162 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[June 12. 
! specimen of each breed in that order. Then, suppose 
we stick to the Crowfoots, we must, on the very lowest 
calculation, have fine plants to represent the fine kinds 
of breeds, or sections, or sub-orders, into which botanists 
have divided them for our convenience. The Clematis 
is a Crowfoot, and represents the first section of them; 
the Anemone, the second section ; Ranunculus, the third; 
Ilelebore, the fourth; and the fifth is represented by 
Actcca, a genus very close to Bugwort ( Cimicifuga ). 
Therefore, it must be as plain as a b c that an acquaint¬ 
ance with a clematis, or buttercup, or bugwort, or, in¬ 
deed, any one of the sections, without knowing the rest, 
that is some plant in each, cannot possibly give one a 
good idea of the Crowfoots, and yet they are almost as 
easy to learn as nine-tenths of the natural orders. 
On the other hand, suppose I planted a bed in the 
i flower-garden after this fashion, one Tulip from Mr 
; Glenny, one Hyacinth from Mr. Fish, a Welsh onion and 
a Oiant asparagus from Mr. Barnes, one of those beau- 
tiful Squills which Mr. Weaver told us of the other day, 
; and an Agapanthus, or blue African lily, with the finest 
lily in or out of Japan; what kind of a natural order 
do you suppose they would all make? or, rather, what 
an unnatural association I should have in this, and yet 
I still want half a dozen more strange-looking plants, 
including the African aloes and the Yucca, before I 
could show off the (Afferent breeds which compose the 
beautiful order of Lilyworts! A garden onion in full 
flower would give a stranger a better notion of a tulip 
than the Welsh leek would give of the great grass trees 
of New Holland ; and who could make out any beauty 
in the lily from seeing the asparagus in blossom? There 
must be a screw loose in the art of applying meaning to 
words, if there is anything like natural in this natural 
order of Lilyworts. But the fault is with ourselves; all 
the systems of arranging plants since the days of Lin- 
meus are just as artificial as the Linnajan system itself, 
and some of them ten times more so. At any rate, it is as 
clear as daylight, that very little can be learned by plant¬ 
ing or studying only a single individual of each natural 
or unnatural order. I do not say this, however, with 
the intention of reprehending the idea which gave rise 
to this letter,—far from it; but the subject is too exten¬ 
sive for our little work, unless there was a general 
demand for it among our readers, and if there was, I 
would eagage to furnish samples, both of herbaceous and 
woody plants, not only of all the natural orders, but 
also of the more prominent sections of each order, 
and all according to the latest and most approved au¬ 
thorities. 
Transplanting Evergreens. —My experience in this 
branch of gardening for the last twelve months has 
caused me to alter my opinion of the best time in the 
year for performing the work. Whether I am wrong or 
not, there can be no harm in telling my tale, in order 
that gardeners may test the subject, or, at any rate, to 
open the question once more, and to try experiments on 
it, and record them. Among reading gardeners, the 
question about the best time for transplanting large 
evergreens has been settled for some years, August and 
September being the two best months. Last year, I 
pushed the whole month of July into the scales, as being 
quite as good, if not better, than September for this 
work. Putting off the work to November, as was the 
fashion not long ago, is certainly not the best way to 
succeed. The large box bushes I planted last June, 
under a fierce hot sun and a long drought, have done as 
well as any one could wish, not a sprig of them has 
died, and they are now growing as well as can be. In 
•luly and August following we removed very few things; 
but Irom last September to the end of this last May, we 
had to move some almost every week, as the alterations 
going on in the garden suggested; and a “second 
t lought caused the removal, this spring, of some large 
specimens that were only transplanted last autumn, and, 
as luck would have it, these plants happened to be of 
different families—there being hardly two of a kind 
which had to be thus dealt with the second time, and it 
was from these that I took up my new notion of the 
best time for transplanting evergreens, and the history 
of one specimen will show my reason and meaning. 
About the end of last October we removed an Italian 
cypress (Cypressus sempervirens). It was a fine plant, 
above twenty years old, and more than that number of 
feet in perpendicular height; but having had two leaders 
near the top, the opportunity was taken advantage of to 
reduce it to one leader, and the shortest being the best 
formed one, the longest was cut off, which reduced the 
height of the plant two or three feet. This cypress, like all 
the rest of them in the garden, never ceased to grow the 
whole winter, and no one could see now, from any indi¬ 
cation, that it had been removed these ten years; but it 
was transplanted twice since last autumn, first in October 
and again in April, and both times with horse power; 
but all this time it had not formed one single new root, 
nor made the least effort to heal over the ends of any 
damaged roots. I confess that, under the circumstances, 
I could hardly believe all this if I had not seen it,—a 
fast-growing evergreen removed in the autumn, and 
kept on growing through the mildest winter any one 
can remember, and still, up to the very end of April, not 
having made the least effort to increase or repair its 
roots. This led me to examine the roots of several 
kinds of evergreens all over the garden—those that were 
not transplanted, as well as those that were—and from 
the whole I have come to this conclusion—that every 
month in the whole year, if the winter is very mild, is 
the best month for some particular plant to be removed, 
and that I, and the whole of us, were quite wrong in 
supposing the autumn; or any particular time, to be the 
best time for all evergreens to be removed. We might 
just as well have broached a new doctrine about potting 
every plant we grow, bulbs, orchids, and all, in one 
month, as to assert that one particular month in the au¬ 
tumn, or spring, or summer, is the best time for all 
evergreens to be moved; but let us have more observa 
tions than mine recorded on the subject. 
D. Beaton. 
HOTHOUSE DEPARTMENT. 
EXOTIC STOVE PLANTS. 
orchids that thrive well in pots —{Continued from 
page 160). 
Oncidium. —This is probably the largest genus of the 
whole tribe, and the species are generally possessed of 
great beauty, and lasting a long time in bloom. They 
mostly are natives of the warmer parts of the western 
continent, and the West India islands. None, we be¬ 
lieve, have yet been discovered in the East. We have 
already described a considerable number of them at 
pages 0 and 66 of the fourth volume of The Cottage 
Gardener, as thriving best on blocks, and we shall now 
describe the remainder (at least, such as arc worthy of 
culture) as being best cultivated in pots. 
O. altissimum (Tallest 0.); Panama.—Though this 
species does not exhibit in its bloom the brightest colours, 
yet the long flower-stems it produces (often from eight to 
ten feet long), the numerous branches on each stem, 
and the innumerable flowers on them, render it a 
desirable species. Sepals and petals yellow, spotted 
with brown; the lip is a shade lighter, and the spots 
upon it are of a brighter hue. Easily grown, and if well 
rested it flowers freely. 15s. 
0. ampliatum (Broad-lipped 0.); Guatemala.—Sepals 
and petals clear bright yellow, thinly spotted with red¬ 
dish chocolate; the lip is broad and large, and is nearly 
white, spotted with brown. The pseudo-bulbs of this 
