April 7. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
face soil, is poorer, or deficient in organic matter. This, 
of course, has to be supplied by manures in the upper 
stratum ; and when that is done in a proper way, the 
plot may be said to be highly improved, drainage being 
carried out previously where needed—for provision is 
made for the crops enduring the droughts of summer by 
deep roots, as well as for a proper establishment of the 
young plant by a generous surface soil. 
If, however, it is deemed expedient to introduce ; 
manure in the original trenching, care must be taken to 
blend them well with the soil at a somewhat low level; 
j bearing in mind that the surface soil can be improved 
i at any time. In such a case, if the ground is to be 
j levelled, and is of unequal depth, the operator will do 
j well to wheel his manure as wanted ; for if tire ground 
j be covered previously, there will be much loss of labour 
j in shifting the manure. 
Before proceeding to dismiss that portion of the 
j subject which relates to fruit trees, I must beg to offer a 
few remarks on the textures of soils—for it is not simply 
a question of manures. Those who are establishing 
new gardens, or orchards, will do well to take this into 
consideration at first; seeing that the plot will never 
after be so accessible to improvements of this kind. 
Whether for fruit trees or vegetables, or the two com¬ 
bined, which is the ordinary case, it will be found of 
immense advantage to do what can and ought to be 
done at the outset. Improvements of this kind, judi¬ 
ciously effected, will be found true economy in the 
end, besides being a source of constant satisfaction 
retrospectively. 
Soils differ much; and localities differ as much in the 
means at hand for improving the staple of soils. In some 
we find marl abundantly, or clay; in other districts, 
sand, or sandy loams prevail, and aboutcommons, wastes, 
&c., we have bog and heath, or moor soil, &c. Then, as to 
the refuse of our trades, such articles as lime, ashes, old 
brick rubbish, saw-dust, tan, &c., these are seldom all to 
be met with in one locality. 
In the next paper, the improvement of the staple will 
be taken into consideration. 11. Errington. 
BULBS. 
H2EMANTHUS. 
( Continued from page 480.) 
This is an extensive group of African bulbs, repre¬ 
senting as many outward variations of form in the 
growth, bulb, and leaf as Amaryllis itself; yet so uni¬ 
form in the general aspect of the flower, that it is only 
necessary to learn two distinct forms of them to enable 
one to recognise, at first sight, any species of the genus 
Hccmanthus. There is one part of the accompaniment 
to the flower of bulbs in general, and a very essential 
part for those who treat of them botauically, but which 
I left altogether unnoticed until I could bring it in, 
popularly, as a gay appendage to a flower, and it is in ; 
Hccmanthus that it has first occurred in that way. The i 
name of this part is called in books, spathe, or envelope, 
and now is the right time of the year to learn what is 
really a spathe, or the envelope in which Flora sends 
her notes (flowers) into the country every spring, in 
every year, since the beginning of flowers. The Daffodil 
flowers are now in their envelopes (spathes), all over 
the country. One flower in some kinds, and more J 
flowers than one in most kinds of the Daffodil or Nar¬ 
cissus family, are enclosed in a light brown membrane, 
we cannot call it a leaf, or anything like it; it is a 
wrapper or over-all, or envelope, in fact, a spathe; and 
it encloses the flower-buds till they are ripe enough to 
open, when they split the envelope into parts, and each 
part is called a valve. Then it often happens that one 
kind of bulb can only bo known from the next nearest 
kind l>y the number of the valves of the envelope. In 
some bulbs the whole envelope falls off as soon as the 
flowers open ; in others it only rolls back ; in a third it 
takes different turns and directions, but — and it is the 
most singular of all—in this Hccmanthus the flowers i 
are of little moment, and the envelopes or spathes are 
gay and varied instead. What would the flowers of 
Poinsettia pulcherrima he without the large scarlet 
bracts which accompany them? and still less conspicu- ! 
ous is the flower of a Coxcomb without the addition of j 
the “ Comb.” The flowers of most of the Hcemanths \ 
are much better looking without their envelopes than 
these examples; still, as bulb-flowers, most of them ! 
would cut a sorry figure without their painted envelopes. I 
The number of valves, or guard-leaves, as we might j 
call them, in the spathes of this genus, vary from three | 
to six in the different kinds—and they stand upright, j 
like guard petals, all round the flowers, which are indi- j 
vidually very small indeed; but there are a great j 
number of them standing close together on the top of ! 
the scape, then the stamens are longer than the flower, 
and the styles longer than all, so that if the guard 
petals were taken off, the bunch of flowers would look 
like a painter’s brush on the end of a stick. The leaves 
of some of the kinds come in two’s, and four’s, or more— 
growing quite flat on the ground. In some the leaves 
are smooth and shining; in others the edges are fringed 
all round with stiff short hairs—while a third division 
of them are hairy all over the leaf and flower scape, and 
grey, after the manner of a badger. And there is a 
part of the family with long necks to the bulb, or rather 
to the bottom of the leaves, which grow upwards, and 
join together in a long neck at bottom. Some in this 
section look very much like Eucomis before the flowers 
come. 
As people are making a move for growing bulbs in 
classes, in pits, or borders, or in pots, I would recom¬ 
mend all the kinds here described, for the pit section, as 
they are as easy to manage that way as common 
Cactuses, and tiiey are certainly very interesting as 
part of a varied selection; but for pot culture, I dare 
hardly recommend a single bulb in the genus, except to 
the curious. There is one stove bulb among them, 
multiflorus, from Sierra Leone, with crimson flowers, 
which spread out wide, and it has no envelope or 
guard petal (spathe), or rather, it is deciduous, and this 
is rather a handsome kind; but then it is a most 
delicate sort, and the least mishap kills it. All the rest, 
with recumbent leaves, delight in yellow loam, with a 
large portion of sand in it; while the columnar, or those 
with long necks, will grow freely in the richest soil in 
the garden. 
IL-kmanthus carneus—T his is my own favourite of 
the whole genus, and it is easily known from the moment 
the leaves appear, as they are hairy all over, and very 
flat, broad, and recumbent. The flowers are larger than 
in any of the rest; there is no guard petal or upright 
spathe, and the stamens and pistils are within the flower. 
ILemantiius coccineus.—T his is the best known of 
the family to gardeners. It was in every stove in the 
country when 1 was a boy, and it is the first pot bulb I 
ever knew. It shows how far some bulbs may be ill- 
treated with impunity. This bulb is all but hardy, and 
will establish itself in a few years, if planted out in a 
cold pit; so much, that it will throw up a flower scape, 
a foot to fifteen inches high, with a large mass of 
flowers on the top, guarded with a fiery scarlet spathe, 
such as never was seen in a stove or greenhouse. 
ILf.manthus grandivalvis. —There is no difference 
between this and the last, except in the much greater 
size of the spathe, and in their not being so bright a 
scarlet. There is a good figure of it in the Botanical 
Magazine, 1075. 
