84 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 6. 
which they depend on fermenting material alone for 
their heat. The linings must he thoroughly examined 
and “ bottomed,” in order to make them at once strong 
and durable, without which it is impossible to give abun¬ 
dance of air; the latter being absolutely necessary, in 
order to harden the leaves, and, indeed, render the whole 
plant firm. Herein consists the chief secret of having 
strong, robust stock in the spring ; it is not altogether 
uncommon to see badly-aired plants so tender, that in 
January their pale green leaves may be twitched out ot 
their sockets with the least touch. Fruiters will require 
a somewhat different treatment; indeed, few will think 
of trusting them in mere dung-heated pits; and where 
I piping or flues are employed, use what water we will, 
the plants are always more firm in the leaf, and, conse¬ 
quently, able to endure more heat, which they also 
require. Late fruiters will now, at times, need a little 
good, warm, liquid manure; this, however, should be 
seldom, yet copiously, administered, remembering that 
such as Queen’s, Providence’s, and Enville’s, will require 
it thrice as often as the Jamaica’s or Montserrat’s. 
All crowns or suckers henceforth needed for future 
stock, may at once he dibbled in the tan at the front or 
shady portion of the pit; and here they may remain 
until February, causing no further trouble. Large 
crowns are frequently the subject of complaint, and 
justly so; we fear that this is too often owing to the 
pits being under-heated, and a want of ample provision 
for atmospheric moisture. If a house, or pit, is not suf¬ 
ficiently heated, the cultivator cannot gain the amount 
of air necessary; and if deficient in provision for at¬ 
mospheric moisture iu abundance, he is one-half his 
time afraid to give air for fear of losing humidity. 
Bad or weak “shows” are almost sure to have big 
crowns, and no wonder; the strength of the plant not 
finding vent in its legitimate channel, the fruit must ex¬ 
pend itself in large crowns or suckers ; which the plant, 
taxed with an enormous fruit, can scarcely afford to do. 
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that those conditions 
■which “ draw ” the growing plant, will also “ draw,” or, 
in other words, enlarge the crown. A free ventilation is 
the best preventive. R. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARJ3EN. 
Companion to the Calendar for November. —This 
is a busy month for the flower gardener. All the hardy 
bulbs that are to flower in the spring should be got in 
as soon in the month as possible. Anemones are the 
first on the list, and we are to suppose that two plantings 
of them have already been made—one about the middle 
of September, for the first crop, one in October, and 
the third just now on the point of following; then the 
Turban and other Ranunculuses are to he planted for the 
first time this autumn. After this both kinds may stand 
over until February, unless the winter should he very 
mild about the beginning of the new year, when an 
intermediate planting of them might safely he made. 
The ground for them, and also for bulbs in general, 
should be deeply dug, and some very rotten dung put 
in at the bottom, a foot or more below where the bulbs 
stand; an inch-and-a-half, or, at most, two inches deep, 
will be about the right depth for all the border anemones 
and ranunculuses. If the ground is at all stiff, or heavy, 
the old plan of placing a little sand under and all round 
them, and every kind of bulb, will give them a better 
chance to root and top, than being immediately sur¬ 
rounded with heavy, wet soil. A friend, in this neigh¬ 
bourhood, is in the habit of putting a slight covering of 
short, littery dung, from the stable, all over his autumn 
planted anemones and ranunculuses, whether they be in 
rows or in beds; he is one of the best bloomers of them 
that I know, and they increase with him so fast that he 
annually sells quantities of them to the London trade. 
It is not at all unlikely that beds of border Tulips, 
Hyacinths, Narcissuses, Gladioluses, Irises, and all the 
rest of them, would he benefited by a like covering, 
although we know, lull well, that it is not safe to let 
any kind of fresh dung come in contact with the bulbs 
themselves. 
The first regular Hyacinth bed I had ever seen 
planted, I recollect very well, was covered full three 
inches deep with rich, rotten dung, for 1 wheeled the 
dung with my own hands, but then I was not gardener 
enough to be trusted with laying it on the bed; the 
worst of it was, that the blackbirds were constantly 
scratching the dung, seeking for worms and insect 
grubs, and something of that sort may have been the 
cause for giving up this good old practice, for good it 
certainly was. In February, or as soon as the leaves 
began to get up into the dung covering, it was taken 
away, and the crumbs left about an inch thick ; but 
taking away the dung was no improvement, except in 
the look of the thing, for the hyacinth likes to be well 
buried, never less than four inches at least, so that 
if put in now two inches deep, and then covered 
three inches deep with well-spent dung, and that again 
with a slight covering of earth, to hide the dung after 
the frosts were over and the leaves appeared, in the 
spring, one might expect a very fine bloom, not only 
for that year, but through a long succession of years. 
I am quite sure that, besides securing them from 
frost, Gladioluses would also pay for being thus covered, 
if we could but make up our minds to the kind of cover¬ 
ing. As for these gladioluses, I do not believe that a bed 
could be too deep for them, provided it was not wet at 
the bottom. When Mr. Herbert’s seedling Gladiolus 
came out, many years since, I began to cross them, 
and raised numbers of seedlings, and the best pots I 
found for proving them were 22 inches deep and 12 
inches wide, all the way through; they were the kind of 
pots the late Mr. Knight once recommended for growing 
the pine-apple in. I used to sow and set the little bulbs 
in these pots as thick as they could stand. 
There is another old practice with bulhs and other 
things which one never hears of now-a-days, but cot¬ 
tagers, gardeners, and all others who plant in mixtures, 
would find it very useful. It is, to plant bulbs, and 
such plants as do not appear above ground till late in 
the spring, and are, therefore, not to be seen at the time 
of dressing the borders, within rings of hoop-iron, or of 
pottery-ware, burnt hard, so as not to be easily broken 
by the spade while the digging was going on; old pots 
that got chips out of the rim, or were cracked beyond 
use, might very properly be used to guard things in the 
borders, if the bottoms were first hammered out; and it 
would not be a bad plan to confine such things as creep 
too much at the root near the surface in the same way, 
keeping the rims of the pots just deep enough to be out 
of sight. November is the proper time to think about 
all this, and without a Companion to the Calendar it 
would be quite impossible to throw out such small hints, 
although they are always useful to the learner, and not 
to be overlooked by any of us. 
Dahlias should have the names or numbers tied to the 
old roots by copper wire as soon as they are taken up, 
and they may be left to dry slowly in a shed or out¬ 
house until the first wet day, when they may be cleaned 
at leisure. Any of the tubers that may have been 
broken, or bruised, should be cut out, and the remains 
of the old stems cut down to two or three inches of the 
collar; this is always the part most liable to rot or 
damp, and must be looked to from time to time, and if 
any symptoms of decay appear it is better to cut or 
scoop out the whole of the old stem than run the risk 
of losing a good root. There are several calls already 
for the dwarf dahlias, the dark and the scarlet Zelindas, 
