374 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 15. 
not allow any of them to carry another flower till next 
year, to see if I can compete with the Bishop of London 
and his gardener. 
If there were bishops in the kirk of Scotland, and if 
the world had gone right round with the graziers, 
instead of going right against them, on the fall of 
Napoleon the First, in 1815 and 1810, I might have 
been a bishop of St. Kilda myself by this time, as 
I shall explain in my autobiography, in the coming 
i series, so that my presumption, in the idea of competing 
’ with an English bishop, is not altogether so great as it 
might, at first, appear on the face of it; at all events, I 
would put all my weight and strength in the urgent 
advice to each and all in the matter of specimens of the 
best kinds of the scarlet breed of Geraniums, for placing 
out here and there about the garden, and always to have 
them in pairs, or only a single pair, to begin with, if 
there is no more room to spare at present. I cannot 
allow myself to say, just try one pair, to see how you 
will like it, because I have not the slightest doubt, in 
my own mind, that it is possible for any one, who is at 
all fond of a garden and flowers, to have two thoughts 
on the subject. 
If 1 am not much mistaken, Harry Moore’s plan 
of growing them in the same pots, and in the same 
soil, for years and years is the best, and most con¬ 
venient, after one gets them on to the right size at 
first; but I would not advise that plan to begin with 
this autumn, when selections are to be made of plants 
now standing out in the beds or borders. I should fix 
at once, or very soon now, on the best plants 1 had for 
j that purpose, and would stop them if they had long, 
I straggling, soft shoots, or rather make cuttings of such 
j tops. I would thin out crowded shoots in the centre 
altogether, and I would clear off very low shoots, or 
rather, I have done all this last week with such as I 
mean to train for specimens; I would then leave them 
j out till the first or second week in October, when I 
i would take them up, regulate the heads to my idea of a 
I good round shape, prune back all the stronger roots to 
I one-third their length, and leave the very small roots 
without any cutting. I would pot them in as small 
| pots as I could get their roots into comfortably, and 
j use only strong yellow loavn with a little sand, and 
j no sort of manure, as the present pot, or ball, will 
be the centre of the future pots, or balls. It is es- 
l sential that nothing but the soundest loam should 
j be in contact with the stem, collar, and master roots, 
! on Harry Moore’s system. Next February, these 
plants ought to have a shift into pots one size larger, 
and towards the end of the middle of the May following 
be placed in full-sized pots, in which the specimen 
plants were to remain undisturbed for some years, 
except a fresh surfacing every spring with a richer 
compost. For the two spring striplings a little rotten 
dung might be added, or not, according to fancy. I 
would prefer no dung at all for this kind of culture, as 
good friable loam alone would be more likely to keep 
the roots in a firm, healthy state for a longer period; 
and I would trust to strong water, from April to October, 
for extra stimulus to throw off large trusses of bloom, 
and to plain soft rain or pond water during the rest or 
winter period ; and I am quite sure that any one might 
keep such plants in a very healthy state for many years 
by these simple means. For drainage, there is nothing 
better than bones in pieces not longer than Filberts, 
—say an inch or so of them—and to keep the soil from 
falling in among the bones, a layer of woollen rags, or 
old shreds from the fruit-trees against the walls, is, I am 
convinced, the very best material. Of all the stimulating 
waters, I believe none are more really useful to the 
whole tribe of Geraniums than soap-suds, not very 
thick or strong—that from the hand-basin every morn¬ 
ing is, perhaps, the very best tliat can be used. I have 
used it myself for many years—having it as Susan 
watered Aunt Harriet’s Geraniums is an excellent way 
in careful hands ; but it is a dangerous game unless one 
is very careful. It is not with strong doses, now and i 
then, that we get great and permanent results from 
liquid-manure, but with the constant use, during the 
summer months, of a very small addition of strong 
water to the daily supply. Of course, this does not • 
apply to annuals, as Balsams, Tomatoes, Capsicums, 
and such like. 
Many of our very best gardeners put much stress on 
the use of clear liquid-manure, clarified, as they say, 
and I suppose there must be something in it more ' 
than mere fancy; but I never used any of it in all my 
experience, and I never rightly understood the reasons 
in favour of it. I recollect an instance, in the winter j 
of 1847, which would surprise most gardeners. I 
had placed thirty-two young plants of Lismnthus 
Russellianus —the worst plant to winter, perhaps, of all 
we grow—on a top shelf in a stove, also some bulbs, 
under an experiment. The orders were that the bulbs I 
should receive strong liquid manure, made on purpose, 
for every watering during the winter, from fresh horse- 
droppings from the stables; but rain-water only for the 
Lisianthus on the same shelf. William Cresswell, who ! 
watered the stove that winter, was a man whom I could 
trust to execute an order to the very letter; but the best 
ot us err at times. He mistook my meaning altogether. 
The Lisianthus plants had the horse-dung-water, as 
brown as could be, all that winter; and in February, 
when they were taken down for potting, and for hot, 
moist, frame culture for the spring, there was a thick 
surface ol the small particles of the droppings on each 
pot, and a “ tide mark ” of the same round the inside of 
the rims of the pots. I never had better Lisianths 
before or since; but Cresswell, probably, recollects to 
this day how he escaped the “ land-mark ” of the lash 
about his ears for the unintentional experiment. 
One more experiment about strong water will finish the 
subject for this season. I saw it announced very 
recently, that “ colouring-matter will not enter the roots 
of a plant; but the fact is not so. I saw crimson- 
coloured-water rising in a white Balsam, in 182G, with 
these very eyes; and anybody may prove this in three 
days. A white Balsam is the best, because the bark 
and stem is clear: let it go without water till all the 
leaves droop, then water it in the middle of the day, j 
when the sun is strong on it, with coloured water, and j 
you will soon see the colour rise in the stem as plainly 
as the mercury when a thermometer is plunged in hot- 
water, or in trying when the wort is ready for the yeast. 
In 1834 or 1835, I tried this experiment differently. A 
Gourd-like plant, in a hot stove, was allowed to droop 
all its leaves for want of water. The pot was then 
watered from a dirty horse-pond, where the water was 
nearly black. I made a cut at the sixteenth joint from 
the pot a short time after that, and the plant bled pro- i 
fusely into the palm of hand; the water, or bleeding, 
was still brown, but not quite so dark as that put into 
the pot. No doubt, many plants may refuse coloured 
water, and it may be necessary to sponge dry, so to 
speak, the coarsest plant, before it is capable of taking 
in coloured-water; but I have the evidence of my seuses 
that it is possible to do the thing, but I have no such j 
evidence that clear water is better than brown water for i 
plants, neither do J know that brown is better than 
clear water ; very likely they are both best according to 
the ideas of those who advocate the one or the other. 
I know that clear, or nearly clear, soap suds will choak 
up the soil on the surface of a pot as much as brown 
liquid from fresh or rotten dung. To cure that choaking, 
all that is necessary is to let the soil get dry, and to stir 
the surface an inch or so, and to give the next watering 
with soft rain-water only. This is exactly how I manage 
