March 17. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
465 
plant to raise. If ever you lift a pot with a Geranium in 
it, which has been in a border all the summer, the roots, 
assuredly, have passed down through the bottom, and 
when you pulled up the pot in the autuuni you had to 
give an extra pull to break the bottom roots. The whole 
process of raising such a pot is on the same plan and 
principle as the apparatus for getting up the largest 
tree in Windsor Forest, only that the bottom of the pot 
helps to raise the ball whole. The moment the pot, or 
the largest ball, thus enclosed, is moved half-an-inch 
upwards, there is no more friction against the sides of 
the pot, or the ball, let them bo ever so deep, all after 
the first move in a question of power. 
The sides that formed the boxes which enclosed 
the balls for Mr. IMcGlashen’s apparatus arc of storrt 
iron, and sharp at the bottom; and in the four-sided, or 
smaller box, there was a handle to each side in the 
middle, also of iron, with a round knob on the top, and 
a powerful labourer with a large beetle drove down each 
side, by hitting as hard as he could on the iron knobs. 
When the ground is very bard, and many roots to cut 
through, two men drive away at the beetles, like two 
giants, till they drive them home. For a very large tree 
we must have a very large box to raise a ball, and it is 
out of all reason to think that even any two giants 
could knock down one of the sides, as in the last in¬ 
stance, the side being six or seven feet across ; but by 
dividing one side into six pieces, or taking six strong 
iron pieces instead, sharp at the bottom, with handles 
and knobs, each piece can be driven down easier, and 
the six make a side, and twenty-four of them make the 
four sides, and that is just what were in use on the 5th 
for this large tree. We may call these separate pieces, 
spades, with iron handles, the blades a yard long, thirty- 
three inches of which were driven into the ground; 
but the real shape of each piece is more like that of a 
cricket-bat with a wedge bottom. There is an iron 
projection or shoulder on the handle of each spade, and 
the spade is driven down with beetles or heavy mallets, 
until this shoulder rests on the iron frame which 
connects all the spades and sides, and by this frame two 
sides are screwed apart first, then the other two sides 
on the same principle as in the small instrument. The 
bottom of the tree is padded, to save the bark from the 
stays, which hold it on the perpendicular, and which 
stays are set and held together by the working of 
screws and wedges. 
Besides this powerful apparatus, there were others 
exhibited by the inventor, in different sizes, down to 
that by which a lady could pull a Heartsease, or Bache¬ 
lor’s Button, out of the ground; and, as far as wo could 
make out, every one present, and certainly the grey¬ 
headed gardeners, wished success to Mr. McGlashen 
and his machines. But whether they, or any of them, 
would adopt this process in preference to their own 
ways is more than wo can say. We can only answer 
for ourselves, that the moment we saw it we could see 
how to improve it, so as to be twice as easy to work, 
and more safe for the trees.—D. B. 
Wp, consider the following evidence of the power to 
resist frost possessed by a combination of double- I 
glazing and a well of water, of sufficient importance to ! 
merit this prominent position. Wo advise all persons 1 
about to construct greenliouses and cold-jiits to retain j 
this evidence in their memory. | 
“ Some time early in the autumn, 1 sent you a letter 
descriptive of a cold-pit I was about to construct. The 
pit was to bo placed over a well, and the lights double- 
glazed. You paid me the compliment of a leader, 
shortly after, on the merits of double-glazing, and quoted 
my letter. I have now to report progress. I have a 
very small forcing-house, a range of small pits, and a 
two-light frame double-glazed. All but the latter, 
however, are warmed by hot-water. I have dispensed 
with all mats for covering. We have had now a sharp 
frost to tost the efficacy of the double-glazing, and you 
will appreciate the effect, when I tell you that the snow 
lay on my double glass; while on my single-glazed 
greenhouse, which is loss heated, it melted off. But to 
confine myself to the pit without the artificial heat. I 
placed in it six or seven Cinerarias, all sickly, for my 
climate (not two miles from St. Paul’s) docs not suit 
them; two plants of Oyiisiis, Cunar, three or four Cal¬ 
ceolarias {KayiiJ, four common old plants of Geraniums, 
two Myrtles, and a self-registering thermometer. The 
pit is over a shallow well, or rather trap, about four feet 
circular, into which the various drains across the 
garden disembogue. The water is about seven feet 
below the surface. Across the top is an old gate, which 
forms the stage for the plants. The frame is a two-light 
cucumber-box, each light being in breadth four feet 
three inches. The box is sunk to the ground-line of the 
garden. Tliis pit was closed on the approach of the 
late severe weather, and has just been re-opened. 
“All the plants look as well as they did before the 
frost, with the exception of one Cytisus, which is now 
dead. I cannot say, positively, whether it was aliv'e or not 
before the frost, as all the plants were not much cared 
for, and the chance of performing the experiment was 
apparently going, and I had, therefore, not taken 
especial notice of the contents of the pit immediately 
before its close. On re-opening, the lowest point at 
which the thermometer had been, was 32°, while outside 
it was, on one night, below 20°. I consider, therefore, 
the experiment so far satisfactory, that freezing of the 
plants has been prevented, and by a deeper well a still 
higher degree might have been secured. 
“ The experiment has been still more satisfactory with 
respect to the effects which the water in the well below 
might have been supposed to produce, for throughout 
the winter there has been no loss from “ damping off ’ 
of any plant; and though I have lost enough this winter, 
my loss has been much less in this pit than in the others j 
heated by hot-water, so much so, that my gardener, 
when he saw a promising lot of Cinerarias going ofi’inthe 
heated jiit, wished to have them put into the cold-water 
pit in the hopes of saving them. That the })lants did 
better in the latter, I attribute to the more equable 
temperature, to tlie less sudden rises and falls in 
