September 4.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
36] 
of roots must go), tlic hole and remaining parts of the 
branches being well provided with sap, have sufficient nou¬ 
rishment when the first genial weather sets them moving in 
spring, independently; and ere the evaporation of the new 
leaves lias exhausted the reservoirs, the roots are at work 
again, and not a check, comparatively speaking, takes place. 
Look on this picture, and now look on this ! The sap of 
all trees naturally flaws to their extremities, and if these 
extremities are left till the time of transplanting, to be then 
cut off, of course away goes the present nourishment, and 
the tree must remain in a state of impoverished inanima¬ 
tion till such time as new roots are formed; vegetation con¬ 
sequently receives a check. How much worse to leave the 
head on a newly-planted tree entire; this would cause a 
check with a vengeance ! Upwards and .Onwards. 
(To be continued.) 
MELON CULTURE. 
As some of your readers, like myself, may have been 
puzzled and foiled in growing some of the more delicate 
species of melons, I shall trouble you with an account of a 
plan that I have seen carried out successfully the last two 
seasons by Mr. Mackelvie, at Steveuston; and although the 
idea in its details is originally his own, like all men of sound 
talent, he freely places his invention at the service of the 
public. Few words will suffice to describe. The frame is 
constructed six inches deeper than usual; a slight ledge, or 
detached block, run round the interior, at eighteen inches 
from bottom ; and on this ledge, or series of blocks, rests a 
trellis (horizontal, of course), on the upper surface of which 
the plants are trained. At the back, or upper side of the 
frame, there is a sliding panel, immediately beneath the 
trellis; thus affording the means of weeding, and the all- 
important business of syringing the surface of the soil, with¬ 
out endangering the fruit or foliage. Such is Mr. Mackelvie’s 
plan—simple, but most efficient. In the following sketch 
the horizontal dotted line shows the trellis ; and the vertical 
dotted lines the sliding panel. 
i i 
i 
i 
Under the mode of management stated above, the plants 
should be inserted at the sides of the frame; thus leaving 
the whole of the interior free for operating. 
E. Wear Gifford. 
DOMESTIC MECHANISM. 
Improved Chimney-top. —In our description of the “ room 
ventilator,” we made allusion to the design with which we 
now present our readers. Where chimneys smoke, by the 
wind forcing down the smoke in the vent, tiie top we are now 
to describe will act as a preventive. Provide a tall cylindri¬ 
cal tube (zinc will be the best material of which to make it) 
some two-and-a-half feet long, and of diameter equal to the 
vent on which it is to be placed. A flange two inches wide 
should be made at the bottom of this; 
this will give the tube a hold of the 
wall, when properly fastened and 
built in. At the top of the tube an 
angular cover, as shown in the sketch, 
should be fastened : this will prevent 
all the winds blowing downwards from 
entering the tube, yet allow the smoke 
free passage to the external air. Pro¬ 
vide another tube of some two inches 
and-a-lialf greater diameter than the 
internal tube, and about two-thirds of 
the length; fix this as in the position 
in the sketch, by means of radial bars, 
fastened at one end to the inside tube, 
and at the other to the outside one ; 
bars, at top and bottom, will suffice. 
When the wind blows downwards, it will be deflected down 
the sides of the cover, and between the two tubes, passing 
out at the lower apertures. The air between the tubes being 
heated, it will ascend, and materially assist the upward 
draught in the chimney tube, as it will pass with considerable 
velocity in contact with the smoke and heated air from the 
chimney. jj. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
*** We request that no one will write to the departmental writers of 
The Cottage Gardener. It gives them unjustifiable trouble and 
expense. All communications should be addressed “ To the Editor of 
The Cottage Gardener, 2, Amen Corner, Paternoster Row, London. 
The Pink, Picotee, and Carnation (E. L., of Tavistock).— You 
ask us what are the distinguishing features of these flowers, and if you 
mean their botanical marks of difference, we should be puzzled to point 
them out. So little do their botanical characteristics differ, that they are 
ail considered usually as varieties of the Clove Pink (Dianthus caryo- 
phyllus). Some think that the Red Pinks only are derived from this, but 
that the Pheasant’s-eye Pinks are the offspring of the Feathered Pink 
(Dianthus plumarius). If you merely require what are their points of dif¬ 
ference as Florists’ Flowers, then we can point out that they are very dis¬ 
tinct. The Carnation marks in flakes, or ribbons, of colour, from centre to 
edge, and through the edge ; and the more dense these ribbons, or stripes, 
or flakes of colour are, and the more distinct the white ground between 
them, the better, and the more equally divided, as to quantity, they are, 
the better. As the petals are broader as they approach the outer edge, so 
also is, or should be, both the colour and the white. They are divided 
into classes, called Bizarres and Flakes; the former having two colours 
of stripe besides the white, the latter only one colour. These Bizarres 
and Flakes are subdivided—there being purple flakes, rose flakes, and 
scarlet flakes ; and there being among the bizarres, scarlet bizarres, 
which have scarlet stripes, and a second colour, which is considered 
better for a rich contrast of black, and approaches to it; then purple 
bizarres, which have purple stripes, with a light pink, or rose, or some other 
colour, forming a contrast. The Picotee has the colour only on the edge, 
and broad, or narrow, as the case maybe, hut ramifying towards the centre; 
any mark or spirt of colour that does not touch the edge, is a blemish. 
Some, therefore, are only marked round the edge very distinctly, but as 
narrow as possible; others have a sort of feathering, narrow, or deep, as 
the case may be, but feathering inwards from the edge; the outer edge 
solid, and the inner edge rough, or feathery. The Pink is distinct 
from both these. The lacing, as it were, of a Pink is rough outside 
and inside, with a portion of white outside the lacing, as if a band of 
colour had been lai^on ; besides this, there is colour at the base of every 
petal, and, perhaps, one-tliird of the distance along the petal, so that it 
forms an eye, or centre, of colour, which is peculiar to itself, and which 
never occurs in the Carnation or Picotee. A Pink, without its lacing all 
round each petal, and its narrow strip of white outside it, would be worth¬ 
less as a show flower. The more distinct this lacing is, the better; it 
should look like an even piece of embroidery, just fairly within the outer 
edge of the white. 
New-laid Turf (Susannah). —After levelling the lawn, and laying 
it down with what “ appeared to be very nice turf,” you find it now “ so 
rank ” and so full of Plantain, that friends must need come in to advise 
you after the fashion of the old man and his ass. Those w’lio “ smile ” 
at meritorious efforts ought to he made to laugh on the wrong side of the 
garden-gate. To take up the turf again, and put in so much sand or 
ashes, or what not, and then sow grass-seed or put on the old turf again, 
is a very expensive process, and, after all, would only give a temporary 
relief. Depend upon it, the best course will be to keep hard at it with 
the scythe or mowing-machine ; particularly very late in the autumn, and 
very early in the spring, and to get some boys to spud out the broad¬ 
leaved Plantain, &c., in April and October. Then, if you could get an 
aged, steady woman to go after them with a teapot full of dry salt, to 
pour as much of it into a spud-hole as would salt an egg, you would 
finish them, We have known a teapot thus clearing a whole lawn of 
daisies in two successive seasons. w 
Verbena Layers (S. R,). —You have acted the part of a good 
gardener, certainly, when you “laid down the shoots of Verbenas to root, 
then potted them, and after stopping them let them stand out as long as 
it was safe to do so.” Go on and prosper in “ your present state of hap¬ 
piness,” and you will shew your friends still greater wonders. You seem 
to us, certainiy, to have been moulded out of the true blue clay. But 
we must have a leaf out of your own book by and by. 
Bedding Geraniums (Charley). —“Nineteen or twenty of the best 
bedding geraniums,” and all about them, you shall hear of very shortly. 
What is the name of the Yellow Calceolaria which does so well with the 
Frogmore Geranium, of which we know every leaf ? 
Awful Beds (S. S.). —You made the beds too rich by far; the crop 
of plants you have grown, however, will take the strength out of them ; 
dig them only six inches deep next winter, and add nothing to them, and 
you will be all right another year. For the Verbenas add one inch of 
something rich, as leaf-mould, on the surface to start them, or you may 
try some of the strong things in pots. 
Camellia, Azalea, and Citrus (S. TV.).—Take out the Camellia 
from the stove now. You have saved your Azalea by a dexterous move, 
but you must not expect many blooms, if any. The drops on the leaves 
of the Citrus might have, indirectly, caused the flower-buds to drop. 
The plants are growing too strong, and throw off the buds inconsequence ; 
but they are young, and you must bear with them awhile, very likely 
next year they will be covered with fruit; but do not give them much pot 
