September 19. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
475 
others lower down being slipped out with the point of a 
penknife as they appear, but without hurting the foliage. 
The shoots from these buds may be stopped again, a 
time or two, to make the head more compact and bushy, 
in order to furnish a sufficient number of shoots to pro¬ 
duce the blooms on their points. To have fine large 
spikes of bloom, it is not desirable to stop the shoots 
after the middle, and, at the latest, the end of August. 
While all this has been going on, the plant must be 
attended with pot-room, shifting it as the roots get the 
least matted. A 12 or 14-iuch pot will grow a very nice 
specimen. Equal portions of heath-mould and loam, 
and rather rough, will grow them admirably, provided 
plenty of week manure-water is used, or, what will 
answer rather better, a good coatiug, say lialf-an-inch 
thick, of one-year-old cow-dung laid on the surface of the 
soil, in the pot, watering with a rose over it, and remov¬ 
ing apportion and adding more as the virtues are washed 
out ot it. A sprinkle over the foliage with clear soot- 
water will also be beneficial. “But how get this clear 
soot-water?” I answer this in a sort of parenthesis, 
because several friends cannot get their dry soot, nor 
get their dry sulphur, to mix with the water at all, and 
we have had considerable trouble to get assistants to do 
it in the very easy way, though of course involving 
a very little trouble, which does away with all tho 
difficulty. Whatever the quantity of the dry powdery 
matter, use no more water at first than will be sufficient 
to beat it up, with broom, brush, or flat stick, into a 
thick paste, and this done, the water added afterwards 
will amalgamate freely; but if you do not do this, you 
may beat and flounder away for hours before you will 
get the dry powder to amalgamate with the water. The 
above mode will secure the mingling, and a little quick¬ 
lime added will secure the clearing, so that after remov¬ 
ing the scum, you will get a clear liquid in twenty-four 
hours. For instance, here is a thirty-gallon barrel; a 
shovel full of soot is put into it, genuine stuff, not three- 
parts dust, or sawdust blackened; rather better than a 
quart of water is added, and thoroughly incorporated 
with it, until not a particle of dry soot is to be seen ; 
then half-a-shovel-full of quicklime is added, and the 
barrel filled with water, and well stirred with the broom, 
and in the time specified above it will be as clear as 
brandy. 
For plants to bloom out-of-doors, it will be preferable 
to use such plants as above, after keeping them over 
the winter, or bush plants that bloomed in autumn and 
winter, alter being kept under the stage of a greenhouse, 
may be pruned up to a single stem, the old soil shaken 
from the roots, fresh potted, encouraged to grow with a 
good place in the greenhouse, or where there was more I 
heat, hardened off by degrees by the beginning of June, 
and planted out towards its middle and close. Those 
who have been so fortunate as to see this plant do well 
out-of-doors will not regret the little trouble, even 
should they be partly beaten in gaining a high success 
at the first trial. 
SALVIA FULGENS. 
This, and the variegated-leaved variety especially, is a 
splendid thing for beds out-of-doors, from the middle of 
August until sharpish frosts come to visit us. Being 
much hardier than the above, standards answer ad¬ 
mirably out-of-doors, and are no unpleasant feature in a 
greenhouse in winter. To have them in full bloom at 
that period, and also in the spring of the year, the 
points of the shoots must be pinched out in August. 
It may be managed from a cutting, exactly as described 
above for 8. splendent; but where beds of it exist, the 
quickest way to obtain possession of standards would 
be to fix upon some strong shoots, give them a little 
training for that purpose, and then lilt and pot them 
before the stems are injured by frost, and keep them 
in any out-of-the-way place, beneath the stage of the 
greenhouso, a dry shed, &o., where frost would be ex¬ 
cluded. The leaves, of course, would fall; but if the 
buds are kept uninjured, tho returning warmth of 
spring will cause them to expand, when the plants must 
get a better place, be encouraged to grow, and then 
hardened oft' for out door practice by the first of June. 
Loam should form the chief ingredient in the compost 
of this plant; cow-dung, or horse-droppings in a decayed 
state, may be used as a top-dressing, when more strength 
is required. Additions of peat-earth and leaf-mould 
are apt to make the plants grow thin, instead of robust 
and compact. 
SALVIA GESNER.EFLORA. 
Whatever course of treatment I have adopted, I never 
could get this to bloom in any thinglike perfection, except 
in the spring months: as an out door plant, it is, there¬ 
fore, of little use. I have turned out largo plants in 
May, but they were not worth their room. Somebody 
else may be more fortunate, as, next to Splendent, this 
seems to me the most beautiful of the family. It will 
answer admirably as a standard in the greenhouse, and 
in that style escape an objection against its use when 
grown as a bush. It seldom does well in a small state. A 
huge bush does not only look best, but the flower trusses 
are much finer generally than are smaller plants with a 
few shoots. This very size militates against its use from ’ 
the room it takes up, and giving you nothing all the 
winter to look at but a mass of green foliage. Obtain ! 
a fair-sized head on a stem, some four or six feet in 
height; and then the space it occupies is not lost, as it 
may be tilled with smaller plants beneath it. As re¬ 
marked, however, the other week, to secure the advantage 
of this, the use of standards in a house must be moderate. 
Cuttings inserted in spring will make good standards in 
a twelvemonth. A bush intended for blooming next 
spring may be pruned up and grown as a standard the 
year following. After the beginning of June, the plants 
will get on better, plunged or plauted, out-of-doors, than 
in any position under glass. In the one case, care should 
be taken to prevent the roots getting through the pot 
for any distance, by placing the convex side of a crock, 
or piece of broken pot, over the hole at the bottom, 
and loose drainage above it, and also leaving a hollow 
space beneath the pots. It is better to encourage 
surface-rooting, by plunging the pots several inches 
beneath the surface, and saving the roots that are pro¬ 
duced there, by inserting them and the old ball in a 
larger pot by the middle of October. When planted out, 
a little lightish soil should be placed round it, and then 
the soil of the garden, or border, be allowed to remain 
rather firm and poor, and then the roots will not proceed 
far from home, and the plant will lift with a good ball. 
In this case, the plant should be raised by the end of 
September, and be set in an airy, shady place, for a few 
weeks, until the roots were growing freely in their new 
quarters; shortly after which, the plant will want the ! 
protection of the greenhouse, or any airy place, where ' 
the temperature seldom falls below 48 °. 
SALVIA INVOLUCRATA. 
This is the last of this genus I shall name. Now and | 
then you will meet with a bed in August and September, ! 
owned by people who do not despise old things, that j 
rivets your attention by the beauty of its pinky-red 
flowers, produced in great profusion. It is not much 
more hardy in winter than Splendent, though in most 
places it blooms freely out-of-doors in the autumn 
months. It is grown with equal facility, and requires 
just less care in its earlier shillings. I only tried it as a 
standard once, and found that the stem is even more 
brittle than that of Splendent. A plant, several years 
old, with a large head, supported by the Gardnerian : 
