THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
282 
this can be obviated by the dry feeding your correspondents 
have recommended. For household purposes we have only 
found Indian meal an improvement in pie-crust; where used 
half-and-half with wheat Hour it is excellently short and 
sweet. It also makes very well-flavoured cakes, or rather 
biscuits, after the fashion of oatcake, with the same propor¬ 
tion of wheat flour; but they are excessively hard, so much 
so as to be tolerated by none but those who are compelled 
for health to live on farinaceous food, and require a variety 
and change of material and substance. Bread made with 
it and half wheat, from an American receipt, is very heavy 
and clammy, but so was the barley bread made by the same 
cook, whose wheaten bread is very excellent. 
Carbonate of soda is very commonly used by pastry-cooks 
and others, with or without yeast, to lighten bread, cakes, 
Ac. It is well to know that carbonate of ammonia answers 
exactly the same purpose, with this advantage, that it is en¬ 
tirely driven off by the heat in the baking, so that it is never 
taken into the stomach; nor is there any fear of giving the 
dough an over-dose, except on the score of extravagance, 
while soda is liable to both these objections, and is like all 
substances medically powerful, most injurious when taken 
habitually. 
It seems absurd in me to attempt to second a recommend¬ 
ation for such authorities as your contributors, but there 
are a mass of people in the world who possess knowledge, 
and even love the pleasure of acquiring it, yet are too supine 
to take the one further step, without which knowledge loses 
half its value. It is in gardening, as in morals, the nine 
know, the one practices. It is therefore well, if possible, to 
shorten this difficult step, and, therefore, I would suggest a 
simple means of double-potting plants on such window-sills 
as are furnished with a little iron bar to steady the pots, or 
with many, as nursery windows. Fill the space enclosed by 
the bar with damp moss, sink the pots in it, and keep the 
moss watered. The moss may be prevented from being 
blown away by a sheet of brown paper placed round the inside 
of the single bar and projecting npon the sill, under the pots 
and moss, to steady it. Where there is more than one bar, 
packthread laced across them will confine the moss. These 
are very humble and inelegant suggestions, but they are not 
troublesome or expensive; and many people will try the 
effect of this who would not attempt anything more elabo¬ 
rate ; while the effect produced on the plants would be such 
that the owners would hardly fail to go a step further, for, 
as before implied, “ e’est le premiere pas qui conte." The first 
improvement would probably be substituting a piece of net¬ 
ting for tbe laced twine, and then this would be painted to 
preserve it. The brown paper, too, would get a coat of dark 
paint on both sides, and so be made both more durable and 
sightly, amply sufficient for all purposes in the attic London 
story. While the young lady on the next floor would pro¬ 
bably extend her improvements to a wooden box to enclose 
her pots and moss (not to grow her plants in), and end at 
last, perhaps, by getting leave to fit the drawing-room win¬ 
dow with one of Mr. Beaton’s ornamental cases. 
I think it would much raise the average and standard of 
gardening, if you great gardeners would give such little 
hints. It is such trifles that make the cottager feel you his 
friend. Prosperity, when the fruit of exertion, naturally and 
laudably results in ambition —may it never produce pride in 
the cottage gardener. That it may increase and abound, 
none desires more heartily and gratefully than—A Lovek 
of Flowers from Childhood. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Double Yellow Rose (A Subscriber ).—How to bloom this old rose 
to perfection has hitherto baffled all the science and practice in gardening 
everywhere. The truth is, you know just as much about it as any of us. 
It does very well in some situations, blooms freely, and remains healthy 
for no one knows how long, but in other places it does not flourish under 
any treatment. Suckers from it will grow readily enough if removed in 
October or February. The only suggestion that we can offer is this :— 
Bud the Manetti rose with the Austrian or Persian yellow roses this 
season, and next year, bud the double yellow on young shoots from these 
Austrian or Persian buds put in now; or you may put buds of your 
double yellow at once on the Manetti, but, of the two modes, we would 
prefer that of double working. This is a good time to make layers of 
your dark rose; put a little sand and leaf-mould round the layer to 
facilitate the growth of roots. You had better not disturb either of your 
Begonia pots till the end of the season ; unless the two smaller plants 
were close to the side of the pot, you could not remove them without 
[July 31. 
checking the principal plant. Any of the early kinds of Cabbages recom¬ 
mended by Mr. Barnes will answer your purpose to sow now. 
Climbing Roses (IF. ft. A).—The cream-coloured climbing rose, 
which “does not comport with the white colour” on the front of the 
house, is, we think, Juune Desprez, and if so, it is the very best in 
England for that situation. Such a rose as you want is not yet in exist¬ 
ence. “A dark, rapid-growing, evergreen climbing rose, and if a per¬ 
petual all the better,” would be quite a fortune to a nurseryman. The 
crimson Boursault comes the nearest to what you require. We have 
stated, often, that all our best climbing roses are either white or some 
shade approaching to it. Try the crimson Boursault, strong three or 
four years old plants, not in pots, but from the open ground ; plant at 
the end of October, and water well next summer. It is a charming rose, 
and almost all the Bourbons and hybrid perpetuals will grow on it freely 
if you bud them on moderately strong shoots. 
Rhododendron and Pa:ony (IF. J. IF.).—Your soil is too light and 
hot for the rhododendron, and also for the pseony ; the latter will flower 
probably when it is more established, but there is little chance for the 
rhododendron unless you could cover the ground all round it with a 
mulching of moss, and give it water in dry weather. 
Ixias {Ibid). —You have treated them right so far, and unless you had 
allowed them to get too dry, the bulbs must have been weak, and badly 
grown the year before, as no plants flower more freely than they if rightly 
treated. 
White Water Lily. —Mr. Lockhart, florist, 81, Fleet-street, says, 
“ Early in March last, I purchased some roots of the White Water Lily. 
In order to keep them in condition, I put them in a copper filled with 
water; the copper is fifteen inches broad by eighteen inches deep, and is 
in a dark back kitchen. Some of these roots were not disposed of at the 
proper season. This day I went into this kitchen, when, to my great 
surprise, I found one of the Water Lilies in perfect flower, with the usual 
pure white and rich yellow centre. The flower is three and three-quarter 
inches in diameter. Have you ever heard of Water Lilies blooming under 
such circumstances before?” We never before heard of any plant, 
except some of the fungi, making such progress in the dark. 
Lilium lancifolium ( Rev. J. S. L.). —The change from the green¬ 
house to the open air has been too great for your Lilium laneifolium, and 
is the cause of its not flowering. Let it remain where it is till autumn, 
then cover it up with dry ashes, and set a hand-glass over it till spring. 
It will come up strong, and flower well. The hand-light must be removed 
as soon as the frosts are over, the ashes taken away, and a thin mulching 
of decayed litter spread over it. 
Tea-Scented Roses {Ibid). —These have been turned out in the 
borders from your greenhouse, and you wish to know if they require any 
protection through the winter ? Certainly; and the best protection is 
some fern branches stuck in round the plants and tied together at the 
top, so as to form a kind of tent; or, if fern cannot be had, procure some 
long clean straw, and fix it round them in a similar manner. Remove 
the shelter as soon as the frosts are over, mulch the ground around them 
with short litter, and the roses will shoot strong and flower well. 
Abutilon striatum and Scarlet Seedling Geraniums (IF. D. 
Payne). —Those do not flower because you keep them overpotted and too 
warm ; cutting them back will not cause them to flower ; but if they are, 
as we suspect, drawn and straggling, cut them back, and do not change 
the pots, but set them out of doors, upon a bed of coal-ashes, in an open 
part of the garden. This will give them strength, ripen the wood, and 
induce a flowering state. 
Dielytra spectabilis (E. H. F.). —You have saved some seeds of 
this fine plant, and wish to know when to sow them. It is an herbaceous 
plant, dying down in autumn. If the seed is sown now, the roots would 
be too small and weak to live through the winter. Tbe best season to 
sow them will be the first week in March. They will then become strong 
before the summer is over, and will form strong roots to bear the rest 
through the dark months of the year. 
Bees {M. S. II.). —It was “unwise to place the boxes one over the 
other,” and more especially so if there is any communication between 
them ; as, if so, fighting will be the consequence. The bee sent is a 
drone. 
Bees {B. B.). —The reason why a super is placed between a small 
hive and a stock, is to give room, and so prevent swarming; for if the 
small hive was suffered to remain till sealed up, without giving addi¬ 
tional room, the bees would, in all probability, swarm; besides, much 
time would be lost in finishing one and beginning another. If bees work 
upwards, brood in the supers is almost sure to be the result. Artificial 
swarms should be made in about ten days after the first appearance of 
drones, but certainly not later than the middle of -June. Piping is never 
heard before a first swarm. The old queen which led off your first swarm 
was unable to fly, and was lost, therefore your bees returned to their hive. 
Piping in that case would take place. The swarm and cast then came 
out together, led by a young queen, which makes it of more value. 
When queens are thrown out, it is certain there will be no more swarms. 
Treacle will not make good food for bees. 
Hive Ventilator (IF. IF.).—The sole object of Mr. Kitchener’s 
“ventilated passage,” as shown in the Crystal Palace, is to have the 
glass in which the bees are working removed some inches away from the 
centre of the hive on which it is placed, that the slightest discoloration 
arising from the heat of the hive may be prevented; this your contri¬ 
vance, although very ingenious, will not effect. You cannot remove the 
board from the top of your cottage-hive without risking the destruction 
of the stock. 
Skeleton Flowers and Leaves {Ibid). —Our correspondent will be 
obliged by information how those in the Great Exhibition were prepared. 
Yellow Rocket. —Will the correspondent who offered slips of this, 
oblige us by sending his or her address ? 
Strawberry Beds {Rosa). —It is very bad practice to replant with 
strawberries old strawberry beds ; and you had much better plant your 
young strawberries anywhere else. You can have The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener from our office weekly, by sending an order to Messrs. W. S. Orr 
and Co., 2, Amcii Corner, Paternoster-row'. 
