THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
213 
i July 3.] 
i vourites of the greenhouse and window, during these 
j hot days in the end of June, when cultivators and 
j cultivated alike are bashing in the fierceness of a cloud¬ 
less sun. As a general rule, the proposition is admir- 
| able, and beneficial will be the result of attending to it, 
provided our cultivators keep in mind that there is 
scarcely a general rule but has its exceptions) and that 
these exceptions, if not too numerous, instead of nulli¬ 
fying, give strength and validity to the rule. Success, 
then, will not altogether depend upon knowing a rule. 
Are there exceptions to it ? Does the present instance 
constitute au exception? are questions which the 
would-be-successful gardener must be prepared to 
answer. Hence, I and other contributors have united 
in speaking of times when plants are to be kept close 
to encourage fresh growth, and that afterwards air and 
light are to be admitted freely, but gradually, to consoli¬ 
date and ripen that growth. Even at the present time, 
in very hot sunshine, and perhaps a brisk breeze blow¬ 
ing, supposing that the plants were in such a condition, 
that with respect to them, “ give air liberally,” should 
be perfectly applicable; yet, where a great number of 
plants were kept, we would, in such circumstances, 
merely as a matter of economy as well as safety , keep the 
plants closer, and very likely shaded too, during the 
heat of the day, preventing thus a too rapid decomposi¬ 
tion of carbonic acid and assimilation of organised 
material, and a more frequent recurrence to the water 
pail than might be desirable. To counteract any 
drawing tendency from this closeness and shade for 
several hours during bright days, we would give all the 
air and light possible mornings and evenings, and all 
the air possible for such plants at night. In fact, 
coolness, and a free circulation of air at night, neutralize 
the tendencies produced by the close, warm, moist atmos¬ 
phere during part of the day; while the advantages are, 
that insects are snubbed in their first attempts to 
establish their colonies, the plants run no risk in un¬ 
practised hands of being dried and shrivelled like mum¬ 
mies, for want of the moisture to meet the prodigious 
evaporation, nor yet of being rendered gouty and 
diseased by the often-repeated drencliings during the 
day with cold, unexposed hard water, obtained from the 
spout of the nearest pump. The smaller the pot, the 
redder its colour (unless indeed it were black), and the 
more exposed to the sun it be, the hotter will the soil 
and roots become, the more rapidly will moisture be 
lost by evaporation, and the oftener must these water¬ 
ings be given, and, therefore, the greater the necessity 
for having it warmed and aired to give no checks to the 
system. As a safe-guard, therefore, against contin¬ 
gencies, as a matter of economy in time and laboim, it is 
often advisable to reduce the air for several hours in 
these hot, sunny, drying days, and give the plants, instead 
of so often repeated waterings, a moist atmosphere by 
sprinkling floors, stages, or even the window sill. 
Plunging the pots in moss, or other non-conducting 
material, would also be an additional means of economy 
and safety. 
Shading. —In my younger days, when planting out 
celery plants, we docked off a number of leaves, to 
prevent flagging afterwards; we shaved off the points 
of our pink pipings for a similar purpose ; and reduced 
the leaves of all cuttings on a similar principle. A 
great hubbub was created among some of our young 
minds when a great gardener, now no more, demon¬ 
strated in the Gardeners’ Magazine, that leaves were the 
prime movers in the formation of roots ; that stripping 
these leaves from a cutting was worse than labour 
thrown away; and mutilating a celery plant akin to 
barbarism. The youngest reader of this work will only 
require a slight exertion to see through the enigma 
which distracted us amazingly. He will perceive that 
as there are two ways (and very likely as many more as 
there are individuals) of telling a story, so that the 
same place may be arrived at by many different routes : 
the old gardener, with his semi-savage lopping pro¬ 
pensities was not such a numskull after all. He often 
did the best with his limited means and conveniences. 
He knew that fine healthy leaves could only be sustained 
by roots in full action, and with abundance of moisture 
within reach. He knew that, generally speaking, neither 
cuttings, nor celery plants, unless peculiarly well-treated, 
could at once possess the roots in action necessary to 
sustain transpiration and elaboration through so many 
fine leaflets, when these were exposed to solar agency. 
One sweep of his trusty knife lessened the number of 
these robbers of the stored-up energies in his plant or 
cutting, and saved him many a jog-trot afterwards, for 
seeing if all his shading-from-sunshine paraphernalia 
were put on and removed at the right and proper period. 
His lessening the number of bis leaves lessened the 
chance of obtaining, quickly, a sturdy, healthy plant, if 
the necessary attention to securing a moist atmosphere, 
and shading from sunshine could have been attended to; 
but then he marvellously lessened his cares and trouble 
respecting them, so that though he lost in time he saved 
in labour. He knew that these leaves evaporated; if he 
did know how, he had not the means to prevent them, 
nay, of making them absorb as well as perspire. 
I have headed this article with “ trifles ,” but not with¬ 
out a meaning. A. great job maybe done to-day, another 
great job set about to-morrow, and one and both maybe 
done well; and yet the garden, whether consisting of a 
few feet on the w’indow sill, or ever so many acres around 
a mansion, may exhibit proof of want of method and 
order, nay, even of success, because trifles were too little 
to be attended to. Many other capabilities there may 
be to rivet our attention, but where trifles are neglected, 
no man can exhibit the portraiture of good gardening. 
It is not necessary that we should follow in one beaten 
track, even though that be the very best discovered. 
The best gardener is he who suit3 himself to his cir¬ 
cumstances, and makes the utmost possible of them. 
Studying trifles he may do things very differently from 
his next-door neighbour, and yet, at the end of a few 
months, a spectator who had never witnessed these 
operations would imagine they had been working all 
along in a similar manner. Thus tested, many new dis¬ 
coveries and seeming differences would resolve them¬ 
selves into looking at an object from different points of 
view. The pages of this work furnish confirmations 
strong, though we cannot now allude to them. Go 
beyond, and what is more commonly found than this : 
“ Shade everything in bright sunshine in summer,” says 
one. “Nonsense,” says a second ; “Shade not at all; 
how can you expect your plants to be worth anything, if 
they receive not the full blaze of our sun, which even 
then is not so powerful as that to which our exotics are 
generally exposed in their own climes.” “ Shade accord¬ 
ing to the circumstances of your plants, and your require¬ 
ments from them,” says a third; and with him we coin¬ 
cide ; and, if you cannot shade, use other means, such 
as sprinkling or syringing, to prevent evaporation, and 
maintain a certain degree of coolness. “ Shade ever,” 
in bright sunshine in summer, is just as preposterous to 
us as “never shade at all.” Thus, here are a number of 
cuttings with all their leaves on protected from the 
atmosphere by bell-glasses, and enclosed besides in a 
pit or frame: allow them, even in these circumstances, 
to catch the full force now of a Midsummer sun; and, 
unless in exceptional cases, arising from the nature of 
the cutting, the leaves will droop, because they cannot 
derive moisture enough from the cutting to supply the 
outgoing from their evaporating surface;—continue a 
similar process from day to day, and death will ensue 
from complete exhaustion. 
On the other hand, place your shading on and 
