424 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 
March 11. ' 
as in the autumn, wlien the clay and night are more j 
equal, as they have it in certain latitudes all the year | 
round. Tliinlc seriously on that point before you settle 
which kind of house gives the best light; but know, to a 
certainty, that many of j'our plants receive already 
double the light with us that is natural to them at 
home. 
The next novelty was a new set of BhoUtn lihododen- 
ilrons, nine kinds, and all of them different from tlmse 
sent home from Sikkim by Dr. Hooker, and from Sikkim 
and Bhotan by some one else, having been gathered six 
hundred feet higher up in the mountains than the latter. 
They are now “ pricked off” in store pots by thousands, 
and seem to care little for the cold, for the soil in the 
pots was frozen through and through this winter. 
After these, I saw fifty seedling pots of P'lcea grandis, 
from Schamyl’s rugged glens on the Caucasus. Who 
will now put up with grafted plants of this, the finest 
of our Pinusos, and hitherto very scarce? P. amahile, 
Dotojhisdi, and Xohile, were the best by Douglas; and 
Beuthamia is one of Hartweg’s very best Pines; for he 
told me, himself, that a wood of this kind was the finest 
thing he had seen in all his travels ; but I was not aware, 
until I saw it at this nursery, that Pimis Benthamia 
is so plentiful and cheap, and fit to be planted out 
at once on the slopes above Balmoral, that probably 
Pince Albert will send down a thousand or two of 
them for trial. Pinuses and Standard Rhododen¬ 
drons are known to be Prince Albert’s most favourite 
plants. 
Thuja (j'ujantea is the most singular tree in this 
establishment; it is not unlike WclUiti/ionia fiigautea, 
only it has not so much of a Cypress look. Lilce the 
Wellmgtonia, it is a Californian tree of great size and 
beauty, attaining the height of one-hundred-and-eighty 
feet, the lower eighty feet of which is as bai’e as a May- 
pole; but, with us, we shall not see it thus in our day. 
Another remarkable Conifer, from Asia Minor, is 
Tlntiopsia borealis, a fine, graceful-looking tree, and said 
to be very hardy. The Wardian Case has brought over 
a large batch of seedlings of Araucaria Cookii iVom 
the other side of the world, and there they are as if 
they were sown on the spot. 
I must tell the balm to the vanity of an old man 
which met me on the threshold of this nursery. As ! 
soon as the lists of Pompones and Chrysanthemums, for 
the last season, appeared in The Cottage GAunENEii, 
the stock of them here was revised at once, and pro- < 
pngation began, or, rather, ended, the last year witli | 
them in earnest, and they say, not before it was time, as 
already orders for them, from country nurseries, are ' 
more numerous than they ever were later in the season; 
and I hear, that Mr. Salter, of Hammersmith, is in the 
same stress of weather, for he, too, was i'orced to begin 
to strike them two months sooner than was his wont, 
and they, both of them, blame me for this, as I said , 
that the spring was the best time to buy them. 1 care 
not to be blamed in this matter. I hold to my opinion, 
that the spring is the right time to buy all kinds of 
Chrysanthemums; and if the nurseries are taken by 
surprise, let them smart for it by all means; but let us ; 
not want or lose a season next year. We shall then be 
striking them with Waltonian Cases of our own make. 
Mr. Walton’s Case is even better this year than on 
the first trial, for ^fr. Walton told me so; but I rather 
suspect that Mrs. Walton, who is head-gardener, is now 
more up to the way of managing it. The alterations ' 
which were suggested on the first Case could not be 
tested till the cutting season came round ; but they are | 
now nearly quite complete, all but the expense of. 
heating, which time alone can solve, and the drawings 
will bo in tlm hands of the ongi-aver before this is in ‘ 
the hands of those to whom this pew oontrivanoo will 
be a soinco of muoli pleasure and interest. Other ways. 
and forms have been suggested, and our advice is asked 
anent them. To all such we would reply, or, rather, I 
would say, in my own proper person, with due respect, 
that I think of the three plans for Waltonian imitations, 
just as I do of tke Peace Conference, which began the 
25th day of February, at Paris. 
But I lost sight of Clapton Nursery when I was 
going to write about the secrets of propagation, which 
are tew and simple; sweet air, moist atmosphere, 
gloaming light, and from 75° to 85° of close heat, 
patience, skill, and judgment being all the requisites, 
providing you have stock plants to take cuttings from. 
They were noted for expert propagators at Clapton, 
when I first came to London, in 1829, so they can¬ 
not be said to have taken their learning from The 
Cottage Gardener; but having seen the one, and 
read the other, if I did not know better, I could be 
sworn that they learned all their moves out of one 
book. I never saw practice square so much with writing 
before; and as for me to attempt to give such details 
as are plain on the face of them, in every part of 
this nursery, would be merely to write over the same 
words from our own pages, even in the few simple details 
in which our men diff’er. They difi’er as much at 
Clapton. Take one instance. Very rare things are 
Lejiageria seedlings ; therefore, to meet the trade, every 
one of many hundreds is put singly into a small pot, 
while Erica Massonii and its long strain, with Elegans 
and Cavendisliii and their strains, and all the hardiest- 
wooded Heaths, which are the worst of all to nurse, and 
ought to be in single pots ; but no. Heaths are common 
plants, the better luck, and out of fifty thousand No. 
60-pots,not one is seen with only a single plant in it, all 
of them have four plants in each, and so with all other 
families and single kinds. Some people are so rash and 
hasty as to pot off as soon as the cuttings are rooted— 
a daft plan ! First see if you want more cuttings of 
that kind, and if you do, the top of a cutting newly 
rooted makes the best cutting in the world, and some 
cuttings cannot be rooted unless the plant is half killed 
first with damp, close heat, which will force the wiriest 
wood to grow as soft as that of the Verbena, and in that 
condition is made to root almost as easy as Fuchsias. 
The tank system, by getting rid of all the bother and 
bad smells of a hotbed, allows of propagation to go on 
all the year round in these large concerns. They never 
think of which is the best time to ])ut in such and such 
kinds of cuttings; their only question is, when are the 
hard-wooded soft enough for cuttings? and when is the 
soft-wooded of sufficient firmness for cuttings? More 
of these things some other day. 
D. Beaton. 
Who are Under-gardeners?— Some light is thrown 
upon the answer to be returned to this query, from what 
took place recently in the House of Commons. On 
March 3rd, in reply to a question put by Col. Harcourt, 
the Ghaucellor of the Exchequer stated, that “ he under¬ 
stood that the construction which had been adopted by 
the Revenue Department was this—that persons who 
were regularly employed for a whole year, and who 
were under the direction of a head gardener, should be 
regarded as under-gardeners, but that persons who 
were only casually employed, and who were engaged in 
such duties as might be performed by common labourers; 
as, for instance, in mowing grass, or in keeping gravel 
walks in order, were not to be deemed under-gardeners.”-^ 
Times, March 4th. 
I 
