200 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
see whole beds devoted to summer bulbs only: some¬ 
thing else is put in between the bulbs in April or May. 
The bulbous Irises are very useful in June and begin¬ 
ning of July, and they come of all colours from seed, 
which is best sown as soon as it is ripe, and that is the 
I easiest way with all the Daffodil tribe, or Narcissus of 
: sorts, Gladioli and Iritis in general; also, Crown Impe- 
i rials, and so down to the common Crocuses, the whole 
. of which will do very well in a bed of light earth, but 
! much better if sown in pots, when one knows bow to 
i manage seedlings in them. Pots with these hardy seeds 
should be plunged to the rim in a border, or some out- 
of-the-way place, till October ; so that dry weather has 
little effect on them. The seedlings come up usually 
by the time it is natural for the parent-bulbs to grow; 
so that, if it is preferred, these seeds need not he sown 
till the beginning of October, and then pots should be 
used for them, and the shelter of a cold frame. 
Carnation layers cut from the old plants, and bed 
them in a nursery-border as soon as they are fit or well- 
rooted ; and more layers of them, and also of Picotees, 
may still be made; this last crop, and part of the first- 
made layers, maybe left on the shoots till next February, 
if the stools are in the kitchen-garden or reserve-ground; 
but old plants of these being unsightly in the flower*- 
garden, I would have all layers removed from them, and 
I would advise the removal of the old plants forthwith, 
hut still would not destroy them altogether; as, if I 
could get any spare corner for them, they would furnish 
cut-flowers lor a year or two longer. Many people pot 
these layers and keep them so through the winter; but 
for the flower-garden I prefer them as above. 
Cuttings of flower-garden plants put in early in the 
month. One might fill several pages with a mere 
enumeration of the plants that will root from cuttings 
out-of-doors if put in before the middle of August. 
Almost every thing, from the common laurel to the fairy 
rose, will now root if properly attended to. Many years 
ago, I called, about this time of the year, to see a very 
picturesque garden high up on the banks of the Find- 
horn, in Murrayshire, and the whole force of the garden- 
men were very busy putting in cuttings of the common 
laurel by the thousand. I never saw such a scene 
before or since; so many hands were lopping away in 
the shrubberies, others were preparing the cuttings, 
while a third lot were digging the ground, and “ plant¬ 
ing the cuttings by the spade,” as they say in Scotland ; 
that is, as Mr. Cobbett used to recommend cottager’s 
wives to plant cabbages and potatoes, by putting in the 
cuttings as the digging proceeded. Thus, when an 
opening is made at one end or side of a piece of ground, 
then dig a spadeful across the piece, stretch a line on the 
edge of this and make a cut along the line, place the cut- 
i tings against the cut, three or four inches apart and six 
| inches deep, press the soil well against the cuttings so that 
they are as firmly fixed as if they were rooted, then dig 
another space six, eight, or nine inches wide, according 
to the size of the cuttings; stretch the line again, cut a 
clean edge along the line, and plant the second row of 
cuttings, and so on to the end of your ground. In this 
garden these cuttings were intended to remain undis¬ 
turbed for three years, when they would be all removed 
j for planting out in the woods as people plant Rhodo 
dendrons now-a-days : I must not omit to say that the 
! cuttings were made in the old-fashioned style of having 
j one joint of the old or last year’s wood left at the bot¬ 
tom, unless they were side-shoots, and pulled out of the 
socket so as to have a heel of hard wood, all the rest 
| being that season’s growth, and from six to ten inches 
long, about half of which was fixed in the ground. 
They were neither watered, nor had any more attention, 
except to keep them clear from weeds, and I was 
told that not one out of a thousand of them would fail. 
I never go into a nursery and see stools of laurels kept 
[August 7. 
for getting layers from, without recalling to mind this 
wholesale way of increasing the laurel, and many other 
common things, at ltelucas, for I think that was the 
name of the place. It belonged to the late Sir Thomas 
Dick Lander, a well-known name in the literary and 
scientific world. Now, for amateurs and all who have 
had little practice in growing cuttings of hardy things 
for the flower-garden and shrubberies, I would strongly 
advise this way of making their cuttings. The plan is 
described in all the old hooks oir gardening; and 
although we of the present day have improved many 
of the old ways of doing things, I am quite sure there is 
no easier or more safe plan than this, of either retaining 
one joint of the old wood to the bottom of the cutting, 
or pulling it out of the socket so as to have a heel of 
hard wood. The reason is, that the ripe part at the 
bottom is much less likely to damp than a bottom of 
fresh, green wood, and also the ripe part being so much 
harder, it will not suck up so much moisture to cause 
damp or goutiness in the upper part of the cutting. 
There is hardly an evergreen shrub you can mention 
but will grow from August and September cuttings. 
Then perennial plants succeed, and thousands of them 
will come from cuttings, some under hand-glass and 
some without; others of them that have flowered in the 
early part of the season may be increased by taking 
them up about the end of the month, and dividing their 
rooted parts into so many pieces to be planted in light 
nursing earth, so to be ready to remove into the garden 
or pleasure-ground next spring, when the beds and 
borders are dressed for the season. 
After all this, Seeds and Seedlings must be thought of; 
and, first of all, let us take the hardiest—the evergreen 
Berbery, or, what some call, Mahonia. Berberis fasci- 
cularis is the handsomest flowering one of all our hardy 
evergreens, and although it might be reared from seeds 
as easily as mustard and cress, so to be planted out by 
the thousand, besides every nursery being full of it, yet 
it is rarely seen as underwood in plantations, or under 
trees in gardens where neither grass or weeds would 
grow, although it will grow any where, wet or dry, rich 
or poor, shaded or not shaded, and still look very green 
and beautiful. It grows very fast in pure sand, and if 
it stands the sea-breeze it might be planted to fix the 
shifting sand-banks on some of our coasts. Now is the 
time to look out for it. It fruits as freely as the bram¬ 
ble ; the berries are now turning colour, and the birds 
take to them before they are quite ripe; but if they are 
kept from the birds, a good-sized bush will produce a 
thousand plants, and the only secret in getting the seeds 
to grow is to sow them as soon as they are ripe. Indeed, 
the best way is to draw a drill as if for sweet peas, and 
sow them in it the very day they are gathered. A drill 
is better than a bed, and if you have more than one drill, 
four inches will be enough space between them. The 
seedlings will not come up till next April or May, and 
if you sow them as thick as mustard they will take no 
harm in drills, where they may remain a year or two if 
you are not in a great hurry about them. Seeds of all 
the Nemophilas, and all other Californian annuals, should 
be sown twice this month, and again in Sej)tember, to 
flower next April and May. Candytufts, Erisymum , 
Stocks, and Navelworts, are four most useful things for 
transplanting into flower-beds next May, along with 
“ bedding-plants,” from seed-beds sown this month. 
Out of a number of routine rememberings I fix next 
on gravel. Weed and roll weekly, vevy odd advice to our 
garden-men here who take in The Cottage Gardener, 
for they seldom think of such a thing. The weeding of 
the walks falls to my share of the work; an expensive 
weeder, certainly; but still I kept them down for the 
last six years, so that five shillings only are charged for 
weeding the walks in the garden account for each year, 
and that is hardly a shilling per mile per annum. But 
