July 31.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
269 
the time very well, when this false notion was part and 
parcel of our own creed too. But, in truth, it is much 
easier to root geranium cuttings at this early season 
without glasses, or hot-beds, than with such supposed 
aids. If one had a large empty flower bed in any part 
of the flower-garden to-morrow, and had the run of 
| geranium-beds in full flower, nothing could be easier 
r than to have the empty flower-bed in full bloom in 
about fifteen days, by simply planting it all over with 
cuttings taken from the top of flowering-shoots in the 
other beds, without any preparation whatever to facilitate 
the rooting, unless, indeed, the soil was too stiff. A 
friend of mine was put to the push near Dublin, some 
dozen years back, by a very late May frost, after he had 
j planted out all his bedding plants, and he lost hundreds 
I ot plants in one night; but his geraniums were only 
| hard pinched in most of their leaves. There was no 
| time to be lost, nor any money in hand to buy others if 
i he could get at them; so with the quickness of an Irish¬ 
man, though not born in Ireland, he bethought himself 
of dividing his geraniums, green-house ones and all, into 
cuttings, which lie planted about six inches apart every 
way, in all the most particular beds, and he declared, 
when he told me the story, that be never had a better 
show of geranium beds during the ten years lie lived in 
Ireland, than he had that season from those cuttings; 
and I fully believe liim, for I have often regretted about 
tbe end of August, and all through September, tliat 
I could not have such models-of-perfcction beds in the 
flower-garden, as were to be seen in the propagating 
ground, where one might count a thousand heads of 
bloom all in one patch, and not one out of the lot two 
inches above or below the regular mass of bloom. 
There is not a better place in the world to strike 
geranium-cuttings in at this season, for the next six 
weeks, than a good late vinery-border that lias been just 
stirred two inches deep, well soaked with water for the 
last time this season, and then mulched over with an 
inch or so of any light stuff to keep in the wet, or 
prevent much evaporation ; two days after such applica¬ 
tion the border is fit to plant the cuttings in rows across, 
six inches from row to row, and half that from cutting 
to cutting in the row; some of the small sorts will do at 
four or even three inches apart between the rows, and 
so in proportion in the row itself; but unless one is 
very much pinched for room, it is a very bad plan to 
put in cuttings too close together, and more especially 
thus early, because they soon root now under any 
circumstances, and there is a long time yet before them 
to make a strong growth, besides, if they stand too close 
on the ground, they are sure to blanch each other for want 
of light and air; and if that happens, how are they to 
be kept from harm all through a long winter ? 
A fruit-border, in front of a peach wall, in a good 
sheltered kitchen-garden, is the next best place to put 
in geranium-cuttings; and after that, take a space of 
ground having the nearest advantages to these borders 
of all you have at command; though, after all, strong 
geranium-cuttings, if put in within the next three weeks, 
would root just as well out in the corner of a turnip- 
field, as on a vine or peach border. I had hoped that a 
scarlet geranium, called Baron Hugel, of which a leaf 
had been sent to me, was tbe best marked of the horse¬ 
shoe varieties, to recommend this season, but it turns 
out that I have one as good, as a friend who called here 
the other day told me so; he had seen a bed of Baron 
Hugel, and he, too, recommends it. The one I possess I 
received from Yarmouth last year, under the name of 
Wightons Seedling , and I was told it originated with a 
friend of mine,—Mr. Wighton, at Cossy Hall, in Nor¬ 
folk. This seedling, or Baron Ilugel, should be inquired 
after in the nurseries by those who admire a bed or fine 
plant of a really fine horse-shoe geranium. 
Dielytra spectdbilis .—A large stock of this most lovely 
plant should now be propagated for a bed next May. I 
am not quite sure, yet, if it is really quite hardy with us, 
as last winter was not severe enough to test its hardi¬ 
ness, and it was too scarce and valuable to be much 
tiled sooner. My firm belief, however, is, that it will 
turn out to be as hardy as any of our border pseonies, 
and that the same culture will suit them both ; but for 
the present, and for those who have not a good stock of 
it, the way I would advise this season,’ is to manage it 
just as they do very scarce dahlias,—to strike every 
cutting they can get hold of to the end of the season, to 
root them in a hotbed, and to keep them growing in 
separate small pots as late in the autumn as the leaves 
keep green, and to preserve them through the winter 
quite dry in the pots, along with the dahlias or Salvia 
patens, and next spring to plant them out in very rich 
soil, in the choicest bed about tbe place. It is not right 
to allow this gem of a plant to go dry in the summer, 
as some of us did the first season after flowering 
it in pots early in the spring; no matter how early it 
may be forced into flower, and no plant is more easily 
treated that way. As soon as the flowers are over, the 
plant, after being hardened by degrees in a cool frame, 
should be planted out into good soil, and it will go on 
growing and be in full vigour by the month of July, to 
furnish cuttings for the next two months. I have it so 
just now, under my room window, in an experimental bed 
kept for choice and rare things, and Cantua dependens 
growing by the side of it,—at any rate, going to grow, 
for it was only planted ten days ago. Every one who 
has any taste for plants, must get this Cantua as soon 
as he can afford to buy it. It is worth its weight in 
gold just now; but we shall have it soon as plentiful as 
black-berries, and as cheap. Whether it will drive all 
the fuchsias out of the country or not, no one can tell 
yet; but they say it is a fearful rival for that family, 
and as easily managed and increased as any of them, 
and about as hardy. I saw plenty of its flowers at the 
Regent’s Park Exhibition the other day, but when I 
was just going to examine them, who would come along 
but the great African lion-killer, Mr. Ronaylan Gordon 
Cumming, and not having seen him since I used to pull 
his little ears for picking strawberries at Altyre, I forgot 
all about the Cantua and went after him, admiring his 
growth and bloom, so I must be content to believe what 
better judges say about it, and to recommend it accord¬ 
ingly, which I hereby do most earnestly. I would also 
advise that as soon as one receives it on this side of the 
20th August, it be planted out on a warm border, in 
rich light soil, for that will set it a-growing for a couple 
of months, and give it more strength and blood, so to 
speak, than it could receive by pot-culture in double the 
time. Pots are by far the best things to hurry on a 
new plant early in the spring ; but after Midsummer, or 
at any rate, after the middle of July, there is no better 
way of putting a new half-hardy plant, like the Cantua 
dependens, on its legs, than this way of planting them 
out of the pots. Gardeners from the Continent say that 
we are wrong altogether in mirsing new and rare plants, 
indeed, all young things, in pots, and that the best way 
is to make up suitable hotbeds for those plants that 
require heat, and close cold frames for such as are more 
hardy, and then to put a layer of six inches deep of a 
good mixed compost in those hotbeds and young frames 
to turn out the plants into. This would certainly be 
by far the best way for nurserymen to get up a hasty 
stock of a new plant, and, perhaps, also for gardeners, 
who would know to a day when to take off the glass, 
or take up the plants for repotting, and also when they 
were making too much growth,—for a plant can be 
made to grow too fast as well as too slowly, and the 
former is often the worst plan of the two. With all 
this, and some allowance being made for our prejudice 
in favour of pot culture, I think it is not so safe for the 
