 
ing worms out of plunged pots, and a good plan it is, but a 
better plan is to put a small pot in the bottom of the hole, 
mouth upwards, and to place the bottom of your plunged 
pot over the mouth of the little one; both plans are older 
than the writer, and the small pot under a large one is 
the way by which Pine Apple plants used to be kept safe 
from too much bottom-heat. When you have many plants to 
plunge, the best way is to open a trench from end to end, 
and for every pot take two brick-bats, place them on edge, 
and put your pot over them, and so on with all the pots in 
the row, then fill up the soil around them. 
At page 343 of the same No. the culture of the Impaticns 
glanduligera is given; a better plan, by far, is to sow the 
seeds in the open ground in the autumn. They are most 
shy to vegetate in heat, and no frost hurts them till they 
sprout in the spring, and they never do till it is safe for 
them.— Senilis. 
HARDY FERNS. 
Mr. Gray’s collection of British Ferns, at Hammersmith, 
contains every species, and nearly all their varieties known; 
is particularly rich, and contains fine specimens of Cys- 
topteris montuna , Trichomanes radicans, HymenophyUum Tun- 
bridgense, and unilateralc, Asplenivm fontanum, lanceolatum, 
and marinum. The varieties of Scolopendrium supralineum 
polyschides, marginatum, &c.; Polypodium alpestre, Polysti- 
chum lonchitis, lastrea Jilix-mas var., cristata, Alhyrium fillx- 
fiemina. The plants are planted out in rock-work, in a 
greenhouse, without artificial heat. This and last year they 
have been infested with a species of Typhlocyba, but which 
has given way to the smoke of tobacco. 
Mr. Gray will at all times be happy to show his collection. 
His residence is in the Grove, Hammersmith. He has a 
fine collection of dried specimens of Ferns. 
