;^28 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February 5- 
rougli guess, or by actual measurement; then I would 
say to myself, alter casting up the number of square 
feet, here are so many feet, and there are so many ])lants 
to till them; and as we plant from the distance of three 
or four inches aj)art, to eighteen or twenty inches, or 
more, 1 would strike a garden average, and say that all 
my plants would stand at nine or ten inches apart, then 
I should know, come what will, how far my stock would 
go, and how far I could increase the different kinds, to 
be in time for filling in the beds. J would set a hotbed 
going immediately, if I found the stock too low; and 
now, being sure of filled beds somehow, I would, with a 
pencil, make a rough sketch of the flower-garden, putting 
all the beds and borders in the exact j)ositio)is they 
stand in the garden, without bothering about the exact 
shapes or sizes. The number of feet on my list of the 
beds w'ould tell the size of each better than the eye 
could from a diminished figure drawn to a scale. 
The next point is what every man, or woman, should 
do most earnestly, if he or she were “ in my shoes, ” that 
is, to study the j)lan of the beds, and see how best to 
dispose of the principal colours according to that plan. 
There are hundreds of flower gardens, in which no mortal 
can make a satisfactory disposition of colours, because 
the design of the beds was made by some clever ))erson, 
perhaps a great artist, who did not understand that such 
a design is merely a means to an end, not the end 
itself—a good ])icture. If the design is very pretty on 
paper, the chances are that it is a stupid piece of busi¬ 
ness; but be it what it may, I must fill it, and fill it, too, 
accordingly as it stands, and if I find it a very stiq)id 
plan, 1 must ))ut in a good number of mixed plants in 
the 2 ^ 1 'incijiaJ beila, then the fault of the design will not 
be so apparent with the great mass of mankind, if they 
were to see it every day during the season, nor so easily 
discovered by the wisest or cleverest critic on a first 
view. Therel'ore, when a flower-garden is planted with 
only one kind of plant in each bed, the design must 
have been exceedingly good, or the planter was a fool, 
to exjtose the plan so palpably, unless he meant to do so. 
If I were short of plants, and had money to buy more, 
I confess 1 should be rather })leased than not to find out 
that the plan of the garden 1 liad to fill for the first 
time was a very stupid one, and to make anything of it, 
I must plant three or four kinds of Verbenas in one 
bed, two kinds of Petunias in another, put an edging 
round a bed, which should be of one plant only ; a 
variegated plant all over another bed, which should 
have a decided colour in it, with an edging to contrast, 
and so on tliroughout all the beds and ])lants. After a 
few days to consider it over, and some changing here 
and there, one might make a very pretty show out of a 
bad design and with only ordinary plants. 
Suppose, on the other hand, that the design of this 
garden w'as a ])erfect model I'or making a striking i)icture 
out of the leaves and flowers of plants, shall 1 sj)oil this 
model by planting in it some of all the plants I have, 
or only the best of them, which happen to be short of 
the requisite number of kinds to bring out the full 
beauty of the design ? 
This is the most vexed question which we have to 
deal with, either as flower-gardeners or employers. We 
have too many kinds of plants for one style of ])lanting, 
and too few for an opposite style ; and in endeavouring 
to inake a compromise between the two, some make one 
thing of it, and some another; but I shall use my own 
judgment, and ])lant such things as hajipen to be on 
the place, till 1 have time to look about me for a bettor 
selection ; therelore, I find 1 have more than enough of 
certain kinds ot plants, but not a fourth the quantity of 
such-and such jdants that 1 shall need, to made any¬ 
thing ot a decent show ol it. Hut, then, it is only the 
month ol bebruaiy, and there is the cutting-bed just 
leady, and the Cucumber-bed, too; but hang tlm Cu¬ 
cumbers— that is, train them on a trellis, and let the 
fruit hang down over my cuttings. 1 must use all the 
available means in my power to get tqi a ))roper sup])ly 
for the beds this season, though the Cucumbers should 
fall short for this year. 
All that settled, the next essential ])oint is the Orasx, 
or Laivn. If that is in a patchy state, or full of 
Daisies and other weeds, all the flowers in the world 
would not compensate for that defect, and now is the 
proper time to look out for the grass. Our friend 
“G ” has an unsatisfactory lawn, but says nothing 
about his flowers for the beds. He has taken the best 
resolve to get rid of the worst part of the business by 
rooting out the Daisies and other broad-leaved ))lants, 
and is now about filling up the holes and inequalities 
cauSfed by the Daisy-spud with soil and soot, and wishes 
to know the right depth of fresh soil to lay over the 
surface. 'Then he is to sow certain lawn grasses to get 
an even surface. That is just what 1 would do if I 
found the lawn in such a state ; but unless 1 had the soot 
by me, 1 would not buy any of it on purpose. I dislike all 
kinds of stimulants to grass lawns. Generally, they do 
more harm than good, particularly soot, which only 
encourages too much for a short period ; and if yon 
force young seedling grasses with soot, or other stimu¬ 
lants of short durations, and a hot summer I'ollows, the 
effect of the soot may turn out to be more injurious than 
otherwise. Soot is an excellent dressing for an annual 
crop, as Barley and Wheat, or an early crop of hay, or 
to give a relish to a bite of ])ermanent grasses; but 
most gardeners set their faces against all stimulants to 
short grass; any dressing, indeed, which goes beyond 
giving a solid surface under the scythe, and that is best 
done by a thin layer of earth, or coal-ashes, or both ; 
and, therefore, what 1 would do with a weedy lawn 
would be to clean out as many of the weeds as jtossible, 
and to dress the surface with coal-ashes and earth free 
from weeds, then to sow only the finer kinds of grass, 
and whit» and yellow Clover, and more of them to the 
acre than 1 would use if the piece of lawn was trenched 
and laid down afresh, because many of the seeds will 
not “ take” among existing strong grass. If we say one 
inch deep of such earth and coal ashes, at the rate of 
one part or bushel of ashes to five jtarts of earth, and 
spread that equally all over the lawn, the dt‘|)lh will not 
appear so much there as on paper. Hardly any of the 
old grass will be hid, and still there will be a stdlicient 
depth for the seeds, and to make aii equal and even 
surface under the scythe. Hut when grass seeds are to 
be sown over an old lawn, it is of much more importance 
to have the dressing laid on ]>erfectly equal in tliickness 
than the exact thickness itself; but an inch thick, more 
or less, is certainly the nearest way to measure the quan¬ 
tity. I recollect having once laid about two inches over 
a bad surface, and nothing but common light soil, un¬ 
screened, and after sowing the grass and Clovers, 1 had 
the whole rolled and raked, to gather up clods and 
stones. It was a tedious job, and the men complained 
much about too many stones being left; but alter the 
first few months, and a heavy rolling as often as we 
could, there were no more complaints about the rough 
surface; and, certainly, the tldng turned out exceedingly 
well. Even since that time, when I had occasion to 
repeat that kind of job, I took care to keep the roller 
well going lor the rest of the spring, and before the 
scythes were set to work. 1 am satisfied that the roller has 
more to do with the goodness of old or new lawns, as much 
as the depth of earth, or the kind of seeds; but 1 would 
aim at one inch thick, then sow the seeds, and rake and 
crush, crush and rake, backwards and forwards, till every 
clod is broken, and every stone gathered. By that 
process the seeds were covered and nestled among the 
old grass sulficiently to make sure of them, the roller 
wo\dd follow ia earnest, and I would not be so parti- 
