November 13. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
105 
writer of tlie Kitchen-garden department, for earthing late 
crops of celery in heavy soils, which I can say, from expe¬ 
rience, is an excellent plan. I have generally grown as 
good celery, and, I believe, sometimes better, than my neigh¬ 
bours, but could seldom keep any of it after Christmas. I 
have often been very much vexed when I have had two or 
three yards of a row of my once tine celery to dig up before 
I could get any lit to use; I tried river sand with very little 
benefit, but since I have used coal ashes I can keep my 
celery until late in the spring; before earthing up I remove 
all suckers, and clear away all tree leaves that the wind may 
have blown amongst them; then tie each plant gently 
together with a little soft bast; I then add a good layer of 
moderately-dry coal-ashes close to the celery, and back up 
with soil, taking care not to allow the soil to touch the celery. 
I would earnestly advise any of the readers of The Cottage 
Gardener, who may have lost their celery through the 
ravages of insects, or rottenness, to try the above plan, as it 
will preserve the celery, and also improve the ground. 
.T. N., Boston , York. 
CHURNS. 
Your readers can have nothing so simple as the common 
barrel-churn in use in lai’ge dairies, made as large or as 
small as they please. There was a neat and likely little 
churn for a small dairy in the Exhibition. It was simply 
a fly-wheel with sails working in a tub or box, something 
like the old smoke-jack, but, of course, made of wood. It was 
forced round by two iron barrels, one horizontal, the other 
perpendicular, and turned by a winch. 
A Worcestershire Man. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Evergreen Trees for Clay Soil (S. W. L.). —There is not a very 
fast-growing tree, among all our evergreens, that will suit your clay soil. 
A row of Spruce Firs will answer your purpose better than any other tree, 
as you can plant them so thick as to form an evergreen hedge in a few 
years. Plant them only two feet apart, and let the branches run into 
each other. 
Names of Plants, &c. ( Constant Reader). —Of your Sweet-scented 
Geraniums, 1 is Prince of Orange. 2, Rose-scented , or Graveolens. 
3, one of the endless varieties of the Citron-scented, and a very good one. 
4, Fair Helen. This and No. 1 are the hardiest of the race. 5, a variety 
of Radnla, without any particular name; and No. 6, Oak-leaved, but 
there are many varieties of this, which cannot be determined without a 
flower, The dark Verbena is Emma; and the other is one of the many 
bluish-grey ones ; Venosa is a very different thing. Your “little red 
flower ” is Coccinea, the oldest of all the Achhnenes. The Cuphea is stri- 
planted as you propose, and the tulips will not suffer much ; but do not 
gilosa. None of the Scarlet Geraniums will give the same effect as the old 
variegated Scarlet with Verbena venosa. Your kidney-shaped bed will 
do plant them thick. The Geant des Battailles, and the Malmaison roses, 
may or may not be on their own roots in a bed; it is only when roses are 
trained down, that it becomes absolutely necessary to have them on their 
own roots. The White is the same as the Sweet Alyssum. We cannot 
say why the nurserymen do not grow such and such plants. 
Flower-Beds (T. T. T.). —Bed 9, a scarlet, in the middle of eight 
other beds in a circle, is as badly planted, or coloured, as you could 
make it. When you plant again, let 9 be a white, or some dull colour ; 
and if you cannot get the rolours to match in the other beds, let the 
centre one be of tall plants that will hide the defect in part; 3, 4, and 7 
are good bedding plants, if you had good varieties, and the fault must be 
in the soil; 2, A/onsoa is not much, put Sapnnaria calabrica in its place 
next year. It is best to empty the hot-water pipes for the greenhouse 
‘ when the fires are given over in the spring, and take fresh rain-water in 
| during tbe autumn ; and to keep the pipes clean, put in a piece of Sal- 
| ammoniac as big as a hazel-nut once, every winter. 
Flower-garden ( J. K. G.).— Your “funny plan” looks very well 
| indeed on paper: we would not alter one inch of it. A few half-standard 
perpetual roses on the grass slopes would be enough to make your 
present arrangement very complete, on the supposition that the beds are 
rightly filled. How do your walks stand on that slope ? The Ageratum 
will not stand frost. Any nurseryman can supply it cheap, and it is very 
easy to root from cuttings. 
Lantana crocea (E . B.). —It is an excellent bedder in the autumn, 
! as you have just proved by having it in fine bloom on the 30th of October. 
I No wonder you should like to preserve it for another trial; but the right 
way is to make cuttings of it every year early in August, and to keep them 
in a greenhouse exactly as you would Salvia fu/gens. Before you see 
! this the frost will have killed your plants down to the ground. Perhaps 
you may yet save some by cutting them close down, and saving the root- 
I stocks in sand under a stage in a greenhouse; but after this always keep 
; a stock lrorn cuttings. 
Verbenas (C.).—Yes ; frost has no respect for persons or plants ; but 
your old Verbenas, except the low creeping varieties, will not yield to the 
first or second frost. It is not desirable that the Verbenas should escape. 
Pentsternons in damp, rich soil are often killed. It is safe to protect a 
few plants; or, better still, to make a lot of cuttings of them every 
August. Young plants of them, say two or three years old, flower best. 
Large Flower-bed ( Philantlios ).—We approve much of your de¬ 
termination to remove the American plants, and fill the whole bed with 
low-flowering plants, but we cannot attempt to choose the kinds of plants 
of any one’s flower-bed. Your object is not to attract the attention of 
strangers from the plant-houses, by a great display in this large bed in 
front, therefore a mixed bed will suit you best, and in a mixed bed you 
need not fear if one-third of the plants are as gay as they can be, two- 
thirds neutrals will keep the high colours in subjection, so to speak. 
Roses against Ivied-wall (Ibid). —Against a north wall eight-and- 
a-half-feet high, and covered with ivy, you wish to plant a row of Roses 
to train up amongst the ivy—an excellent, if not the very best plan. 
Most of the pillar-roses will suit you, but the hardiest and strongest 
Hybrid Perpetuals, and Hybrid Bourbons would be better—say Madame 
Laffay, Mrs. Elliott, Baron Prevost, La Reine, and between these, the 
following Bourbons, Bouquet de Flore, Amenaide, Madame Aubis, Splen- 
dens, Gloire dc Rosamene. and the Tyrian Purple Noisette (Poupre de 
Tyre of the catalogues). 
Roup in Fowls—Cochin-China Fowls (A Poultry Keeper ).— 
“ Your fowls are suffering from roup, which is, I believe, only another 
name for severe cold. Can your hen-yards be sheltered from the east and 
north, if they are not so already ? I give a pill of Barbadoes aloes, and 
keep the sick fowls warm, apart from their companions, and this treat¬ 
ment has sometimes proved successful. I have never seen Malay fowls 
with feathered legs; they are very different from the Cochin-China, 
being taller, quite different in their carriage, with more tail, and a rose 
comb. Cochin-China fowls should lay dark-coloured eggs, but after the 
fowls have laid a long time, or are out of health, they will sometimes 
become paler.”— (Anster Bonn.) 
Pili.ar Roses to match (T. 0. P.). — Acidalie is not a pillar rose at 
all. Queen of the Prairies will match and contrast with Blairii, but they 
both require a wall in a cold situation. Beauty of Billiard and Chenedole 
would match well with Brennus; but neither of them,'or any of the 
Hybrid Chinas or Bourbons, will contrast or agree at all with Laura 
Davoust, which is a climber intermediate between Noisettes and Multi- 
floras. If you have it true, the best match or contrast for it is either 
Felernburg or Poupre de Tyre (Tyrian Purple), the only crimson 
Noisettes we have. 
Protecting Geraniums, &c. (E. G.).— You had better put some of 
the plants from the greenhouse under the cucumber-frame, to make room 
for the Petunias and Verbenas, which you cannot save in the frame if we 
have a long hard winter. The way to protect it from the frost is to put a 
mat or two over the glass, and then a good covering of straw in very hard 
weather ; the mat is to keep the glass clean. 
Lilium venustum (Ibid). —This is the second time we have been 
asked about this plant, but there is no Lily by that name, as far as we 
aware of. We should much like to know what it is. 
Double Scarlet 10 -week-Stocks (S.). —It is, indeed, surprising 
how well this stock is grown for the London windows. But the culture is 
like writing ; you may look at a good writer for years without being able 
to catch his style, and you may see the whole process of rearing this stock 
over and over again without being able to make a hand of it youtself. 
The seeds are sown on a slight hotbed in August, and as soon as the 
seedlings are fit to handle, they are pricked out into other beds, and 
carried over the winter something like cauliflower plants. There are 
regular stock growers, from whom the large nurserymen buy them in the 
spring. 
Buddl«a and Allspice ( F. R. C.). —Yes, this is a very good time 
to remove them both. The Allspice (Calycunthus floridus) will carry a 
large ball, if you like, but that is not very necessary; and you may get 
a good many young ones from it, if it is very bushy down to the soil. 
The Buddlaia you must be more careful about, as the roots run down a 
long way, and are not furnished with many fibres, unless the soil is very 
suitable for it. 
Tropceolum tuberosum ( Carig Cathol). —The roots will be in good 
time ;—we are much pleased that it has flowered so well with you. What 
a present to send to a friend in New Zealand, or Australia, or to Natal, 
or the hill districts in India! If sent like so many potatoes, the roots 
would reach in safety, even if they were five months on the way. The leaf is 
not that of the common pink Ivy-leaved Geranium, of which there is a 
variegated crumply-leaved sort, but that of the lilac trailing Ivy-leaf. 
Your plant, like the white Ivy-leaf, would run from twenty to forty 
feet if trained in a greenhouse. The common Ivy-leaf sorts trail but 
very slightly. There is not a scarlet Ivy-leaf yet published, but we have 
lately heard of private seedlings of great promise in high colours. Your 
plant seeds freely, and so does the white Ivy-leaf, and another pink one 
intermediate between the two,—the common Ivy-leaf never seeds. 
Protecting Plants (0. P.). —Until your greenhouse is ready your 
Camellias will take no hurt under a single mat at night, nor, indeed, 
through all the winter, and their room in the pit we would devote to the 
bedders. The old wood on the standard Perpetual Roses, recently 
planted, should be cut out at once, and all the shoots pruned close. 
Nettle-leaved Geranium (H. W.). —There has not been a gera¬ 
nium of that name, as far as we can make out. Send us a flower, and one 
or two leaves of your plant, and very likely we shall be able to tell you 
what it is, and the right treatment. 
Vine-planting and Pruning (A humble Tyro, and M. W.). —You 
will find your wishes attended to by Mr. Errington to-day. The brown 
spots on the green-stemmed vine may be mildew, but they frequently 
accompany ill-ripened wood. 
Wine from Unripe Grapes (A Subscriber). —The proportions are 
forty pounds of grapes, and thirty pounds of sugar, to four gallons of 
water, and follow the principles laid down by Mr. Livett in our ninety- 
seventh number. Mr. Livett will, perhaps, furnish a recipe for making 
wine with both ripe and unripe grapes. 
