396 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 25. 
I 
j 
I 
spared, to plant them at the proper time in the first 
style of fashion, if I cannot write an article or two 
about them all that will be useful to this and the next 
generation, I deserve to have the French President at 
supper with me on May-day, if not sooner. 
There is a great temptation at this moment for young 
ardent spirits to commit a great fault in the flower- 
garden; the winter has been so mild and short, one-half 
of the fuchsias are not cut down by frost, and now you 
can see tbe buds in purple specks all up the branches, 
and you have come to the conclusion that you will 
surprise your neighbours this next season with your 
fuchsias, which you expect will come to double the size 
of such as are regularly cut down every season; pray 
be not so fast; however, I once thought as you do now, 
and tried the practice in various ways, but all would 
not do. Yet there is still one chance for you, which 
none of us have tried yet, and it may answer, and I should 
much like to hear of many trials of it being made, now 
that I have no opportunity of trying it myself, my new 
ground being so full of botanical curiosities, that I dare 
not trust it this season to experiments of any kind. 
The whole has been planted with potatoes and broad 
beans long since, and in return for your experiment 
with the fuchsia, you shall have my balance-sheet 
without reserve next autumn. No doubt you have read 
with some interest the new way of making old fuchsias 
flower, so as to carry off the prizes in a tract of the 
country where, I can assure you, competition runs very 
high. I forgot to say, that under the system of flower¬ 
ing the fuchsia so well from the old stems, not a 
particle of the roots is ever touched. The more roots 
there are, and the thicker they grow, the surer a prize 
is won with them; there is no reason, therefore, why ^ 
you should not succeed on the same principle out-of- | 
doors. Go over your fuchsias now, one by one ; select | 
so many of the strongest canes of last year’s growth, or, 
if your plants have withstood more than one winter, 
select from the oldest of the shoots just as you would 
proceed with so many raspberry canes; cut away the 
weak canes close to the ground, and reserve from five 
to ten of the strongest ones on a stool or old plant; 
then prune all the side-shoots from these canes quite 
close to the main shoot, and also a foot or so off their 
tops. If it is possible ever to cause an old hedge or 
bush of fuchsia to flower with that vigour and constancy 
for which young plants are so much admired, this must 
be the way to do it properly ; and if the same system 
were rigidly carried out for a few years, I see no reason 
why we could not have immense specimens of Gracilis 
and Riccartonii in as full bloom, and the blossoms and 
leaves be as large and look as healthy as those on the 
young wood, in the usual way of cutting down annually. 
At any rate, it is well worth while to put the experiment 
to the test of actual practice. We all know that both 
hedges and huge specimens of these two fuchsias do 
exist at the present moment in different parts of the 
kingdom; but those gardeners who have seen them, 
declare that they lack that vigour and healthy appear¬ 
ance peculiar to younger plants, and that must be, in 
a great measure, owing to the system of allowing them 
to carry every sprig that escapes the frost, to grow and 
flower indiscriminately; at least, it appears so on the 
face of it. 
Here I must acknowledge the kindness of all those 
useful correspondents who report to us the issue of such 
experiments as we severally propose from time to time 
in these pages ; and, also, our desire to see their 
numbers increased every season. It is all very well and 
flattering to hear in private conversation, that “ I have 
done so and so from hints derived from The Cottage 
Gardener but why not tell the world at large, 
through the same channel, whether the thing answered 
or failed? The report of a failure is just as useful as 
that on the other side of the question, provided all the | 
circumstances of the case are fully detailed. 
At the end of my last letter but one, I advised seeds i 
of all our lialf-liardy summer climbers to be sown forth¬ 
with ; and as it is of the greatest consequence that none 
of these should receive the slightest check from the 
sprouting of the seeds to the time the plants are in 
full bloom, many good gardeners adopt a system with 
them, and other plants of the same nature, that ensures 
the least possible delay in their flowering. I shall 
explain it here, and advise all those who have not yet 
tided it to do so this season, if only for a chauge from 
the more usual mode ; and, for example, let us take the 
Canary plant. Instead of sowing a score of the seeds 
in a six-inch pot, to be transplanted singly into the 
smallest-sized pot as soon as the seedlings are fit for 
parting, let the smallest pots be taken in the first 
instance, and sow three seeds in each, at equal distances 
from each other, then we have three chances for one 
plant, and if the three seeds come to make three plants 
let us keep them; but by no means attempt to divide 
them when the pot is full of roots, but rather shift them 
in their entire ball into the next largest-sized pot, this 
change can hardly be called a check at all, but the con¬ 
trary. Ten more days will put them a week in advance 
of transplanted seedlings from the same sowing, if these 
seedlings were divided in the usual way ; and almost all 
gardeners know that one week gained in the spring, is 
fully as much as three in the summer-time for flowering 
or fruiting plants from the same sowing. It is upon 
this principle that the forcing gardener plants his winter 
kidney beans in small pots at first, with the intention of 
not disturbing them afterwards. Now, there are a hun¬ 
dred kinds of flower garden seeds, and more besides, 
which can be got ready to flower two or three weeks 
sooner than the usual time, by some contrivance or 
another founded on this plan of not checking ; but 
for all such as require frames and artificial heat in 
their first stages, there is no method so handy as the 
small pot system of sowing the seeds. 
The now common system of sowing peas and other 
vegetable seeds on the under side of thin narrow 
strips of turf, and then laying the pieces side by 
side on a shelf or in a frame, to be removed out by-and- 
by, and planted in continuous rows, without any more 
disturbance, is well adapted for many kinds of flower- 
seeds; if, indeed, it is not the best plan of all for the 
whole of them. I recollect the day when this system 
was given to the world in the Memoirs of the Caledonian 
Horticultural Society, who awarded a prize to the author 
of it, the late Mr. Smith, of Methven Castle, in Perth¬ 
shire. The parings from the sides of the walks in the 
spring make the best foundation possible for beginning 
this system for the first time; therefore, instead of let¬ 
ting the handy-man carry them off in his barrow to the 
compost yard, just tell him, from me, to wheel them to 
the open shed, or to the potting shed if the wind is 
easterly, and then take an old rusty knife—the point end 
of an old scythe will do—and trim off the grassy side, 
and also part of the bottom soil, so that you might 
almost twist the grassy ribbon round your wrist; then 
place the grass side on the bench, and sow your seeds on 
the other side, as you would in a pot, or in the open 
border ; sprinkle a little soil over this, and pat it down, 
then stick a tally or mark stick at one end, and the 
thing is done in less time than it takes to write about it. 
The lid of an old hamper, or a piece of board, will do for 
a tray to carry so many of the pieces to the frame, or to 
a south border, or to anywhere else; there place them 
as close as three in a bed, and scatter a little soil over 
them to fill up the seams between the pieces, and last 
of all water them; and what can be nicer, and give less 
trouble ? Then, when the young brood are ready for the 
flower-beds, or training-posts, or walls, or what-not, to re- 
