410 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February 27. 
unless it be one pot or so to prove if I am right or 
wrong. 
I cannot now think of a single seed, for the use of the 
flower-garden, which will not answer to be sown in a 
hotbed during the last week of March just as well as if 
it were sown to-morrow. This is also a great considera¬ 
tion, and leaves our one-light box almost entirely free 
for cuttings at present, but not entirely; for we must 
put four rows of pot-plants across the top or back of the 
bed—those that we are scarcest of for cuttings—and the 
front part of the bed is free for cutting pots. By this 
arrangement we can shade the cutting part of the frame 
without darkening the plants. This will give us more 
sun-lieat than if all the glass was shaded; and when 
this heat is more than enough, we give air by raising 
the light at the back, or tilting it, as we say. It will 
not do to slide down a light to give air so early in the 
season, because the draught of cold air coming in below, 
under the glass, would kill everything, and much sooner 
those cuttings nearest the draught. I never would give 
air to a cutting-frame till the heat was up to 80° ; but 
one with pot-plants and cuttings, like ours, I would tilt 
about an inch with a wedge-stick as soon as the glass 
showed over 75°: when the heat was above 80° I would 
push in the wedge a little ; but if I had one clear inch 
of ail-, or opening, between the back of the box and the 
light, I would not care a straw if the glass went up to 
90°, or a little higher. Some people make unnecessary 
trouble about giving and taking off air from a hotbed; 
but for a forcing bed, like ours, believe me, there is no 
reason in the world for being so particular. 
The proper management of an early-forcing, or cutting- 
hotbed, consists in a good, warm, dry covering at night, 
and the same day and night all round the sides and ends 
of the bed, from the first day it was made till the last 
day of April. This is to keep the snow and frost, and 
particularly the cold winds, from the body of the bed. 
Dry fern is the best for this, and straw next. Straw 
mats, or reed mats, or hurdles thatched with either, 
would be equally good; but without some such pro¬ 
tection the heat soon goes off in a hotbed, so early in 
the season. 
It so happens that a new recruit (See “ Queries 
and Answers,’’ in another page) under our colours 
has lost all, or almost all, the cuttings made for him 
or her last autumn. “Veetis” is in a fix; his men 
do not know much about cuttings or flowers, and 
he purposes to do the cuttings and sowings himself this 
year, and, indeed, to manage all the flower-garden ex¬ 
cept the mowing and heavy work; his beds are good; 
he has plenty of everything except practical knowledge, 
and has had more than enough of botheration and dis¬ 
appointment for some years past; lie has lots of old 
scrubby plants to make cuttings from, and a willing 
mind to buy a few more for the same purpose, trusting 
to our pages for the necessary head-work; and very 
likely there are many like him on our list. To him, or 
to them, and to all new beginners, our practice is this, 
to tell them plainly that they cannot learn any branch 
of gardening all at once, or in ono season, if they do 
nothing else but read about it; but that a great deal 
may be done and learned in a few months, when one 
haudles everything himself, under good and plain in¬ 
structions; and that more gardening can be learned by 
one month’s practice than by twelve months’ reading 
about it; but that without reading, and that very atten¬ 
tively, a tolerable gardener cannot now hold his head 
above water. 
We begin on the smallest scale with a one-light box 
hotbed, about one-half of which is filled, or is to bo 
filled, with old plants to get cuttings from; the other 
half is to be filled with cutting-pots; by-and-by, the 
natural heat of the season will promote sufficient growth 
in many plants for all the cuttings required from them 
and this will ease the hotbed of pot-plants, to leave more 
space for cutting-pots. As the case in hand supposes 
almost an entire stranger to gardening, who has lost 
all the cuttings which were made last autumn, we 
put off seed-pots for the whole month of March for want 
of room, alleging, that for all practical purposes, the 
first sowings for the flower-beds will be early enough if 
done in the first week in April. Next week, we shall 
devote some space to the consideration of the principal 
seeds which require the first attention in the spring. 
Calceolarias and Petunias take loDger time to make 
plants fit for planting-out from spring cuttings than any 
other, not even excluding the dwarf Scarlet Geraniums; 
therefore, Calceolarias and Petunias ought to be the first 
plants in the forcing-pit. Tom Thumb the next, for the 
same reason, after them. I do not think there is much 
difference between one bedding-plant and another. At 
page 73 of our last volume (Vol. XII.), I said that Mr. 
Pince’s Ajax Calceolaria was the best, or, at least, the 
most likely for a bedder of all that I had seen. Last 
November he sent me a very fine specimen of it, to 
show how well it blooms out-of-doors, as I thought, for 
in the letter I was only informed, by one of the clerks, 
that the specimen was sent from Mr. Pince, but that 
Mr. Pince would write to me in a few days to tell me all 
about it. From that day to this I heard no more of 
Ajax, or Mr. Pince; both may have gone to the Crimea, 
and starved there, for ought I can tell. The next best 
Calceolaria is certainly the Kentish Hero, of all that I 
have seen of the clouded, coloured, and spotted sorts. 
Sultan is the third best I know, and it is all but black ; 
but Mr. Appleby has seen a cross between Sultan and 
the Kentish Hero, which partakes of the character of 
both—therefore must be good. The name is Model. 
Eclipse is a new Calceolaria, between purple and 
crimson, which I saw exhibited last summer, and which 
I took under my patronage on the recommendation of 
one of our best judges, Mr. Turner, of Slough. The 
Wellington Hero is the best of the large, clear, yellow¬ 
flowering Calceolarias I have seen; and the best of the 
class, small-flowering kind, is a variety of Rugosa, 
differently called in different places; it is the one which 
was so prominently at the Crystal Palace last summer, 
and there called Multijlora, but it must have been 
Rugosa multijlora, as there is a wild species named 
Multijlora; then there are Rugosa and Integrifolia, two 
of the oldest and best known; and also Amplexicaulis, 
which every one approves of. 
Old plants of any or of all the Calceolarias ought 
now to be in heat to get cuttings from, but only on the 
principle of better late than never; for to toll the truth, 
all Calceolarias should bo increased rather in the 
autumn. Through the mildness of the season, down to 
the middle of January, the old Calceolariasjwere kept 
in a growing state, and top-cuttings from such are now 
treacherous, and must be carefully selected; if the 
plants appear to be at all given to flowor, as is likely, 
cuttings from them will not root so easily, nor make 
such good plants as cuttings of softer wood, or such as 
rise from cut-down plants in the autumn; with this one 
exception, I never found Calceolarias difficult to manage 
from cuttings in the spring. Cuttings of them should 
be about two inches long, the two bottom leaves only 
should bo cut off; sixty-sized pots are the best for them, 
and very sandy soil, with half-an-incli of clean sand on 
the top, will suit them best. Ono row of cuttings round 
tho edge of the pot is better, for young beginners, than 
filling the whole surface of the pot, as, by that plan, the 
cuttings are more likely to damp off from over-crowding. 
I do not approve of making cuttings from the tops of 
Calceolaria plants just rooted, although that plan is safe 
enough for almost all bedding-plants besides, therefore 
the stock should be had from the shoots of old plants. 
All cuttings of soft plants will root in a nice hotbed 
