THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February 19. 
3^6 
discarded stems; but you must not grudge giving them good treatment, 
to be rewarded with the blossoms in 1853. 
Geranium Shifting (C. F.). —Your compost and mode of shifting 
were all proper enough, and though three weeks have elapsed, you must 
not mind not seeing fresh roots as yet. However, in a cold greenhouse 
it would have been better to have delayed shifting to the end of February, 
as you would require now to have a medium temperature at night of 45°, 
with 10° or 15° rise for sunshine. 
Hoya carnosa for Window ( Leguleius ).—To have this to bloom in 
the window in summer, you will be right in putting it into a deep frame, 
to have the advantage of dung-heat; but the first of April will be time 
enough, as then you will have the heat of summer for its blossoms. Do 
not, however, pot it, as you propose, before doing so ; let the potting 
take place after the flowering. We are afraid it is looking but too well; 
give up watering, and give no more than will just keep the leaves from 
shrivelling, until you see if you are to have flowers. 
Gloxinias {Ibid). —These in a dry closet, and shrivelling from dry¬ 
ness, should be induced to swell out; but you must do it carefully, or 
you will bring on decay. Either water round the sides of the pots, and 
keep the centre dry, or pack the pots in, and cover them with damp moss, 
and they will absorb sufficient moisture to distend themselves. For your 
window, April will be quite time enough to start them in a frame. As to 
starting in their old pots, or potting them when dormant in new soil 
before starting, we never discovered any difference but this, that in the 
first case, when you repot after they are fairly started, you must prepare 
compost that will give no check from not being warmed. 
Acuimenes {Ibid). —Of this the same may be said, but for economy 
of room we generally turn out and collect their scaly tubers, and place 
them thickly in shallow pans, transplanting again when they have sprung. 
We frequently do the same with gloxinias. 
Cinerarias {Ibid). —If you shift these now, you will injure the 
flower-stems that are rising. Better let them flower in the window, then 
cut down and shift for a succession. You must give them plenty of water 
if you do. Set them in saucers. See what Mr. Fish said last week. 
They will bloom well in small pots, if supplied with manure water. 
Broken Combs. — Cuphea says :—“One of my boxes was so rudely 
disturbed by a late very severe gale, that the heavy well-filled combs 
were shaken from the bars, and have all fallen in an inclined position on 
the floorboard, to which the bees have fastened them, as well as to one 
another.”—It will be better to let the combs remain as they are j the 
bees will construct fresh combs upon the bars, and afterwards remove 
those, or a part of them, that have fallen down. The prosperity of the 
stock will of course be much affected by the accident. 
Bulbs and Bedding Plants (J. B.). —Your beds of turban, and 
other ranunculuses, planted in November and in January, will be ready 
for bedding-out summer plants in, as soon as the leaves of their present 
occupants begin to turn yellow. You will be rather late, it is true, but 
you cannot well avoid it, for if you try to get the two sets in the same 
bed in May you will get into a mess. 
Mignonette (A Constant Reader). —Long practice, more than any¬ 
thing else, enables the London growers to supply Covent Garden market 
with better mignonette than can be had anywhere else. Like every 
other plant requiring particular treatment, however simple, the migno¬ 
nette ought to have a pit, or place devoted entirely to itself all through 
the winter. A one-light box, filled with pots of mignonette, w'ould 
learn you more about its requirements in two or three seasons, than a 
whole volume of written practice; for, practically speaking, no plant is 
more easy to manage, and few plants are less worthy of our approbation 
than the generality of country grown mignonette. The seeds are sown 
in the same pots in which the plant flowers, early in August. In the 
beginning of October the seedlings arc thinned out to five or six plants, 
as much air and light as the winter will allow is given, and very little 
watering in the dead of winter, with a constant eye after dead leaves, are 
the chief requisites. 
Transmitting Plants to Australia (Agricnlus). —We shall 
furnish an article on the subject very shortly. 
Flower-Garden {R. L .).—The design and planting are very much 
to our taste, but the subject must stand over for the present. 
Sundries (J. T. P.).—Manetti Rose: nurserymen graft and bud on it 
indiscriminately, but the common way of budding on the Dog Rose will 
be the most suitable way for amateurs with the Manetti. Wistaria : You 
ought to prune back the two side shoots to one-third of their length now, 
unless the plant has filled the space you intend for it; and if it has, cut 
off only a third of the last growth ; either way you will be more sure of a 
leader next year than by leaving them as they are. Clematis axurea 
grandiflora : Prune it by all means. Letting this and Clematis Siebotdii 
go without pruning, because they grow less strong than others of the 
family, is the surest way to lessen their vigour, and consequently their 
flowering. If your Axurea has not been more than three or four years 
planted, you may safely prune the strongest shoots to within a yard of 
the ground, and all the weak ones down close to the ground. The next 
summer shoots will thus come all the stronger, and flower on as they 
grow. We cut a five-year-old one last March to nine inches from the 
ground, and last summer it covered more wall than during the last three 
years. The flowering was in proportion. There is no known “ method 
to prevent aphis; ” but tobacco water, and tobacco smoke, keeps them 
down when they do appear. The Solfalerre Rose having done well with 
you lor three years in the open border, bespeaks well of your mild 
climate; but are you and others sure you have the true Solfaterre at all I 
Scarlet Geraniums (Verax). —We have said all along there was no 
ractical use in securing Scarlet Geraniums out of doors in winter, 
ecause they would grow too strong next year; but when the old roots 
or plants are to be dried, and to be kept dry all the winter, they keep 
much better if they are left out under protection till Christmas. Of 
course they would not keep on wet clay land. Those dried plants we re¬ 
commend to be planted out early in April, nut in the flower-beds , but in 
a sheltered place under a south wall, and to have good protection from 
frost till the middle of May, and then to have them transferred to the 
flower-garden ; and all this for the convenience of those who tell us they 
“ have neither pit nor greenhouse.” 
Double Feverfew {Ibid). — Our correspondent would be much 
obliged to any one for a lew cuttings of the larger flowering sort. 
Greenhouse Sashes {Ibid). —You are asked Is. and Is. 6d. per foot 
for these in the west of England. A good builder, near London, offered 
us to put up a greenhouse, rafters, glass and all, except brickwork, for 
9d. per foot this week. Your greenhouse, fifteen feet long, will not be 
safe with the stove you mention, which, for plants, is the very worst con¬ 
trivance we have. The plant you inquire about, Coelestina ageratum, is 
quite common in London ; you may buy ten thousand of them next May 
at from four to six shillings per dozen ; we mean the perennial sort; it is 
the annual of that name that is now nearly out of cultivation. 
Melilotus Leucantua, or Bokhara Clover. Messrs. Hardy & Son, 
of Maldon, Essex, say “ This is very attractive to bees, insomuch, as 
when it blooms, they cause a general ‘ hum ’ all around each plant, as 
in an apiary. It grows six or seven feet high, with numerous wreaths 
of small white flowers. The foliage of this plant, slightly dried, becomes 
extremely sweet, and smells like new-mown hay, or the Tonquin bean. 
A small sprig kept in the pocket, or drawer, or wardrobe, is sure to be¬ 
tray itself by its agreeable odour. Its seed should be sown in the spring. 
Should your apiarian correspondents be desirous of obtaining further 
communication on this favourite bee-flower, we shall feel happy in im¬ 
parting it.” 
Washing.— An old Subscriber wishes to know of “some efficient 
method of washing the linen of a large establishment,—a hospital,— 
without a regiment of washerwomen, who are most expensive servants ?” 
Gutta Percha Trellis. — R. W. will be obliged by F. G. stating 
what is the size required, and what is the price per foot. 
Gooseberries. — G. S. B. wishes to know where he can obtain Jack¬ 
son’s Abraham Newland, Hepburn’s Green Prolific, and Rider’s Scented 
Lemon. If we required them, we should write to Mr. John Turner, 
Parkwood Springs, Neepsend, Sheffield. We quite agree with our cor¬ 
respondent that none are superior in flavour to the Red Champagne and 
Green Walnut. “The latter is an excellent late sort, and ought to be 
more extensively grown.” 
Average Price of Wheat (S.).—The average price of wheat per 
quarter in 1851, we believe, w as 38s 6d. 
Age of Seeds (Alpha). —It is not advisable to use seeds remaining 
from your stock of last year. As you have no means of getting rid of 
the milk of six cows, you might fatten calves or pigs with it. 
Sulphur ( W. J.). —You should use Flowers of Sulphur, not powdered 
roll brimstone, to destroy the red spider. The fumes arising from the 
sulphur put upon a hot-water plate filled with boiling water, would be 
your best mode of applying it. 
Salt and Soot for Potatoes (Omega). —Spread the mixture 
over the surface, and dig it in before planting. You would destroy every 
set if you put the mixture into the drills with them. Four pounds of salt 
and a peck of soot, or four pounds of salt and half a peck of lime, will 
be abundance for thirty square yards. 
Coals (X. Y.). — It is impossible to answer your question. The con¬ 
sumption of a stove depends upon its size, draught, quality of coal, &c. 
Aylesbury Ducks (II. II.). —We should ask Mr. T. Lowe, of 
Whateley, near Fazeley, to oblige us with a duck and drake. They are 
of the size mentioned. We do not think your recipe so good as that we 
gave, if it were only because yours contains no prepared chalk. By no 
means use mercurial ointment to destroy lice on the calf. Sw'eet oil 
thoroughly rubbed in upon them will kill them. 
Names of Plants (A Constant Subscriber). —Your pretty little fern 
is the Adiantum capillus-veneris, or True Maidenhair. This fern does 
exceedingly well in the common greenhouse, and the more shaded and 
least airy part may be said to suit it best, and the same observation 
applies if it be kept in the stove. In either place it should always be 
standing in a pan of water. Under such keeping, it may be divided at 
almost any season of the year, but now is one of the best seasons for 
division. Though it is a native plant, it cannot be cultivated success¬ 
fully upon our rockeries. A similar situation will suit your Club Moss, 
Lycopodium helveticum, as we take it to be from the very small bit sent. 
L. denticulatum is very nearly allied to it. (A. B. C. D.). —Your plant 
now flowering is the Chimonanthus fragrans, a very desirable shrub. 
We have it now in bloom against a south wall; By no means make in¬ 
cisions in the trunk or stems of your peach-tree below where it w'as 
budded, to cause the stem to smell out, and become equal in size to the 
part above from where the bud was inserted. This swelling is a common 
occurrence, and arises usually from the scion being of freer growth than 
the stock. So long as your peach-trees are going on well, let well alone. 
(G. II. .1.).—Y'our plant is also the Chimonanthus fragrans, but variety 
flavus, or pale yellow. It is readily propagated by layers made in 
summer, as the plants generally put out an abundance of young strong 
shoots round the foot of the plant. 
Achimenes longiflora (B .).— This may be put into heat imme¬ 
diately. 
Cottage Gardeners’ Dictionary (A. T. R .).—This is such an im¬ 
proved edition of the “Dictionary of Modern Gardening,” as to be 
really a new work. 
Apple-trees with Mistletoe ( C. J. P.). — Our correspondent 
wishes to know where she can procure a few or one small young apple- 
tree, with the Mistletoe growing upon it. At what price, and what the 
probable cost of carriage to Dublin would be. 
London: Printed by Harry Wooldridge, Winchester High-street, 
in the Parish of Saint Mary Kalendar; and Published by William 
Somerville Orr, at the Office, No. 2, Amen Corner, in the Parish of 
Christ Church, City of London.—February 19th, 1862 , 
