Makcu 11. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
431 
“My lanip ]s copper, but tin would do as well. It has an holds more than half a-pint of oil, is 3 inches high, and 4 
extra head to burn three wicks instead of one, which add inches across, 
much to the heat, but I found one sutticient. The lamp 
A. Boiler. 
B. Steam chimney opening into 
middle of l)o.x through the zinc tr.ay. 
C C C. Zinc tray. 
HUP. Outer cover to boiler, 
through which the heat is conveyed 
from the lamp round the boiler, and 
the smoke out through E. 
H. Tap to draw off the water. 
A. Gas jet under the funnel head. B. Coil of zinc tube, one inch in 
diameter. C. Lid covered with sand. P. Pots of cuttings or seeds. 
E. Vapour tube. F. Smoke or smell tube. 
The best size for the box is thirty-four inches long, seven¬ 
teen inches wide, thirteen deep in front, and eighteen inches 
at the back, all inside measure. Such a box will bold three 
rows of No. 48 pots, and six pots in a row; or four rows of 
No. 0(1, and eight pots in the row. 'When making a smaller, 
or a larger box, one ought to fix on how many of tiiose two 
sizes of pots the box ivould hold conveniently wdtliont loss 
of space. An amateur should never use a pot larger than a 
48 for striking cuttings, and that size is large enough 
for all bis seeds. The tin case to hold the water should not 
he less tlian four inches shorter or narrower tlian the box 
inside, which leaves two inches between the tin and wooden 
boxes at the ends and sides, and it should be four indies 
deep ; then, when the heat is raised to 80'^ or Hu'^, it matters 
not if the lamp, or jet of gas, should go out for some hours, 
or as long as the heat keeps up to 70'^. If the size of the 
tin box is so small that the body of water in it is not suffi¬ 
cient to keep up the heat for several hours without a con¬ 
stant burning of gas, or oil, the first expense will he less, 
but the disadvantage would be in greater proportion. The 
lid of the tin case is made in the shape of a tray, with the 
edges raised about half-an-inch, so as to hold sand on which 
• the pots stand; a tube, five or six inches long, and about an 
inch in diameter, is soldered to the lid to let up vapour, not 
steam, from the hot-water, so as to keep the air sufficiently 
moist for the health of the cuttings or seedlings. If too 
much vapour rises, cork the tube. Make the tube also to 
index the depth of water by a float—a piece of cork wdth a 
small stick fixed in it, and rising through the tube ; hut it 
might he supplied from the outside by another tube, and a 
tap to empty the water may be applied. Eut I see no use 
in that, as the lid is not fixed in the present case; it fits 
like the lid of a tea-kettle, and as closely, so as to let otf no 
steam or vapour, and the raised rim of the lid projects an 
inch lieyoud the edge of the box. You begin in February, 
and w'hen you leave otf in summer the whole should be 
opened, and receive a coat of paint, and there is no occasion 
to draw off the water by a tap in the meantime. The tin 
box rests on the bottom of the Avooden box without anything 
between them ; hut the two inch spaces at the sides and 
ends should be filled up with sand to the level of the sand 
on the lid. The end of the tube for heating passes down 
through both the boxes, and ends with a funnel head to 
I receive the jet, and there is a “ next ” for holding a lamp. 
I The wooden box stands five or six inches from the ground, 
! on legs, after the manner of a chest of drawers. The sashes 
I to cover with may be like garden-lights, or in one piece of 
[ stout glass let into a zinc frame,'to move “otf and on;” or 
] tlic top may bo hinged on and locked, like a desk ; and, as 1 
j said before, the whole may be made to suit a drawing room, 
where it would “work ” just as well as anywhere else. It is 
! not calculated for the open air. U. Beaton. 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
GARDENING. 
CALCEOLARIA CUTTINGS. 
“ I am anxious to get a bed of Yellow Colcenlanus, and 
have only four old plants. 'Will you tell me tiie best way of 
striking them Ought they to have bottom heat? 
if so, how much ? 1 have plunged them in a cucuniber-hed, 
hut have never found the cuttings had any root; and this, I 
find, is the case with a number of my friends’ cuttings also. 
—J. E.” 
[It is more than likely that those old Calceolaria plants, 
and niiie-tentlis of all the old Calceolaria plants growing, 
are now in tlie flowering condition, if not actually in fiower- 
bud; and when they are so, that is the worst state they 
can he in for getting cuttings from them. Indeed, all the 
best kinds of bedding Calceolarias never root from “ flower¬ 
ing wood,” as gardeners say ; and when they do, the jilants 
are not worth having. The way gardeners manage to get 
over this difficulty, when they want spring cuttings, is this, 
—they take the old plants out of cold frames about the 
1st of Eehruary; hut it is not too late now. “ Look them 
over,” and cut hack the tops of the shoots to Ilia hoUom of 
the last loiKj joint from the top. 'When a Calceolaria is grow¬ 
ing for wood, from September to May, all the joints, or the 
distances between one set of buds and the next set, grow of 
ecjual length, or nearly so ; hut as soon as the flowering 
