April 1. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
behind the bud of any of them. Theory says, remove all the wood; but 
in our practice we know no theory could be more successful, 
Greenhouse Lights (L. 31.). —The party is making calculations 
now, and will soon introduce the subject by advertisement in our columns. 
Mowing Machine ( Queen 3Iab). —Budding’s machine is the right 
size for you; the other is worked by a horse on extensive lawns. We do 
not know the price of either. 
Ckossing Dielytra (F. P. S.). —“Having a method of your own ” 
for crossing, by all means apply it to this beautiful plant. The parts for 
crossing, among Fumeworts, are in dispute among the learned, some 
saying they have four stamens only, others that there are six. You will 
find the parts very curiously contrived. The stamens are diudelphous, or 
in two bundles; the real flowers never open, and the dispersion of the 
pollen is effected by an effort of wonderful intricacy. Disengage the tips 
of the flowers, and extract the anthers before the pollen is ripe, and if you 
could find Fumaria e.vimia, or F. formosa, either of them would, in all 
likelihood, cross with the Bielytra. Pray let us hear of your mode, and 
your experiments with the Fumeworts. 
Rustic Flower Baskets (M. Morgan). — Mr. Pryor, Crickle- 
wood, Edgeware-road, London, and Mr. Thomas, Westminster-road, 
Kennington, London, are rustic-work manufacturers. Either of these 
persons will supply you with rustic baskets, such as you require, and will 
answer any inquiries as to price, &c., you may send them. 
Primula Sinensis Fimbriata (F. W. T .).— You say this does not 
seed, yet flowers well. This is very unnatural, and your plants are 
wrongly treated. To produce seeds, healthy plants, light, air, and 
moisture, are the means nature uses. According to your account of your 
treatment, we suppose you fail because your plants are deficient of 
strength to produce pollen. Set one or two out-of-doors, fully exposed 
to the sun; impregnate them by dusting the pistil or stigma with pollen ; 
protect them with a covering of some kind from heavy rain till the seeds 
are set; then expose them till the seed is ripe; gather it, and sow it im¬ 
mediately. By such means we think you are sure to succeed. 
Hens Egg-eaters (A Young Hen-fancier). —Your fowls have indeed 
acquired a very bad habit—that of eating their eggs ; but as you mention 
the poorness of the egg-shell, are you sure you do not blame them more 
than they deserve ? for if the eggs get broken by accident, the best hens 
in the world will hardly withstand the temptation to eat them. I can 
only advise you to have the hens constantly watched for a time ; let the 
eggs be removed as soon as laid ; and if a hen be found trying to break 
the shell (pr ovided she is too good to have killed), take a very light switch, 
and beat her, gently of course, but enough to make her feel. It is a 
funny idea to beat a hen, but I have by this means banished as bad a 
trick as your hens—that of plucking and eating their own and their com¬ 
panions’ feathers.— Anster Bonn. 
Cociiin China Fowls. — Anster Bonn would feel great pleasure in 
aiding Clericus in his wish to place Cochin China fowls in the hands of 
cottagers and small farmers, if that gentleman will forward his name and 
address, under cover, to the editor of The Cottage Gardener. 
Snow’s Winter Brocoli (IV. Salcnmbe ).—Sow it now, and in the 
last week of the month. 
Worms (Theresa). —None came with your note. 
Scale (J. N., Omagh). —Your Correa is indeed miserably affected, and, 
| we think with Mealy Bug. Sponge its leaves, &c., well with a mixture 
of soft-soap, 2oz., flowers of sulphur, 2oz., tobacco, 1 oz., and a 
dessert spoonful of spirit of turpentine. Mix the sulphur, turpentine, 
and soap into a paste with warm water, boil the tobacco in some more 
water for an hour, in a covered pot, strain and mix the liquor with the 
soapy compound, and add two pints and a half of water. Keep your 
plant away from all others. Mealy Bug will attack almost all greenhouse 
plants. 
Heating Tank (Ab Initio). —Your present plan will answer. We 
should have an iron pipe four-inch diameter merely in the shape of the 
letter U, the curved part over the fire. It would keep a tank six feet 
square quite hot. Your fire-place, &c., should have a roof over it. 
Charcoal varies in price everywhere. 
Guano Water (F. IF.).—If the guano is genuine, half-an-ounce to a 
gallon of water is sufficient; it may be applied to roses and other growing 
plants once a week. 
Gutta Percua Hose (H. W. 31.). —This is very useful for distribut¬ 
ing water to distant parts of the garden, but a fall of ten feet would give 
you no jetting power so as to dispense with any length requisite for a 
i mere level. We prefer irrigating the roots thoroughly, rather than 
showering water upon plants by a jet. 
Tobacco (A Friar ).— That of English growth answers well for fumi¬ 
gating plants. Mr. Carter, High Holborn, probably has seed of it. Any 
variety does. For drying directions, see our 102nd number. 
Unhealthy Cucumbers (A Constant Reader). — Pipes passing 
through a trough for bottom-heat, we do not think will cause cucumbers 
to start and go off and the foliage of other plants to discolour; neither do we 
j think the tank would improve the matter, and we suspect there is some¬ 
thing else at fault besides the heating which seems to us quite sufficient 
for the purpose, if there is plenty of it. We have found no difficulty 
with water circulating in a tank—with pipes passing through a tank—or 
merely with pipes passing through a lot of stones or rough rubbish ; but 
in this latter case it is necessary to have some means, such as earthen- 
pipes, &c., rising through the bed, so that by pouring water into them, you 
may always command moist heat among the stones, at pleasure. In this 
case, as also over tanks and troughs, if a little sweet dung is not placed 
beneath the soil, the bottom should be covered with turves reversed. 
When we can get it, we prefer a little sweet dung, and we have never any. 
difficulty. We see no reason why you should make a tank, if we under¬ 
stand your sketch, by using the manure, as the thick turf, or a sufficient 
thickness of soil. There will be no danger of your roots suffering. 
Pits (E.H., Hampstead). —We think you are acting quite right. 
Such pits will answer well for any purpose,—for keeping bedding plants 
in winter, and hardening off those things you have now sown. You 
must not expect many melons from your one-light dung-bed ; but after 
raising the plants you might appropriate the two-light pit for that pur¬ 
pose. As to a heating medium for these pits, nothing is better than 
sweetened dung; but tree leaves, tan, refuse of flax mills, spent hops 
from a brewery, will do equally well if slightly sweetened. Much has 
been said of modes of heating artificially, without fermenting matters. 
Magnolia (Ibid). —We presume the one you refer to is grandiflora, 
and instead of being on a lawn, it would be the better for the shelter of a 
wall, south or west. 
Oleander (Ibid). —See what was said lately. Do not remove the buds 
if they are fresh ; if not so, cut down, as advised lately, and get the plant 
plunged in the bed which you mean to use for hardening off your tender 
seeds and cuttings. If the buds are sound, they may yet expand in the 
heat indicated and under the treatment so lately detailed. 
Cupiiea platycentra (J.S.L.). —This should not be over-watered 
in winter, whilst in a young state, in a cool greenhouse ; when two or 
three years old it stands rough treatment, but many of the old leaves will 
then get discoloured ; but what matters it, so long as a whole bevy of 
fresh ones will succeed them, and flowers in abundance ? If you wish to 
have it nice and green all the winter, the temperature must not often fall 
below 45°; but it the greenness is no object, from 5° to 10° decline of the 
temperature may be safely permitted. 
Dench’s Greenhouses (Ibid).—We think we understand the plan 
referred to, but anything particular that strikes you as being more than 
ordinarily superior and cheap, we should be obliged by knowing more 
perfectly, as economy, when it does not interfere with utilitv, is always 
a recommendation. 
Botanical Exchanges. —“ Doubtless, among your numerous readers, 
there are sume who, like myself, have collected almost all the plants in 
their neighbourhood. It appears to me, that by corresponding the one 
with the other all might be benefited. 1 know that nothing would 
please me better than to exchange the plants of my neighbourhood for 
those of the glens and moors of Scotland, the mountains of Wales, or 
the genial climate of Devonshire. Now, perhaps, there may be persons 
living in those localities who would experience the same pleasure in re¬ 
ceiving the plants peculiar to the South Downs. Again, are there not 
botanists living in the midland counties who would gladly give their plants 
for those of the coast ? Could you not, Mr. Editor, bring about this * con¬ 
summation so devoutly to be wished,’ by publishing in some corner of 
The Cottage Gardener the address of parties wishing to exchange 
botanical specimens?— William Bridgcr, 4, Tower Street, Chiches¬ 
ter.” We shall readily insert the names of such parties. 
Boiler. — W. Harrison vr ould be g'ad to know where, for £ 1 14s. 6d., 
he can obtain the boiler mentioned by “An old Subscriber,” at page 3t5i 
of vol. vii. 
Game Fowls.— II. H. may apply to Mr. Haslewood Smith, Hands- 
worth, Birmingham. 
Grass under Trees (R. Campbell). —No grass will grow well under 
deep shade. If the lowest branches of the plantation are removed, the 
surface raked now, sown w'ith the seeds of Poa nemoralis and Poa 
trivialis, you will have the best covering such a situation can obtain. If 
those grasses will not succeed, then plant periwinkle (Vinca major). It 
makes a beautiful covering tor the surface. 
Hothouse (O. L .).—Glaze with Hartley’s rough plate glass. Have 
the top lights made so that you can open them. Have Pannell’s heating 
apparatus. If you cannot have turf for the bottom of your vine border, 
over the drainage put long litter from the stable. 
Asthalt Flooring (L. $. C.). — If we were about to floor a barn, we 
should use the gravel and gas-tar as recommended by a correspondent 
to-day. We believe it would have the additional merit that rats would 
not disturb it. 
Winter Cow-food (Liebig). —Read some of the back monthly papers 
on “Allotment Farming.” You cannot do better than grow swedes and 
mangold wurtzel. It is too late to expect potatoes free from disease that 
are planted now. Do not burn the turf, trench it in. You cannot live 
by farming land at AiQ per acre. It is too much to pay even for a plot to 
keep a cow. 
Botany (H. J., Montgomeryshire). —Probably Henfrey’s Rudiments 
of Botany would suit you. 
Roses (E. T. Y .).—Never mind the roses having shed their leaves last j 
August. They do so very commonly. Cover over their roots with stable 
dung, just beneath the surface of the soil, and keep them well watered in ; 
summer. They will be all the better for liquid manure now and then. 
Cochin-China Fowls (K.). —See what is said at page 36o of our last | 
volume, about their combs becoming white. 
Sufer-phospiiate of Lime (John Hayward). —Bones are not con¬ 
verted into super-phosphate by mixing them with an equal quantity of | 
wet ashes, and covering them with mud. 
Greaves for Fowls. — H. W. says:—“ In answer to the correspond- j 
ent who wishes for information respecting greaves for feeding fowls, See., 
they are to be had in Is. sample cakes, with directions, at No. 9, London 
House Yard, St. Paul’s Church Yard. But the greaves are sold cheaper 
at other places, and if sweet, do as well. The way to use them, is to 
break up with a chopper about a pound into small pieces, soak it with 
boiling water till soft, then mix with it some boiled potatoes or rice, 
pollard, or any other of the usual substances.” 
Bees (Ibid).— You can easily twist out the plugs. The bees will not 
rush out, as you fear. We should think they do not now require feediug. 
There are always many dead young bees thrown out at this season. 
Iron Frames and Sashes (C. T.). —We know of no objection to 
these being used to pits, except the expense. They cool the interior j 
