March 13. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
of it is 7 s. 6d. It was said to contain as much vegetable 
as would serve to “sauce” a full dinner for 120 men!! 
There is not the smallest question on the subject, for we 
had a letter from the Crimea, from Admiral Hamelin, 
acknowledging the arrival of 40,000 pound weight of 
this preparation, and the old sailor wrote in the highest 
terms of its value and use to the French soldiers and 
sailors, both in a sanitory point of view, and for filling 
their stomachs with a perfect relish. The process is 
conducted by a firm in Paris, called Chollet and Co., 
with Masson’s Patent. Carrots, Onions, Leeks, Cabbages, 
Potatoes, Turnips, and all manner of garden stuff, are 
first partially dried, then mixed and compressed into 
these cakes,—a grand discovery. D. Beaton. 
ANNUALS FOR GROUPS. 
Several enquiries having been made on this .subject, 
I will attempt to meet them with a few remarks hastily 
thrown together. 
Annuals, notwithstanding their real beauty, are now 
too often considered as mere weedy things. The short 
time during which many of them remain in full per¬ 
fection is one reason why they are less used than 
formerly. The little care taken of them, allowing them 
to remain in a mass unthinned and uncared for, is 
another cause of their decaying popularity. When 
once sudden changes in a flowor-garden become de¬ 
siderata, and these changes are brought about by no 
lack of the labour principle, annuals will again become 
a more important item in ornamental flower-gardening. 
The present bedding-system is greatly based upon the 
principle of saving labour. Once get the beds filled 
and growing, and the chief labour respecting them is 
finished. The chief question about a plant, therefore, 
is not so much its intrinsic beauty for a few weeks, but 
will it stand and produce bloom continuously during 
the season, say after the end of May? If this fashion 
is long persevered in, our gardens will become so 
stereotyped as to be deficient in the pleasures of variety. 
A garden cropped with well-grown annuals would now 
be a treat, just because it would be unique and un¬ 
common. Few things are more beautiful, when seen at 
their best. Just think of beds and rows of different 
coloured Candytufts! What is there among your finest 
bedding-plants that will beat them ? Come a few inches 
lower down, aud what more lovely than the Nemophila 
insignis, and its sister species, maculata and atomaria ? 
Rise a foot or so higher, aud what more pleasing than 
groups of (Fj no they a Lindleyana , and Rosea alba, and 
masses of Phlox Drummondii, Chrysanthemum tricolor, 
Viscaria oculata, and even the Erysimum Peroffskianum ? 
For low-growing, compact beds, I need scarcely 
mention the Saponaria calabrica, the Sanvitalia pro- 
cumbens, aud the different kinds of small Lobelias, 
because these are pretty well recognised as fit for 
bedding or edgings, from lasting the most of the season 
through. One reason why many places of no great 
pretentions beat our large flower-gardens hollow in the 
early months of the year, is just because annuals are 
liberally used. The Academy Garden, near Wilderness 
Park, was a perfect blaze of bloom early in the season, 
because the commoner annuals were freely grown in 
unison with such old fashioned plants as Pinks, and 
Sweet Williams, and Canterbury Bells, and Rockets, and 
Larkspurs, &c. 
Many families have told me that these bedding-plants 
are very well for summer and autumn gardens in the 
country, but that their town aud suburban gardens are 
far behind what they used to be, in point of masses of 
flowers. They say that very likely they are very nice 
some weeks after they have left and gone to the country, 
451 
but that provious to the middle and beginning of 
July they see nothing but costly, big-named plants, 
contending with the weather, as to which will conquer 
at last. 
Now, in all such circumstances, there are no bedding- 
plants, among those usually accounted as such, that will 
make a show fit to be seen in the months of May, June, 
and the first part of July, compared with the older 
perennials that bloom early, and the hardier of the 
annuals. From the end of July to the end of August is, 
generally, the worst time for annuals, as they soon run 
to seed at that time ; but those sown either in pots, on 
turf, or on stiffish soil in a border, in April, May, and 
June, will generally bloom freely and well during the 
autumn months, either where they have been sown, or 
when transplanted in clumps to well prepared beds. 
There is something in the soil in which annuals, 
generally, should be grown ; it should be deeply dug, 
and be rather poor than rich. Instead of enriching the 
soil, I prefer giving top-dressings of leaf-mould aud 
burnt earth, whenever the plants show a weakness of 
growth, aud when it is desirable to assist growing, so as 
to prevent seeding as much as possible. 
There are two modes of keeping up a succession of 
bloom in an annual bed ; first, by preventing the plants 
seeding. By merely cutting and stripping off the seeds, 
I have had beds of (Enothera Lindleyana line from May 
to October. 'The same mode has been adopted with 
Escholtzia, Erysimum, various kinds of Lupines, &c. 
Frequently, pieces of the stems would be cut off altogether, 
aud then a top-dressing and a good watering would 
carry the plants on for a mouth or two. Other things 
will hardly admit of this treatment, as the labour would 
be so excessive, such as in the case of the Candytufts, 
the Nemophilas, the Collinsias, especially the beautiful 
C. bicolor; but by sowing and planting these rather 
thinly in rows, early in spring, say by the middle of 
March, J have seen a good succession kept up by 
sowing between them in the beginning or towards the 
end of May, and thinuing out the first gradually, to give 
the young ones room. I once had a fine bed of Collinsia 
bicolor from the end of May to the end of October, by 
sowing in September, in May, and July, and the bed 
never looked bad, though twice during the summer, for 
a few days at each time, it was rather seedy, before the 
old plants were all pulled up and the younger ones had 
taken their place. 
By keeping a large reserve garden of annuals sown in 
pots, or on thick pieces of turf, with spaces scooped out 
for fine soil and seeds, a bed of annuals might at once 
be cleared away, the ground dug, and a similar, or a 
different colour of annual or aunuals planted. Much 
could bo done in this way, in small gardens, where 
freshness and frequent changes are desirable, aud 
where labour is au item never complained about. 
While the present taste for grouping lasts, then, 
unless where labour is abundant, annuals will be chiefly 
valuable; for early massing of bloom, and for late 
display in the borders, for forming broad edgings of 
low-growing plants that will give effect to the flower- 
garden before the main plants in the beds have come to 
perfection, and for planting thinly, so as to make some 
show before the regular bedding-plants monopolise all 
the space, when the annuals may be pulled up, having 
previously performed the double duty of giving ornament 
and yielding an agreoable shade to the more stationary 
plants. 
1 n using annuals for beds and these different purposes, 
I have tried three plans, and if there were conveniences 
J would prefer the last for obtaining abundance of early 
flowers. The first is sowing the seeds in small'patchos, 
in the middle aud towards the end of March, and cover¬ 
ing each patch with a flower-pot until the seed is up, 
and then at night, aud in cold weather, for some time 
