April 7. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
would be safer if added to water given to the bulbs. In 
my younger days, however, it was quite safe to make 
half of the compost for Amaryllises of rich stimulating 
manures, as, at that time, it was shaken from the roots 
every autumn, and the bulbs were dried as wo do 
Hyacinths and Tulips, and I am certain they all flowered 
then as well as any we see now. At that time there 
were ten bulbs in flower at Christmas for every one that 
is now seen in bloom in March. Every little urchin 
then in one of the crack “ places,” could talk about 
“ our Amaryllis vittata and vitatta major," being so 
much better “ this year” than usual, or more so than 
they ever were at Castle Aulieum, or Flora House. 
But now you may fall in with ten first-rate gardeners at 
an exhibition, not one of whom bad ever seen a vittatum 
at all, much less know that there ever was a major 
variety of it, or that the race bad ever been discovered 
to belong to a very different section of the order before 
the said gardeners were out of their smocks and 
pinafores. 
Mr. Sweet was once the best authority and guide for 
them, indeed the father of many hundreds of Hip- 
peasters. He was also the cause, in a great measure, 
of their downfall and the loss of some of the best species, 
as in his catalogue he jumbled them together like 
lottery tickets shook in a flat, without “ heads or tails,” 
and there they remain to this day a complete mass of 
confusion—species and varieties, natural and unnatural, 
hybrids, mules, and all the rest of them, put on the 
same level, in one common style of arrangement and 
nomenclature. 
.The following remarks on potting, and the kind of 
soil for Hippeasters, l have just received from one of 
my bulb correspondents who keeps a large garden estab¬ 
lishment, and is one of the most successful growers of 
them and other bulbs known to mo. D. Beaton. 
“ Observations Tending to the Forming oe Gene¬ 
ral Rules. —All Amaryllids should be rather under¬ 
potted : certainly for the first year. 
“ After a year or two’s growth Jiippeastrum Aulieum 
will often make a cluster of offsets all round the bulbs. 
I take off all but three when sufficiently grown to be 
removed without injuring the old bulb. When small, 
they as it were form part of the bulb, and would make 
bad wounds. 
“ When two fragments of such soil as I use for the 
strong-rooting Amaryllids are pressed together, they 
will apparently adhere, but may be pulled asunder 
again, a stratum of air having, in fact, remained between 
the two surfaces. Now let the pot for your Hippeas - 
trum A ulieum , or Brunsvignia Josephines, be filled with 
such fragments, the largest being placed at the bottom, 
allowing them to decrease in size as you reach the top. 
Each handful or layer should be pressed hard and 
firmly. Supposing the soil not to have received the 
compression recommended, a sugar basin, with its con¬ 
tents, would give an idea of what I meau. 
“ When afterwards the pot is soaked with water, the 
lumps will swell and form the most perfectly drained 
medium conceivable. Water poured in at the top will 
go right through and out at the bottom, and the soil 
will keep itself thus even for years. I use a small pot 
for a crock, no other drainage being necessary. I used 
charcoal at one time, but they do just as well without it. 
The leathery, snake like roots insinuate, twist, and twine, 
with their irresistible life-force, around, over, and 
between the crevices of your loam lumps, where they 
find not only earth nourishment, but air to breathe. 
“ When a growing bulb is to be shifted, or when you 
have to pot one which lias a number of tender roots too 
valuable to bo injured by being thumped in with lumps 
of loam, another plan may be adopted; let your strong 
soil get dry, so that a few strokes of the flat of the spade 
will break if up into small lumps of many gradations in 
7 I 
size really resembling the sugar I spoke of just now. 
This must bo used dry, and settled down by the ordinary 
method of rapping the pot smartly on the bench. 
“ Amellus.” 
BOTTOM-HEAT. 
A correspondent asks “ Which is the cheapest and 
best for bottom-heat—pipes or tanks?” The question 
has lately been alluded to, but it is of such general 
importance that it will bear adverting to again. Where 
expense is no object, and a dry or moist heat is desirable 
at pleasure, then a combination of both would be best, 
as by having pipes through the tank you could have 
openings for letting out moist heat at pleasure, and by 
letting out the water you could have dry heat at will, at , 
the risk, however, of injuring the tank. If utility and ! 
economy are to be combined, then, when the separate 
modes are brought into direct comparison, I unhesi¬ 
tatingly say that pipes are cheapest and best for general 
purposes. There are relative, local, and personal cir¬ 
cumstances, such as when the materials are on the spot, 
and one man is owner, architect, and workman, in which 
the tank would bo the cheapest; but even then, 1 
question whether by using the hot bricks and cement, 
or slate, &c., the expense would not be more than from 
Is. 8d. to 2s. per lineal foot, which a flow and return 
pipe would cost per lineal foot of length of pit or house, 
it might be more now from the rise in the price of iron and 
the fixing. 1 have, in these volumes, referred to thelength 
of time a wood tank of good deal and covered with slate 
lasted ; but then its sides were open all round to the air 
of the house, and were, besides, unpainted, a matter of 
no little moment when durability in such circumstances 
was concerned. I should not expect wood, when covered 
all over with earth, to last a long time. Home people 
talk of the genial, moist beat from a tank, but if a close 
one, I never could perceive how the heat could be more 
moist than from an iron pipe; while I know that if I 
put moisture in the vicinity of that pipe when hot, the 
moisture must rise with the heat. I then came to the 
conclusion, that for bottom-heating, pipes are best; 
because in addition, if properly placed together, they 
would be little liable to the cracks and fissures to which 
most tanks, as generally constructed, are subject. If it 
should be found, however, that in certain circumstances 
tanks would be preferred, their cheapness may be pro¬ 
moted by having them shallow. All above from four to 
six inches in depth, is labour and money thrown away. 
These considerations led me, when tanks were build¬ 
ing all round me, and iron just then was very reasonable, 
to satisfy myself with two three-inch pipes for bottom- 
heat, and two of a similar size for top-heat, in two 
ranges of pits, which were to be applied to numberless 
purposes. The bottom and top pipes may act together 
at the same time, or independently of each other, as 
occasion may require; the flow pipe of each being 
furnished with a valve. I have got each range into 
separate divisions, but without stop-cocks to beat 
them separately, as I can easily regulate the temperature 
by the amount of air and moisture. 
I will mention how I arranged the bottom, so as to 
furnish hints either for imitation or improvement. The 
bottom of the pit was first beat as firm as possible 
below the pipes, and scooped a little from the middle to 
the sides, and then covered with a couple of inches of 
grouting formed of gravel, sand, and lime, which set as 
firm as flint. The hollow was left for retaining moisture, 
when desirable, near the pipes. Over the bottom of the 
bed were arranged furnace clinkers, brickbats, &c, 
placed as hollow as could be done, to secure firmness; 
the hollowness being not only to allow the heat to 
permeate freely, but to save the material, as a consider¬ 
able quantity is wanted to secure a thickness of from 
