20 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
October 3 0. 
of such practice to lead me to consider its use as one of 
the indispensables of high culture in many soils. 
This priming is not an expensive affair, as might at 
first sight be supposed; for I have found, in practice, 
that a mixture composed of about ten parts soot to one 
of guano, possesses great power, and if so, I should 
advise old vegetable remains, highly decomposed, or 
what is termed humus, in a mellow state, to be added to 
the mixture, and thoroughly blended. It is adapted to 
almost any crop requiring a stimulus of greater action 
than can be expected from organic manures, unless 
highly decomposed. R- Errington. 
PREPARATIONS EOR SPRING FLOWERS. 
Every word about the autumn propagation of Roses, 
by cuttings in the open air, is, and may be understood 
as referable to all deciduous trees and shrubs as well as 
to the Rose itself: that is, to such of them as are known 
to grow from cuttings; therefore, as cuttings of all 
Roses, and other deciduous bushes, may be put in to the 
end of November, we may as well look to another branch 
of propagation which just now requires more immediate 
notice at our hands—the propagation of herbaceous 
plants to flower next spring and summer. 
In a day or two, I purpose going to the Crystal 
Palace once more before the frost; but there is nothing 
there this season to learn about herbaceous plants or 
spring flowers. There are some mixed beds, it is true, 
in the transition-part of the garden, but the mixtures are 
not of herbaceous plants, so called, but of first, second, 
and third-rate plants of the bedding class; and they are 
there only as temporary helps to fill up the spaces 
between the permanent plants with which such-and-such 
beds were filled in a hurry last spring. 
I have not either asked, or received, a single question, 
officially, about how anything is to be done in this 
public garden; therefore, I cannot say whether or not 
they intend to have some beds, or long borders of her¬ 
baceous plants; but I should think they must have 
something of the kind in view, although it may take 
another year or two before it can be properly attended 
to. No large establishment in the country is considered , 
complete without a mixed arrangement of odds and ! 
ends; where a selection of bulbs, herbaceous plants, [ 
novelties to be proved, and all such things as have not ’ 
been found to mass well together, are disposed of as they 
come to hand. Nothing seems to come amiss to the 
mixed borders, and few visitors go away without learning 
something worth minding from this part of a show- 
place. Hence the craving for the old, exploded system , 
of having collections of plants without knowing it. We j 
gather and scrape together from all available sources 
for our beds and borders, our hothouses, frames, and i 
pits; but you never hear of turning out barrows-full of 
the rubbish thus got together without a change of 
government. Master and man are alike, until the latter 
breaks his own back, in the vain endeavour to compass 
all. Out he goes ; then, new kings, new laws; and new 
brooms, &c., &c., for a while; but it all ends in the old 
story—“ I want a good selection : but somehow or other 
I never succeed. I have too much of one thing—too 
little of what I really want. I must get a list of just 
what I want from The Cottage Gardener.” But there 
is no royal road to the list-office, and no chance for 
manufacturing a fancy list, every body is so knowing. 
Nothing but the very commonest things can find a 
place in a good list, and not one out of a score thinks 
lie ought to have anything that is at all common. Some¬ 
thing out of the ordinary way is what is wanting; and 
some gardeners, who ought to know better, countenance 
all this waste and foolery, while truth and this secret 
lie in a nut-shell. Ten kinds of plants, arranged in ten 
different ways by a skilful head, and a ripe eye, will 
produce ten times the effect of a hundred plants, dotted 
about at distances corresponding to the room necessary 
for each. 
If we could but teach, or rather unteacli, the system 
of planting herbaceous plants, we might hope to succeed 
in learning the true art of flower-gardening at last; but | 
as long as the pulse is so quick as to start at the first 
idea of putting three plants of one kind together “ in 
a knot,” we must forbear to follow the rest like the 
sheep. No sooner said, than departed from, however; for 
at this very turn, I am going to show how to plant the 
best spring-flowering herbaceous plant we have—I mean 
the best varieties of the dwarf Mimulus. 
People who have not seen a good assortment of these 
gay flowers, or who have only seen them under ordinary 
culture in pots, can form little idea of how well they 
look, and how well they hold on when heated differ¬ 
ently. 
In the first place, they must be divided, and fresh 
transplanted every year; they should not be disturbed in 
the spring, but they may be removed from the beds, or 
where they bloom, as soon as the flowers are over in 
June. If lumps or balls of soil are taken with the roots, 
they may then be laid out of the way, in the sun, or out of 
the sun. They will do anywhere, if they have free earth 
to run the roots into, and some water at first till they 
take to the change; but October is the only time in the 
year for dividing them, and for preparing and planting 
them for bloom. 
They will do in large patches, or in single rows along 
the walks or round beds, or they may be planted all over 
a bed, or only in the open spaces between Hyacinths, 
early Tulips, and all spring bulbs, except the Crocus. 
Abed of Crocus makes such a crop of leaves, after flower¬ 
ing, as would smother the Mimulus outright; but a good 
thick edging of Crocus round a bed of early Tulips, and 
the spaces between the Tulips to be filled with the 
Mimulus, would almost begin blooming as soon as the 
Tulips ; say about the middle of April, if the spring was 
fine; and as the Tulips were going out, the Mimulus 
would be about its meridian, pressing out on a dense 
edge of Crocus leaves, and doing away with the seedy 
appearance of the Tulip leaves; and they keep so long in 
bloom, that the Narcissus would be ripe enough for 
removal before the Mimuluses had done blooming. 
As many as twelve very distinct kinds of dwarf 
Mimulus may now be had,and twice as many, if one 
chooses to go into minute variations. They seem to be 
hardy enough, in light soil, to stand ordinary winters. 
In 1852, I had fifteen kinds from the Horticultural 
Society. They were very young at the end of September, 
but I had one-half of them out-of-doors, and the other 
half in pots, and sheltered; all that were in the pots I 
lost that winter, but those in the open ground did very 
well indeed. Of these I had some hundreds out all last 
winter without losing one of them. As soon as they 
\ began to flower, at the end of last April, I had to divide 
them for giving some away to my neighbours, but this 
next season I shall go on a different system. I shall 
divide my whole stock and plant my own rows this 
month, and put all the overstock in by the heels, for 
giving away to the neighbours; then, when they get a 
taste of them this way, they will look out for more 
kinds, seeing they are so useful; and in two or three 
years I should not wonder if Surbiton should become a 
noted place for the Mimulus. 
They do not require a particle of rotten dung; if the 
soil is good they are better without it, because their 
growth will be more firm, and the frost will not be so 
liable to hurt them. This is so far fortunate, where 
they are used with bulbs, as I am quite sure that no 
bulb needs any dung near it; though all our spring bulbs 
like a good supply of rotten dung at the very bottom of 
