874 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[September 11 
ing ; the inanimate occurred to me in the shape of a post! 
I prefer it to the animate, unless I meet with a helpmate 
equally interested with myself in the operation. I seldom 
met with one who did not tire at my proceedings, and be¬ 
come woefully attacked with the gapes, which always gives 
me the fidgets. When I catch a man yawning at his work, I 
| conclude it is anything but interesting to him; and rather 
than allow myself to be made uncomfortable on his account, 
I would rather undertake the thing by myself, if possible. 
The best assistant I ever had was in planting some tree 
roses,—a little child (a girl), with a tiny spade ! 
According to the diameter of the roots of a tree, bush, 
or shrub, so is the diameter of a hole to exceed them four 
feet (viz, when the roots are spread out horizontally in it, 
there must be two feet exceeding the breadth of them all 
round); so must be the length and substance of a stake, 
in proportion to the tree, be driven firmly and perpendi¬ 
cularly into the centre of this hole. 
If you are about to plant on a large scale, the thorough 
drainage of the soil, upon a system, is an important point 
to be considered; for it is all-imperative that fruit-trees 
should have a well-drained soil, if they are intended to 
flourish. This observation carries me back to a case in point, 
and will enable me to explain a circumstance which forced 
itself upon my unitiated practice, as I watched the progress 
in growth of the young grafted trees above. The manner of 
taking them up from their nursery and transplanting them, 
I remember, was off-hand, indeed; but let that pass, I 
could not refer to it with pride. There were between twenty 
and thirty of them ; part were planted on a raised situation, 
which some years previous was newly-formed ground, deep, 
and very good, the remainder in a cold, inferior soil. Now, 
only one tree on this latter flourished, and was withal 
inclined to show early and abundant fruitfulness, more so 
than those in the rich soil. I naturally felt interested in 
these young trees, being, as they were, fabrics of my own, 
and to find this tree a single exception to all the others 
puzzled me completely. If it had been the only variety of 
the kind, I should, probably, have attributed it to that 
circumstance, concluding it was its natural disposition, 
and the situation suited it, but I had others of the same 
variety (Hammond’s Pearmain) close to it, and on the good 
ground besides, which showed themselves with quite dif¬ 
ferent aspects ; the former stunted and covered with lichen, 
the latter growing away furiously,—a mystery which, so 
soon as autumn arrived, I was determined to solve. The 
single tree, so soon as that time arrived, was the unfortunate 
to be pounced upon. I began digging a considerable dis¬ 
tance round it, and instinctively preserved the roots,—yes, 
even the top roots, for these were not cut off, as they should 
have been at the time of transplanting, and, fortunately, 
remained in this case to teach me a lesson. In searching 
down after them, I came upon a quantity of—what—rough 
! stone, that had been buried there, apparently, for no other 
purpose, some time or other, than to place it out of the 
1 way, and the roots, so soon as they had sent down fresh 
j fibres upon them, were starting away in all directions liori- 
j zontally where the stone interposed as an obstacle to check 
j their progress downward. Here was a nice little ocular 
I demonstration to guide me in my after-undertakings in 
planting, and requires no comment. If Messrs, Deaton 
and Errington, even in their beginnings, happened to 
stumble upon a circumstance of this description, I am sure 
it did their hearts good, and assisted them to lay a founda¬ 
tion in their extensive practice, and preliminary to those 
excellent articles on the subject which are now by them 
sent forth to the world; and a few years before I knew 
| such people were in existence, the pith and substance was 
forcing itself upon me, in a small and quiet way, to my 
] edification and comfort. Upwards and Onwards. 
(To be Continued.) 
REMARKS ON THE SPRING AND SUMMER OF 
1851, AS REGARDS FLOWER-GARDENING. 
It rarely happens that a season passes away without 
being noticed as favourable, or otherwise, to some particular 
produce or other. That the past and passing season has 
been equally liberal of its favours and its frowns, I think 
every one will bear testimony. A spring, in no respects re¬ 
markable, except for its length, succeeded a very mild 
winter, and was itself followed by a summer, which (unless 
we are to be guided by the expression of some effeminate 
object returning from lialf-an-hour’s walk on a warm after¬ 
noon) has been equally void of anything extraordinary. 
Nevertheless, the failure or success of certain crops denote 
that something has been different to former years, and it is, 
therefore, to the effects produced by the season that I now 
address myself. 
It is well known that the absence of frost is sadly felt by 
the husbandman who has a stiff soil to till; nevertheless, a 
popular error seems abroad on that subject, it being com¬ 
mon to attribute the adhesive, stubborn, nature of the soil, 
after mild winters, to the wet that falls. Now, last spring 
was far from a wet one ; yet all stiff lands became, what in 
some districts is called “ livery.” What effect the wet had in 
causing that, is not for me to say, but experience proves that 
frost removes that adhesive tendency, probably by its ex¬ 
pansive powers in elevating the ground, and making it per¬ 
meable to the action of the atmosphere ; but whether frost 
be the agent in pulverizing the earth, or only paves the way 
for another power to act, is immaterial to our purpose; 
suffice it to say, that the early part of summer found the 
ground in a sodden, unkind state of culture, equally bad to 
the flower-gardener as to the husbandman. Certainly the 
former had more means to overcome the difficulties of the 
case than the latter; but, on the other hand, lie had a more 
delicate and sensitive crop to cultivate. 
Commencing, then, with the spring, I shall give a list of 
a few of the half-hardy plants which stood the winter with¬ 
out any protection, and their after condition. First in the 
list is the Sweet-scented Geranium , the large or Oak-leaved 
variety; growing in rather a dry place it looked almost as 
well all the winter as it did in the September previous, and it 
was only about six weeks, or so, in spring, that it looked at 
all hurt. In fact, from the first of April to the middle of 
May was the period when all the outstanding plants showed 
tokens of having suffered from the inclemency of the season; 
however, this Geranium speedily recovered, and an un¬ 
broken bed of it afforded many a sprig for summer nose¬ 
gays. The few Scarlets that were left out perished, and of 
course the Variegated died also. Zanschneria Cal if arnica, 
has also lived through the winter and flowered beautifully 
this season, quite redeeming its character, which last year it 
seemed likely to lose ; thus affording us another proof that 
we ought not too hastily to jump to conclusions drawn from 
imperfect data. The various Salvias also survived ; although 
the fulgens had its tips destroyed, yet the great bulk of its 
stems remained unscathed; the Patens, of course, died to 
the ground, and sprung up again, and the same may be said 
of what few Dahlias were left in the ground. The latter, as 
might be expected, pushed up very strong, and have been 
but little checked by the dry weather we have had in 
August, while the spring-propagated ones have made little 
progress for some time. One plant, which I expected to 
find quite hardy, or nearly so, has proved more tender than 
many others—the Veronica speciosa. It was very much 
cut—in fact, nearly to the bottom—while V. Lindleyana 
stood admirably, and has bloomed beautifully. Most of the 
detached plants of Verbena lived through, where they were 
not destroyed in dressing the borders ; but a bed of scarlets, 
in rather a damp place, perished in the winter, while a bed 
of a pale-coloured variety, in a drier situation, lived through 
and bloomed early, and have kept on doing so. I am sorry 
I cannot say so much for Calceolarias, which in almost all 
cases stood the winter, and bloomed with a degree of pro¬ 
fusion, early in June, that I never witnessed in Calceolarias 
before. I had three beds of the old yellow, which might 
have stood comparison with anything of the sort, either then 
or at any other period—not the least gap to be seen, and, I 
might add, not any foliage either, so dense was the flower¬ 
ing. At that early period they were a great acquisition, and 
I flattered myself they might be prevailed on to continue 
their services the whole of the season. Unfortunately, such 
has not been the case ; after the first heavy crop of flowers 
had passed away there were none to succeed them ; the 
plants, exhausted by the effort to produce so many, sought 
in vain for additional food to supply another crop; doubt¬ 
less every particle of soil, as deep as the Calceolaria descends 
for nourishment, was already a close mat of roots; heavy 
