270 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
great body of our amateur readers'to turn out their new 
Sower-garden plants into hotbeds, and to keep them in 
pots when they buy them in spring; but I am quite 
sure that the turning out of a new plant into the open 
ground is by far the best and safest way after Midsum¬ 
mer; and if it is not hardy enough to stand out for the 
winter, the old plan of cutting round the roots a week 
or two before it is taken up in October, is as good a way 
as any to secure' a sure removal. It is the same in all 
respects with pet seedlings reared at home; if they were 
in pots up to this time, and have proved themselves, by 
all means let them be turned out into the open ground 
at once. 
The only exception to this rule that I can think of at 
present is, that of a lot of cuttings of Queen Victoria 
and other fancy geraniums that were planted out on an 
open border last May, and are intended to be reared 
into tall standards for another year. Their own state 
or appearance, from this time to the end of September, 
would be my guide rather the week or month in which 
they should be taken up and potted. These should not 
be allowed to grow too strong before they are taken up 
and potted, because in that state they would be more 
liable to a sudden check ; but I would not much mind 
to see them making three inches of young growth before 
I removed them, provided that that growth was not 
of a very soft, succulent, or gross nature; but Queen 
Victoria, in particular, is very liable to this way of 
going off from the cuttings in the open ground; and 
the reason is, that it makes new roots long before it 
shows any symptom of growth, which is not the 
general rule with geraniums. I hope every one who 
can provide a little extra heat in winter will try this 
experiment, if only with a couple of Queens; but all 
the perpetual flowers that will stand winter forcing will 
answer equally well; and how magnificent it would 
look to have a large circular bed filled with such speci¬ 
mens of different colours, scarlets ten feet high in the 
middle, say one plant in the centre, and two circles 
round it, all of scarlets; then Queen Victoria’s, eight 
feet high, for the next two circles; any colour would be 
safe after the Queen’s, as their whiteness would be a 
good break between the scarlets in the middle and any 
other shades of red, or pink, or mottled sorts, and rings 
of six feet high plants; four feet and two feet might 
follow, and then a low edging of white or pink ivy leaf, 
or of scarlets propagated late in the spring, on purpose 
for very dwarf plants ; and in some cases the variegated 
sorts might answer, but the edging plant would be sug¬ 
gested by the flowers of the last ring or two in the bed, 
or what is just as good, by the taste of the owner. I 
have no notion of critics who are inflexible, as if they 
were made out of a different clay from ourselves. If I 
prefer, for my own private gratification, blue and white, 
or pink and yellow, to other colours, what is that to the 
Emperors of Russia and China, or to anybody else, pro¬ 
vided that I do not push my own taste into another 
man’s dish; that is a very different thing from recom¬ 
mending or insisting publicly on what is accepted by 
the general consent of those who studied and under¬ 
stand the subject, whatever it may be. Some people 
may doubt the possibility of getting up geraniums to 
the height of ten feet or more, but there is no doubt at 
all about the matter, neither is there any novelty in the 
thing. Many of our readers grow them to that height. 
If I recollect right, a correspondent who sent me a plan 
of his flower-garden last winter, showed several beds 
that were planted with immense large scarlets, some of 
them more than ten feet high; but ten feet is quite high 
enough out of doors, unless it be for plants against a 
house or wall, and then the height of the wall itself 
must be the limit. Standards of Fuchsia corynibifiora, 
after they get four or five years old, are noble things for 
rows, or kind of garden avenues; and a few more of the 
[July 31. 
very strongest and best-coloured hybrids look exceedingly i 
well on the grass as standards after a few years’ growth. 
D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Raising Plants from Exotic Seeds: Pre-requisites 
to Success. —Comparatively few of the plants we now 
cultivate for ornament or utility are indigenous to our 
country. For the great proportion of them we are in¬ 
debted to the right-directed enthusiasm of travellers and 
collectors. A keen amateur has scarcely become a cul¬ 
tivator, before he feels anxious to be connected with the 
introduction of a novelty. Hence, the promises ex¬ 
tracted from travelling friends. Will the plants from 
seeds thus obtained, thrive in my garden, my window, 
my greenhouse, or will they demand a plant stove ? are 
questions, that for the present loom indistinctly in the 
distance, and yet they must be answered somewhat 
satisfactorily, or a commendable zeal may shortly be ex¬ 
changed for a soured disappointment. I have said 
somewhat satisfactorily, because, even we gardeners are 
only beginning to see the importance of knowing every¬ 
thing we can of the history of a plant before we begin to 
cultivate it; such as the latitude of its birth-place, its alti¬ 
tude, its mean temperature, the highest in which it luxu¬ 
riates, the lowest it will endure without injury, its situa¬ 
tion, insular, or continental, near the level of the sea, or 
thousands of feet above it, belonging to the Old World 
or the New, and many other circumstances as respects 
shelter, soil, draught, and moisture, too tedious to men 
tion, yet all Highly necessary, and as respects a great 
portion of which we possess only imperfect data, but 
quite enough to make us the more anxious for the 
possession of more, as well as the more easily obtaining 
of that which has been already published. One of the 
best references on this subject that has fallen in our 
way, are the condensed tables on the mean temperature 
of different latitudes for the year, published in the 
second and third part of the fourth volume of the 
Journal of the Horticultural Society (1849), prepared 
by Mr. Robert Thompson, whose very name is a security 
for accuracy, and who, by this labour, has increased, if it 
were possible, the obligations which every lover of gar¬ 
dening must feel towards him. Defective as Mr. Thomp¬ 
son admits these tables to be, still, as embodying almost 
all that is yet known, it is hoped that as they are 
arranged professedly for the benefit of gardeners, the 
Society might be induced to publish them in a separate 
form, and so cheap as to render them generally diffu¬ 
sible. 
Before committing our seeds to the ground, let us just 
glance at a few of tli e pre-requisites for insuring success. 
The most important of these is the securing to the 
plants, when reared, a temperature similar to u hat they 
would have enjoyed in their native locality. An index to 
the requisite temperature is furnished, First, by the 
latitude of the place, heat somewhat gradually, though 
not quite regularly, decreasing from the equator to the 
poles. Within the tropics, north and south of the 
equator, there is little difference in the temperature 
when taken at similar levels. The mean temperature 
at the equator seldom exceeds 82°; the climate is chiefly 
distinguished for equability; twice in the year the sun 
is vertical to every place, and, therefore, it possesses two 
hot and two cold seasons; the difference, however, 
seldom exceeds a few degrees. The difference in other 
respects, however, is wonderful; at one of these periods 
the earth is deluged with continual rains, at the other 
seldom a drop falls. Beyond the tropics the heat, as 
we have said, rapidly declines, because the rays of the 
sun fall upon the earth more obliquely; at the latitude 
