^30 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENER. 
October 16. 
flowers come together from the baud of uatui'e; and if 
they are arranged just as they are in nature, of course 
that is the best arrangement to learn from ; but our 
kinds of flower-gardens are never met with in nature, 
therefore it is but natural to suppose that a collection 
which is arranged on an unnatural plan—that of a 
flower-garden—is not on the best plan for learning from. 
The house plants were never in a better state than 
they are at the present moment, and many of the Green¬ 
house kinds could not be matched at our exhibitions for 
training, for health, and for cleanliness. The plants are 
grown heie in smaller pots, according to the size of the 
plants, than anywhere else that I know of. Another 
thing meets you at Kew more than anywhere else, that 
is, the great age of some of the plants which no country 
gardener can keep alive more than four or five years. 
The secret of this seems to be the use of pure yellow loam, j 
instead of peat and loam, which enables them to use much 
smaller pots; the small quantity of water they give from 
the end of September till the days get hot in the spring; 
the large amount of air they give to these houses; and 
the comparative dryness of the whole all through the 
winter. Hence it follows, that to get up a woody plant 
for the shows, in the shortest time, is not the right way 
to insure its life. One man gets his prizes, and wonders 
how it is that he loses four times as many plants as a 
neighbour who never shows at all, and whose gardener 
is little better than a labourer. 
Perhaps, at Kew is the largest collection of Acacias 
in the world—all in yellow loam and small pots. 
The fast-growing ones they must nip and stop tre¬ 
mendously to keep so regular. Our Acacia Drum- 
mondi for the exhibitions is not the Drummondi at 
Kew, nor anything like it, nor one quarter so good. 
Yet they seem to be as fond of flowers, in doors, as 
any of us. The greenhouses are very gay all along 
the paths with Fuchsias, Scarlet and other Geraniums, 
Hydrangeas, and lots of China Asters in pots, and so 
forth. In these decorations they seem to give preference 
to Fuchsia Inaccessible, seemingly a cross between Cora- 
lina and liiccartonii, a fine one for a pyramid or standard. 
Also Dulce of Wellington, a fine reflexed flower, with a 
violet-purple inside. Monarch, Duchess of Lancaster, and 
Banhs Olory, which is in the way of Formosa eleyans. 
The Lady Middleton Geranium, which they had from 
a London nursery, by the name of Rosea Superba! 
Miss Turner Petunia, a light flower, much streaked. 
Boide de Nieye Geranium, is likewise a good pot variety 
with them ; but it and Sheltonii have failed, as bedders, 
at the Crystal Palace; and the bed in which they are 
planted there, on the Hose mount or mound, had to be 
filled with a pink Verbena; so we have still to look for a 
good white bedder in the Scarlet breed. 
The best managed collection of Cape bulbs are here 
grown in cold frames, in large wide-mouthed pots, and 
several bulbs in one pot. There w'ere several pots of 
IIa:nia)ithus coccineus in bloom along tlie stages, brought 
in to show while they were in bloom, and five or seven 
large bulbs in each,—the leaf about an inch or two in 
length by the time the flowers are over. What a change 
since all such bulbs used to be seen in hot stoves, as 
if they were real stove plants! The old plant of the 
Pampas Grass, Gyneriinn argenteum, is gone; and its 
place is now occupied by three young ones, and one of 
them is throwing up a spike of bloom, which is all they 
will see of it this season; but they have 3,000 seedling 
plants of it in little pots, and in cold frames, looking as 
green as wheat or barley. These are from imported 
seeds, which were sown last July, or earlier. The Hor¬ 
ticultural Society have also a large stock of seedlings of 
it, and tlie nurseries are advertising it by tlie dozen, and 
by the hundred, cheaper than new bedding Geraniums. 
13y-and-by, the Agricultural Society will be giving prizes 
for tlie best mode of making hay of it, and I cannot 
help thinking that it would make a famous mixture with 
Rowan, or after-grass, so as to dry into hay for winter 
use. Rowan is troublesome to make, at all times, into 
good hay; hut an acre of Pampas Grass, with five acres 
of Rowan, ought to “make” well, and be the finest hay 
in the country. Cattle might not like it by itself so 
well, if at all; but mixed in Rowan, the flavour would 
change, and be agreeable. Thousands of wild horses 
have no better food, without any mixture at all. 
The beautiful Lapayeria rosea, or Climbing Lily, of 
the deepest crimson, at this season is beautifully in 
bloom,—trained up at the south-end of the hardy Fern- 
house, which has a north or north-eastern aspect. Those 
who have attempted to grow this most charming plant 
in heat ought to have been in the Crimea long a o. 
When I was here, about the same time in 1852, this 
plant was planted out in the border close to where it 
stands now. It is now in a pot, and such a pot! Y^ou 
never saw a pot like it before; but the very nature of 
the roots suggested the thing; and as the plant does so 
beautifully in it, and flowers so freely as it does now, this 
seems to be the real kind of pot; and depend upon it, 
between ourselves, the form of pots must soon be as 
much varied as the forms of flower-beds. This pot for 
Lapageria rosea is just three inches deep and twentj"- 
four inches across the mouth, outside measure by the 
eye. The compost might be one-third yellow loam, the 
rest peat, leaf mould, and the whole made light and free 
with clean sand. D Beaton. 
(To be continued,') 
Toads. —I have this summer noticed a great mor- 
; talitity among the toads, their dry and empty skins are 
; to be met with wherever I go. From what 1 have 
noticed, 1 siqjpose they are destroyed by some insect, or 
fly, that lays its eggs on their skins, w'hich, wdien 
hatched, the maggots find their way into the toad’s nos¬ 
trils, and there, in even ranks, eat into the head of the 
living reptile, till they destroy its life, and then feast 
merrily on the contents of its hide, leaving only the dry 
skin of what was but a few days before a useful insect 
! destroyer. Has this mortality among the gardener’s 
friends been noticed by others? Is it of common occur¬ 
rence ? or can you, or any of your readers, oblige me by 
saying to what insect, or fly, this wholesale depredation 
is to be attributed?— 13. P. Brent. 
GLEANINGS FROM BERKHAMPSTEAD 
NURSERIES. 
{Gontinued from paye 21.) 
ORCHARD-HOUSE 
j Many houses and pits are now used for thoroughly 
ripening the buds of young trees training as bushes for 
this object, such as Figs, Peaches, and Apricots. Cherries 
and Plums in the open ground did not look as if they 
would require this attention. Many Apples and Pears, 
in pots, were well loaded with fruit. The Orchard-house, 
2)ar excellence, is comparatively new, and is 1.30 feet in 
length by twenty-four feet in width, span-roofed; one 
side facing the north-west, and the other the south-east. 
The first side is honoured with a wall from three to four 
feet in height. The second side is open, except being 
partially screened by Arbor vittrs, and is supported on 
stout Larch poles. The centre of the house is supported 
in a similar manner. The roof is fixed sash-bars, about 
the usual size; but for such a length of roof, four rafters 
on each side are used to tie the whole firmly and strongly 
together, and a few iron rods cross the house to effect 
this more fully. I believe it is intended to make this | 
