THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 26. 
the only plants of the kind fit for making a hed with, and 
they should be ready, in single pots, by the 10th of June, to 
succeed a bed of bulbs or annuals; they require great room, 
and, in a good season, a large bed of them look well in the 
autumn. If you could get good cuttings from your old 
plants early in February, good management might bring 
them out in June. You will recollect, that L. Sellowii and 
its varieties are not thus treated—only the breed of L. 
crocea. 
Old plants and August cuttings of the red and the white 
Mesembryanthemums flower from June to October; they are 
best on dry rock-work, or narrow mixed borders, near a house 
or wall. Your’s are a lazy sort, or were badly managed. 
The first step is to learn whether you have the right kinds; 
the next is to secure your old plants from frost, to out them 
well in, to pot^ them in very sandy soil, and in small pots; to 
keep them cramped at the roots at all times; to give them 
cold greenhouse wintering, and to plant them out among the 
very first things after the 10th of May. For those who cry 
out for herbaceous plants there is a mine of mixtures in this 
gay family; but they must send over to Ghent for them.] 
ROAD-MAKING. 
“ Will Mr. Beaton have the kindness to say, in making a 
carriage-drive across a park, what depth of soil to remove, 
and what are the best materials? We have an abundant 
supply of old mortar-rubbish, broken bricks, and so on, but 
no gravel, which is very expensive to buy, and concrete is 
objected to on account of the expense.— Enquirier.” 
[Mr. Beaton says, that every body should know the depth 
he advised for carriage-roads by this time, and what he 
thinks the “ best materials but much depends on the 
bottom soil. Five inches is deep enough for any road in 
the three kingdoms ; but if you are on clay, say six inches; if 
the bottom is at all soft, put a close layer of faggots spread- 
out crossways on the clay, then full three inches of your lime 
rubbish, then two inches of rough stones, from the fields, or 
anywhere; knock the biggest of them to pieces with a 
hammer, then roll them over and over and over again, till 
you see the lime-rubbish squeezing up through them ; by 
that time you will have room for two inches of best gravel, 
the least you can use.] 
CLOTH OF GOLD ROSE IN POTS. 
“I have two plants of Cloth of Gold Hoses, in pots, on 
their own roots. I should be obliged if you would inform 
me the treatment they require to bloom them; for they 
never bloom with me.—A. B.” 
[The only chance you have with this Rose in a pot is to 
let it grow on in its own way until the roots are sufficiently 
numerous to fill a 12-inch pot, then to plunge the pot in a 
south border under a wall, not less than eight feet high, 
and to train the plant against the wall; then, having the roots 
completely under your controul, if you are gardener enough 
to understand from the look of the plant when to give more 
or less water, you will flower it as surely as any other Rose, 
but unless your own eye is complete master, you may not 
have a flower on this Rose in ten years, and it is of no use 
asking people at a distance when to water and regulate your 
plant. You might just as well step across the way and ask a 
sportsman if it was time to shoot that hare running across 
the field.] 
CLIMBERS FOR A HOUSE SIDE. 
“ Will the Editor of The Cottage Gardener give some 
hints as to covering a vicarage in Oxfordshire with climbing 
Roses and other climbers ? It stands south-east and north¬ 
west, a side-wall nearly direct east. It is built with buttresses 
which form warm corners for the more tender plants. I he 
situation is on the Shotover ridge. The soil a mixture of 
sand and clay. Evergreens flourish well there. Flowering- 
shrubs are desirable, and the names of such Roses as would 
make standards for the lawn, in a very exposed situation, 
are wished for. Also, what would be best to plant to form 
a screen to shut out the offices, and for shelter from the 
winds. It is a great object to have quick-growing things.— 
CuDDESDEN.” 
[The first consideration is a thoroughly good border for 
the roots. Climbing Roses, it is true, and some other 
505 
climbers, grow and flower in ordinary soil, but when they 
are about the doors and windows, there is another point of 
great consequence—the perfect health of the plants; the 
more healthy the less fly and blight.; it is perfectly im¬ 
possible to keep climbing R'oses in such a healthy state as 
would render them tolerable against a dwelling-house, with¬ 
out the first consideration— a first class border. His 
lordship, the Bishop of London, has had great experience 
in this style of Rose culture, and ho told us the other day 
that the Crimson Boursaull is the best of all Roses for the 
south front of a lipuse; the proof of the pudding was hard 
by, against his own Palace at Fulham. You could not have 
a better authority for planting two Crimson Bow saidts, one 
on each side of the door ; then, the Noisette Le Mark Rose 
grows on this Boursault better than on any other, as we, our¬ 
selves, can attest. The Cloth of Gold, and Solfaterre, will 
also do well on the Boursault. The longer all these free 
Roses are allowed to run from the Boursault, with very little 
pruning for the first three years, the better it will be for the 
Boursault, and the more free the whole of them will bloom 
after being once established. We have seen the Malmaison 
Rose flower longer on both the Cloth of Gold and the Sol¬ 
faterre, against a wall, than on its own roots, or on the Hoy 
Rose, Felenbenj (red), and La Biche (white), are two good 
climbing Roses for the front of a house. A few of the 
strongest and best Tea-sccnted Roses would do well on their 
own roots to fill the bottom of the wall; but they require 
the best loam, and an equal quantity of very rotten cow- 
dung, and a mat nailed over their heads in winter for the 
first three years. Souvenir d'un Ami is one of the very best 
and one of the strongest; a light kind. Madame d' St. 
Joseph , and Madame Melanie Willemorz, are among the next 
best. None are better for standards than the hybrid Per- 
petuals, such as you will see in all our lists, which are 
repeated over and over again in all our volumes. There are 
no flowering evergreen shrubs at all, such as you contem¬ 
plate. The quickest way to hide and shelter the offices is by 
a row of Black Italian Poplars and White Poplars, fifteen feet 
high ; next to them a double row of Spruce Firs, ten or 
twelve feet high; and, in front of the Spruces, common 
Laurels, with a few large Lilacs, Guelder Roses, Laburnums, 
and some Laurestinus in front of all, with a border of ever¬ 
green Berberis next the road, grass, or whatever is the 
outside.] 
DISSECTING LEAVES. 
“ Seeing in your last week’s number that a correspondent 
wished to know the method of dissecting leaves, &c., I send 
you two recipes; the first I have copied from the “Jury 
Reports of the Exhibition of 1851,” and the second from the 
“ Family Friend.” 
“ In these remarkable dissections, the whole of the soft 
and pulpy matter of the plants is removed, and only the 
woody, or fibrous, part is left, forming a perfect network of 
woody tissue. This effect is produced by steeping the 
plants in rain water, in which they are suffered to remain 
until the whole of the soft parts are decomposed ; they are 
then placed in fresh water, and the decomposed matter care¬ 
fully removed with a brush, after which the remaining 
fibrous part is bleached in a weak solution of chloride of 
lime, and then dried. The time required for this operation 
varies from a few weeks to several months, and its success 
essentially depends on the minute and patient care bestowed 
on the brushing away of the decomposed pulpy matter." 
“ A tablespoonful of chloride of lime, in a liquid state, 
mixed with a quart of pure spring water; leaves or seed- 
vessels to be soaked in the mixture for about four hours, 
then well washed in water, and afterwards dried, with free 
exposure to light and air; some with strong ribs will re¬ 
quire to be left more than four hours in the solution.” 
“ I have never tried either process, so cannot answer for 
the results; the latter appears to me to be only for bleach¬ 
ing.—S. R. Short.” 
CULTURE OF THE BRISTLE FERN. 
“Have any of the readers of The Cottage Gardener 
successfully cultivated the Killarney Fern ( Trichomanes 
speciosa) ? Information on the subject is wanted.” 
[We cannot give a better answer than is afforded by the 
following extract from that most excellent little volume, 
Moore’s “ Handbook of the British Ferns.” 
