January 23. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
321 
years since. The Vines have clone very well; for most of 
them have shown themselves this year, whether they were 
true to name or not; but I am sorry to say, to my great 
disappointment, that there are several that are not true, 
which I am desirous of inarching this season. I have 
got some two years old of Barbarrosa, and other good sorts, 
which I should like to inarch them with, if you would be 
so kind as to inform me when will be the best time, and 
which will be the best way to do them; whether you would 
put the old wood together; or start them first, and put the 
young wood together.—W. J.” 
[Inarch your Vines before the sap rises, by joining 
last year’s wood to the main stems. Or you may wait until 
the l ines grow, and then inarch young wood. They will 
take almost any how with a little care.] 
BLIGHT ON BRUSSELS SPROUTS. 
[The blight sent from South Devonshire by Amateur, as 
extremely detrimental to the Brussels Sprouts, Borecole, 
ifcc., seems to be the common Aphis Brassicte, which the 
present extraordinary season has developed to an unusual 
extent. Cold and rain, which we may now expect, will destroy 
them; and fumigating with tobacco-smoke, under a wide 
canvass bag or cover, will be found effectual in saving any 
plants which may be particularly prized. As the insects 
are generally on the undersides of the leaves, washes of gas- 
tar water, and similar mixtures, can hardly be relied upon. 
—YV. W.] 
GLOIRE DE ROSAMENE ROSE—.BEDS ROUND 
A SUN-DIAL. 
“ I wish to know whether there is any chance of the 
‘ Gloire de Rosameno’ succeeding and flowering well in a 
light soil and very sunny situation; and what compost 
would suit them best ? Eight beds round a sun-dial, no 
shade, and exposed to westerly winds, what flowers would 
succeed best for a summer and autumn garden?—Q. T.” 
[The beautiful Gloire de Rosamene Rose is not so well 
suited for all light soils as we once supposed. It is the best 
bloomer of all roses on chalky, light soils ; but now, on our 
sharp, sandy soil, which is rich enough for the Cabbage 
Rose, it only does moderately, and it is so all over the dis¬ 
trict. It is one of the few roses which will not live on a 
foreign stock, except for a year or two. It must have its 
own roots; and any light soil, rich or poor, will grow it 
freely enough: but to see it in perfection, it must be in a 
chalky district—where no other Rose does half so well. 
Fresh soil, taken from the surface of a common, and some 
lime rubbish or chalk mixed with it, with a little rotten 
dung or leaf-mould, ought to get it up to the mark in most 
places. We never had it on heavy Rose soil, or that inclined 
to clay. 
Your own choice from the popular class of bedding- 
plants will answer your eight Sun-dial beds, such as Scarlet 
Geraniums, perpetual Geraniums, as Lady Flora Hastings, 
Touchstone, the TJiademalums, Range et Nnir, Lady l’ly- 
mouth, Bandy , and Golden Chain, and a long list of et 
ceteras ; also \erbenas, Petunias, Calceolarias, Campanulas, 
1 Enotheras, and so forth,; and all our volumes are full of 
such names. If your beds are all of the same size, in that 
way of arranging them round a dial the plants ought to bo 
either all of one height, or alternately high and low all 
round.] 
SOWING HOLLYHOCK SEED. 
“ A friend of mine having made me a present of some 
first rate Hollyhock seed, I should be much favoured by 
your informing me, through the medium of The Cottage 
Gardener, what time I should sow it, so as to get the plants 
to flower next summer.—A Lover of the Hollyhock.” 
[The right time to sow Hollyhock seeds, so that the seed¬ 
lings may flower the first season, is just the moment they 
are ripe, about the end of August; the seedlings to be kept 
under cover from frost till the spring—say till early in 
April, and then to be planted out, and they will bloom next 
September at the latest. When the seed is kept over the 
winter, as yours has been, no art of man can get the seed- ' 
lings to flower that season. Now your seedlings will not 
bloom till next autumn twelvemonths, whether you sow 
I them now, or next March, or at the beginning of May. We 
would choose the later period. Sow them in the open ground, 
and transplant them into rows next October, one foot apart 
from plant to plant, and two feet or more between the rows, 
and we would pull up every one which we did not approve of 
as soon as the first few blossoms opened.] 
HEATING TWO HOUSES BY ONE BOILER. 
“ I have two Greenhouses, one on each side of a path : 
I wish to heat both of them by means of one furnace only, 
by the hot-water plan. What I wish to know is, if I could 
carry the hot-water pipes under the path, so as to heat both 
houses with the one furnace. If it could not be done, if 
you would advise me on the best plan to adopt, you would 
confer a favour on me. I have hot-water pipes in one 
house.— Amateur.” 
[We should have answered better if we had known if the 
pipes in the house are higher in level than the path under¬ 
neath which they must go. There would be no difficulty if 
the pipes were carried through both houses and path alto¬ 
gether on the same level. Suspecting the pipes already in 
the house are above the ground level, the pipes in the other 
house we would advise to rise one inch or so higher to the 
farther end. It will be as well if the lowest part of the pipe 
under the path is not lower than the top of the boiler. The 
pipes connecting the flow and return of both houses, under¬ 
neath the path, should be smaller in bore than the pipes in 
the house; and to the lowest part, an air-pipe, a quarter-of- 
an-inch in diameter, should be drilled in, rise through the 
earth, and stand higher than the pipes in the house, with 
its end open, and resting against the end of the building. 
A similar pipe should be inserted in each pipe at the 
extremity of the pipes at the highest point in the other 
house. The reason why we wish to have the connecting- 
pipes smaller than those in the house is to increase the 
force of circulation. It is amazing how soon a four-inch 
pipe is heated by even a half-an-inch supply-pipe. Two leaden 
pipes, one or one-and-a-lialf inches in diameter, would con¬ 
nect the two houses very well. The object of having a 
small air-pipe communicating with the air at the point 
underneath the path, and at the extreme end, is to prevent 
air accumulating there, which would prevent circulation. 
By having taps on the connecting-pipes, you can keep the 
other house from being heated at will. You will observe 
that you cannot heat the other house by this mode, without 
heating that where the pipes are already, and that the 
latter will therefore be the hottest. If your boiler bad been 
in the centre, between your houses, you could easily have 
heated either one, as you liked.] 
POULTRY. 
HAMBURGHS AT BIRMINGHAM. 
“ I was much surprised to see your answer to ‘ A Sub¬ 
scriber for Years,' in your last number, with respect to 
Hamburghs at Birmingham. You say that no hen-tailed 
Spangled Hamburgh cock there received cither a prize or a 
commendation. Surely the writer of that cannot have been 
there. All the Golden Spangled Hamburghs that had prizes 
awarded them (with tire exception of third prize in chicken) 
were lien-tailed cocks. And whilst I have my pen in hand, 
I may say, that I think the Judges displayed very poor 
judgment in the Golden Spangled classes. The first prize 
in the aged birds they withheld ; a class containing twenty- 
seven entries; and, as far as my judgment goes, they were 
the choicest collection of Spangled birds ever brought to¬ 
gether. It may be said, I was a disappointed exhibitor. I 
was not; for I saw better birds there than my own; but 
not those to which the prizes were awarded. It would 
be very interesting to me to know the opinion of other 
breeders who were at Birmingham and saw the birds. I 
have just read over what you say again. (You say, ‘ Our 
remarks on this class will have already have shown our 
opinion as to this clear hackle being out of place in a 
Spangled Hamburgh, either gold or silver.’) Now, I never 
saw a Golden Spangled Cock with a clear hackle, either 
hen-tailed or sickle-tailed, and I believe there never was 
one. But the hackle in the Silver Spangled, I say, ought 
to be pure white; and in all the cocks that obtained prizes 
at Birmingham they were so. The hackle of the hen-tailed 
