THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
401 
March 13. 
| flowers, fruit, vegetables of home or foreign growth. This 
Exhibition will also include such agricultural products as 
are more or less closely related to horticulture. Machines 
; and implements used in horticulture will likewise be 
I admissible. 
Prizes are to be fowarded at the end of the Exhibition for 
such productions as shall be considered of sufficient merit 
i by a jury appointed by the Society for this purpose. Rules 
and regulations will be issued without delay ; but, in the 
meantime, the Society invites horticulturists, both pro¬ 
fessional and amateur, who intend to be exhibitors, to 
forward information on the following points :— 
1st. The nature of the produce to be exhibited, and the 
! space required. 
2nd. The time at which the produce will be forwarded, 
and the length of time it will be exhibited. 
Such information, or any other that may be considered 
necessary, is to be sent to M. Leon Le Guay, Rue de 
Cherche-Midi, 17, Paris.—P. F. Eeie. 
CONSUMPTION OF FUEL AT KEW. 
Numbers of your readers must have been, like my¬ 
self, somewhat astonished at the very contradictory state¬ 
ments which appeared in the Cottager, from Sir W. 
J. Hooker, nnd the Messrs. Weeks; and it appears, too, 
so utterly impossible to reconcile both accounts, or even to 
make an average between them, that I venture to propose 
a plan, which has strong recommendations in its favour, 
for if it is adopted by Sir W. Hooker, and proves successful, 
he will have the advantage of not only economising the 
public money in these pinching times, but at the same time 
have conferred a national benefit, by demonstrating, without 
cost, the utility or inutility of Messrs. Weeks’ apparatus. 
Messrs. Weeks and Co. maintain, that the great Palm- 
house consumes in heating ,£1584 per annum. Sir William 
Hooker estimates the same to b9 £423, showing the very 
serious sum £1101 difference. Now, Messrs. Weeks maintain 
that they can heat the same as efficiently for the sum of 
14s. 8d. per day, say £207 per annum. Now, as one of the 
public, I do think that Sir William Hooker is bound to give 
Messrs. Weeks a fair trial; and I suggest that Messrs. 
Weeks shall contract to heat the great Palm-house, to the 
satisfaction of Sir William Hooker, for the sum of 14s. 8d. 
per day, for a period of three years. I have no doubt 
that there could not be any dispute respecting the proper 
heat, for, doubtless, the temperature for the past year has 
been booked, and a locked-up, registering thermometer could 
tell a truthful tale daily for the future. I must confess that 
I have dabbled in warming apparatuses as an amateur, and 
feel convinced that a very great saving can he made in fuel, 
and at the same time in the first cost; and with all that, 
something more generally useful and simple may he in¬ 
vented, equally applicable to the humble amateur and the 
regal stove, and I, therefore, trust Sir W. Hooker will make 
| a move in the right direction, by testing the utility of 
| Messrs. Weeks’ apparatus.—W. X. W. 
BOG SOIL, ITS DIFFERENCES.—GROWING 
GENTIANELLA. 
I thank you for giving the proportionate quantities suited 
for mixturo of peat bog and road scrapings from lime stone ; 
and duly note your rebuke, because I enquired whether red 
or black peat was best adapted for mixing with sand, <fcc., 
when I was aware that black peat contained too much per¬ 
oxide of iron. I wished to draw attention to this, inasmuch 
as many people send for peat bog, quite indifferent from 
what depth it may be taken. Many years ago, I was aware 
of an example where a garden was most carefully, and at 
some cost, covered with black peat, which poisoned the soil 
for two years. Another case was named by Dr. Lyon Play¬ 
fair, during a lecture on Agricultural Chemistry, where the 
upper portion of a peat bottom of peat soil enriched the 
pasture so much, that the owner, the following year, took a 
quantity from the same site, but deeper, which destroyed 
the vegetation, just as if too much salt had been laid on. 
I was not certain that 
all peat bog possessed 
these different qualities, 
therefore, I trust, I may 
be not in fault for having 
attracted attention to it. 
For Gentianella acaulis, if 
the ground be prepared 
in moist, deep soil, by 
laying gravel or broken 
stones about six inches 
deep, then good garden 
soil, with a stone edging 
into the gravel, thus— 
It will be found to 
grow in an open plot, not 
subject to droppings of trees, &c. This is worth trying, 
rather than abandoning in despair, which is very unlike a 
“Cottage Gardener.”—0. B. 
REDUCING THE GENTIANELLA TO 
OBEDIENCE. 
Being hut a poor gardener myself, I never hoped to be 
able to give even a hint on any operations in that science ; 
hut a request from a correspondent “ P. B.,” in this week's 
Cottage Gardener, for information in growing the Blue 
Gentianella, and your (shall I call it craven?) advice to him 
to give it up, induces me to take up my pen and give you a 
word or two on the subject. 
An old gardener in this neighbourhood grows it to per¬ 
fection, and in the season brings large quantities of it to 
market. My father-in-law purchased the plant several 
times, but, like yourself and your correspondent, could not 
succeed in blooming it the second year. He then asked the 
man how he treated it, and by adopting his method has 
succeeded very well. 
The soil is solely the scrapings from a Macadamised road; 
the plant is planted in a patch of it, if planted singly; or 
beds or borders made, if wanted, of the scrapings, and before 
the plant is set.* The soil must be made as hard as possible, 
and then the plant put in with a trowel, aud the soil pressed 
round it as hard as can be done. The gardener said, roll it 
after planting; but it will grow without such cruelty. I may 
say that our roads are made with broken gravel stones. 
Some roads are made with granite; but I do not think that 
would make much difference. 
In surface-dressing the border, the soil round the Gentia¬ 
nella must be stirred as little as possible. I think the man 
referred to never disturbs his beds at all.—A. M. 
EGGS CHEAP AND NEW IN WINTER. 
I see in your paper of tire 20th, that you have done my 
Poultry notes the honour of inserting them under the title 
“ How to keep Poultry profitably.” Forgive me, if I cavil at 
such a heading to my report, which is intended to hint to 
the man of a backyard and garden, that a certain variety of 
fowls can profitably be admitted members of his establish¬ 
ment ; but hardly goes far enough to shew him hoiv he is to 
act if he wishes to keep them with a profit. 
I send you, herewith, my receipt for having cheap and 
new eggs in the winter season. It can nowhere appear so 
properly as in the pages of The Cottage Gardener ; 
whence I drew all the hints which have helped me to that 
uncommon result with amateur Poultry-keepers, a balance 
on the right side. Perhaps, all I have to tell is an old story. 
But a new reading of an old rule may not be uninteresting. 
Those who have paid more attention than I have, may like 
to see how far another’s experience confirms their own ; 
while a novice may prefer my plain account of what I have 
actually done to a more comprehensive set of instructions. 
