38 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[April 17. 
FLORISTS’ FLOWERS. 
Auriculas and Polyanthuses. —These beautiful early 
spring flowers will now be in their greatest beauty. Air 
and shade, when the sun shines, will prolong the bloom. 
They must now have plenty of water at the root, without 
wetting the leaves of the former; the latter will bear 
such wetting better. Now is the time to select the best 
formed and most distinct coloured flowers to save seed 
from. Mark all such, but none other. Cut off seed- 
vessels of indifferent ones. Seedlings will now be flow¬ 
ering. Keep nothing to bloom in a fine collection, 
excepting such as even the censors at the National 
Floricultural Society could not help giving a certificate 
of merit to. Seedlings in the seed-pan sown last Au¬ 
gust may now be transplanted into a rich compost, 
singly, supplying them with plenty of water. Seed may 
be sown now in shallow pans, in a light rich compost, 
thinly covered, placed in a close frame, and gently 
watered. 
Tulips. —The sharp nights we have had lately renders 
protection necessary still. Those who have heeded our 
instructions about retarding the growths in the mild 
weather of January, will find now the benefit of that 
measure. 
Dahlias continue to pot and harden off. Cuttings 
may yet be made of rare kinds, Old dried roots may 
be split into sections two or more bulbs to each, and 
be planted in the open border at once, giving a shovel¬ 
ful of dung to each. T. Appleby. 
THE ICITCHEN-GARDEN. 
Should showery weather prevail, after so much mild 
weather, it is very likely that in many localities the slugs 
will be found very numerous and troublesome. They 
should be well attended to without delay; if brewer’s 
grains cannot be obtained, lay, as we have frequently 
recommended, small baits of new-made bran, by which 
slugs are easily attracted, and may be easily taken away 
and disposed off. 
Spring cabbage and cauliflowers should be duly en¬ 
couraged by liberal applications of liquid manure. If 
the whole of the hand-glasses from the cauliflower crop 
are not required for ridge cucumbers, vegetable marrows, 
&c., they may be turned to advantageous account by 
transplanting French-beans under them. The cucumber 
ridge or trench should be thrown out 3 or 3£ feet wide, 
and to the depth of 18 inches, so as to get well sweetened 
and pulverized. Into this trench any kind of refuse may 
be advantageously put at the bottom, taking care that 
some fermenting materials are well wrought and ready 
by the 1st of May, and that plenty of good plants are 
provided and hardened by the same time. 
Asparagus. —The present is the season for planting 
this beautiful vegetable, which is well worthy of atten¬ 
tion. Supposing the ground to have been well manured 
and trenched, and every means used to get it into a 
healthy pulverized condition; we set the rows out two feet 
apart, stretching the line, and drawing with a hoe a drill 
on each side of it, sufficiently deep for the roots to be 
extended each side of the little ridge which is thus left 
between the two drills, and on to which the plants are 
placed. Their roots being equally divided on each side, 
nothing more is required than filling up the drills with 
a hoe or rake, unless it should be considered advisable 
by those who have old mushroom composition, or other 
well decomposed manure at hand, to first place some of 
this about the roots, previous to filling the drills. The 
plants should be chosen when they have started into 
growth two or three inches; they should be forked out 
carefully, and their roots not allowed to get dry after 
being taken up;—much of the success of a luxuriant 
after growth depends on careful taking up, in not allow¬ 
ing the plants to get dry, and iu careful systematic 
planting. 
Hamborough Parsley. —This is a good season to sow 
for the main crop of the roots for which this variety is 
most esteemed. Sow thinly in drills on good ground ; 
thin out to a foot or fifteen inches apart, and regulate 
the quantity according to the demand. For curled or 
culinary parsley of any kind, this is also the best month 
to sow, in order to get good strong established plants 
for producing abundance from Midsummer next, until 
May 1852. Parsley luxuriates in a good rich soil, sweet, 
and well pulverized, and manure of the strongest kind. 
Chimney soot, night soil, and guano, we have invariably 
found to grow it to tbe greatest perfection, that is, with 
an abundance of large thick curled branches, or leaves 
of a dark green colour. Nothing we have tried will 
command these essentials like charred articles, inter¬ 
mixed with the soil, and soot-water as the main stimu- 
lent, applied at the end of summer and early autumn, 
with the occasional application of liquid night soil or 
guano. The earth’s surface should be at all times kept 
open by scarifying, and the collars of the plants kept 
clear from earth, &c., for if smothered about the collar, 
parsley is very subject to canker, more particularly in wet 
seasons. Parsley should always be sown iu drills a foot 
apart at least, and the plants, at their final thinning, 
should be left a foot apart in the rows; care also should 
always be taken in selecting and leaving those plants 
that are of the best quality. Parsley will transplant 
very well, and a few strong roots should always be 
potted against winter. 
Potato ground should have a loose surface maintained 
by light harrowings, or hand scarifying, or having the 
surface broken with a long coarse-toothed rake; with 
us (in Devonshire), the various crops of early potatoes 
are more healthy and more free from disease than they 
have been for this last six years; and the foliage and 
stalks are looking altogether more as they did in former 
days, previous to the disease appearing. 
James Barnes. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
OUR VILLAGERS. 
By the Authoress of “ My Flowers," iic. 
What a sweet and pleasant sound is the Sabbath chime 
of village bells! They have been silent during the whole 
of the six days toil; but when the “Lord’s Day” returns, 
and the villagers are enjoying the rest that its presence gives, 
then the sweet chimes prepare them for going “into the 
house of the Lord,” and call them together to join in the 
happiest work of all—that of prayer and praise! Happy is 
the village whose inhabitants do most generally and 
joyfully obey their call. 
But in all villages, alas ! men will be found, and women too, 
who disregard their Christian privileges, who think nothing 
of the blessing of public worship, of the glad and glorious 
message which the “ambassador of Christ”proclaims, of the 
value, beyond price, of Sabbath rest and Sabbath employ¬ 
ments ; for what rest can be so sweet to the soul, to the weary 
care-worn mind, as diligently fulfilling those holy and happy 
duties, which more particularly belong to this “ delight,” 
this “honourable" day. Some will sit drowsily by the 
