390 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[Septkmreu 25. 
well as variety of fruit, this is not an easy affair. Of 
course, in the consumption of the more early fruit, 
vacancies will be created, and this gives the manager 
frequent opportunities of re-arranging his stock. As 
principles on which to ground future operations, we 
should say, keep all early fruit, and those of somewhat 
uncertain properties, under the eye as much as possible. 
In most fruit-rooms there are some parts darker than 
others; and as it is not always convenient during the 
dark days of winter to light a candle in order to search 
for a few pears or apples, it is well so to arrange them so 
that the darker portions of the room are appropriated 
to such as the Glout Morceau, the d’Aremberg, the 
Beurre Ranee, the Ne plus Meuris, &c. These, in the 
main, need little watching, or examination; whilst some 
kinds, as the Marie Louise, the Winter Neilis, the 
Althorpe Crassanne, &c., are apt to rot, become mealy, 
or subject to what has been termed “ bletting.” Such, 
therefore, must not he housed out of sight. The Winter 
Neilis is peculiarly liable here to begin rotting at the 
stalk-end about Christmas; and many a superior fruit 
suddenly becomes disqualified for the dessert table 
through this misfortune; albeit the other end is sound, 
and of the most exquisite flavour. For a year or two 
we fancied that the faidt must be in the gathering; 
that the point of junction between the stalk and fruit 
must be more sensitive of injuries than most pears; 
since then they have all been cut with scissors, but we 
are still liable to this misfortune. 
Pears. —Here two distinct classes present themselves, 
those which may be called November pears, of which 
we have many good ones, and those which are peculiarly 
spring pears. The former are, for the most part, more 
tender in the skin; indeed, this arises in part from their 
early mellowness, and such require very gentle treat¬ 
ment. As instances, we may name the Marie Louise, 
the Aston Town, the Beurre d’Amalis, the Dunmore, 
Louis Bonne of Jersey, the Delice d’Hardenpont, the 
Fondante d’Automne, &e. These, although mostly what 
may be termed November pears, ripen, perhaps, in Octo¬ 
ber, and some run into December. Be that as it may, 
they form a class requiring special treatment, and should 
not be mixed with the spring pears, about which there 
need be little ceremony until Christmas has passed. The 
autumnal pears should be kept well under the eye, and 
should have a softer bed to lie on. These will require 
almost daily examination; and it should be an esta¬ 
blished rule to look over the fruit-room twice a week 
from the end of October until Christmas, and at least 
once afterwards. Every mouldy fruit permitted to 
remain, assists in promoting an increasing contamina¬ 
tion ; and it is scarcely too much to say, that a fruit- 
room should be kept as clean as a dairy, minus the 
damp in the latter office. 
The moving of fruits occasionally is beneficial, pro¬ 
viding the utmost care is taken over it; not every one, 
however, may be trusted to move ripe Marie Louise or 
Winter Neilis pears. The mover should wear a pair of 
thick and soft gloves during the operation; changing 
the position of fruits facilitates equal ripening, and 
gives the operator a chance of detecting every blemish. 
All partially-damaged fruits should be placed with the 
bad side upwards, in order that decay may be immedi¬ 
ately detected. R. Ehrington. 
THE ELOWER-GARDEN. 
At page 374 of the present volume, is an essay, which 
it is very gratifying to an old gardener to read—I mean 
S. N. V.’s excellent letter about his failures. This is a 
new turn in garden-reading, but depend upon it, there is 
as much to be learned from a faithful report of any 
thing that we fail in, as from that of the most successful 
experiment we take in hand. We gardeners meet with 
more failures than any other class, but as it is not 
fashionable to write about such things, we are called 
boasters, by some, for writing so much about our success; 
but fashions change, and we begin to change too, and 
show the two sides of the picture. I had a curious 
letter from London the other day, inclosing a leaf of a 
plant, in my way, which the writer said could not be 
bought in the nurseries; but this I could hardly believe, ; 
as I had seen it used in a beautiful flower-garden, a 
little out of London, three years since—that of the Duke ! 
of Devonshire, at Chiswick—and I had just put in about 
two hundred cuttings of it that week, to be used next ' 
season, for the first time here, in the flower-beds; but I 
for other purposes we have had it for years, and I rather j 
think that some visitor, who was struck with its novel : 
appearance in our “ wilderness,” was the cause of the 
curious letter, though not the writer of it. At any rate, 
the plant must be got into the flower-beds of The Cot- j 
tage Gardener; and a welcome addition it will be, as i 
it is quite hardy, very easily propagated, and is in full 
beauty every day in the year, and is, if anything, more | 
handsome in the winter than in the summer. It has 
recently garnished some of the handsomest drawing- j 
rooms and dining-rooms in England, and there, in the I 
glare of the candle-light, it has been mistaken for an i 
artificial plant made out of frosted silver. Although I 
said that it is of novel appearance, it is not new; for 
Miller, in his Gardeners’ Dictionary, says, that some 
people, in his day, kept it in the greenhouse; although it 
is hardy enough, as he proved, and although I say that 
it is in beauty all the year round, the flowers of it should 
never be seen. Linnaeus called it an Othona, which it 
is not; but you will not meet with one person out of 
twenty, except a gardener, who can tell the name of it 
this autumn; and, what is more curious than that, or 
the letter either, no gardener out of a hundred calls it by 
the right name, although the next gardener might tell 
you all about it, from this description. Now, if I tell 
the name of this plant, the nurserymen will incline to 
pull my head off, as they threatened to do about the 
Verbena venosa, and others, because they had no stock 
of it for them to supply the orders ; but out with it I 
must, at all hazards. It is the Cineraria maritima, or 
Sea Ragwort, a native of the sea-coast, round Spain, 
Portugal, and so on, along the Straits of Gibraltar, to 
the northern shores of the Mediterranean. The bloom 
and beauty of this most singular plant reside in every 
portion of it. No silk or swan’s-down was ever half so 
soft, or a snow-flake ever more white, than the sub¬ 
stance which covers every part of the plant. Viewed 
by candle-light, it might well be taken for frosted 
silver; as a border to a bed of Punch geraniums, on dry 
soil, we have nothing to come near to it in effect, and 
such effect is much heightened by planting as every 
third plant, a White Ivy-leaved Geranium. Let this white 
border be from a foot to eighteen inches wide, and kept 
to one uniform height all round, by pinching out the 
tops of such as rise above the stature wished—say a foot 
or so—then plant Punch or Tom Thumb, or any favourite 
scarlet, inside this ring, and the contrast is beautiful; 
but in all comparisons, with flowers at least, we must 
have three stages—good, better, best—tall, taller, tallest, 
and so on. The best and tallest plant to contrast well 
in the centre of a bed of scarlet geraniums is the Aye- 
ratuni Mexicanum, or Ccclestina, as it is often called. The 
following arrangement is the very best that any one can 
make for a circular bed, a few yards away from the walk 
or the eye, in a recess, backed by evergreens, where 
nothing else is wanted to correspond: this silvery plant 
for the outside, as I have said; then some good scarlet 
geraniums in a belt, not less than thirty inches through, 
this belt should ho made by putting in three rows of 
plants, each row to be of a different-sized plant, or let 
