September 29. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
499 
; increase in number, till the cultivator, if an amateur, 
will have a difficulty to find room for his stock. 
Soil. —The Crocus thrives best in a rich, deep loam, 
not too light, nor yet too strong. In a geometrical 
(lower garden, the soil generally is properly drained and 
well-prepared for all kinds of flowers, and such prepa¬ 
rations suit the Crocus admirably ; but when it is 
cultivated for the sake of preparing the bulbs for the 
flower-garden the soil must be made very rich ; and in 
’ order to do that, a layer of well-decomposed dung, two 
inches thick, should be wheeled on the ground; the 
ground should then bo well dug, and the manure well 
incorporated with it. If opportunity serves, it would be 
desirable, after tbo first deep-digging with a long spade, 
to fork it over two or three times with a five-pronged 
fork, mixing the manure thoroughly with the soil. If it 
j is not of a sandy character, add a good layer of river- 
sand with the dung. 
Planting. —In the beds of the flower-garden where 
they are to bloom, plant no bulbs that are not of a fair 
size, such only beiug likely to bloom well. Each bed 
should have a separate colour, that is, one should be 
yellow, another white, and another purple, and another 
the striped varieties. By so arranging them, the effect 
is more rich and striking than if the colours are mixed. 
In some gardens (Trentham, for instance), there are 
long beds on the sides of the walks, and in such situa¬ 
tion they are planted in rows, each row being of a 
different colour. This has a very good appearance; the 
beds, when the Crocuses are in flower, look like a rich 
ribbon of the gayest colour. 
The best season for planting is about the first week 
in October; but they may be planted through the whole 
of that month, or even till the middle of November. 
Choose a dry day for the operation, and, if possible, when 
the ground is tolerably dry also. They may either be 
planted with a blunt dibber, or drills may be drawn with 
a triangular hoe, and the roots planted at the bottom of 
the drills. For beds on the turf, or in a geometrical 
flower-garden, the drills should be drawn across the 
beds; but in long, narrow borders, the drills, as a matter 
of course, should be drawn lengthwise. If they are 
planted with a dibber, the roots should be placed in rows 
on the beds, at their proper distances from each other in 
the row. The distances should be six inches between the 
rows, and four inches from bulb to bulb in the row. If 
the bulbs are good ones, and a fair size, the foliage will 
cover the ground entirely; and the blooms will stand 
thick upon the bed, so as nearly to touch each other. 
The depth they should be covered is two inches above 
the bulbs; the dibber should have a notch round it to 
show the depth, and the drill should be that depth also. 
I prefer the drill method myself, but it is not essentially 
superior to the dibbling system. In either case, I should 
recommend the holes made by the dibber, and the drills 
made by the hoe, to be filled up from a barrow of roughly- 
sifted Tich soil, to that of levelling them in with a rake ; 
there is a greater certainty of covering them the right 
depth by the former method, besides preventing the roots 
being misplaced, if the holes or the drills are levelled 
in with the rake. T. Appleby. 
•('To be continued.) 
JOTTINGS BY THE WAY. 
(Continued from 'page 483.) 
Manchester Botanic Gardens. —These gardens 
have greatly improved since I visited them two years 
ago. The subscribers, I understood, have increased, 
and thus the means of success in improvement have 
been afforded. One of the houses, formerly occupied 
with Orchids, has been converted into a house for that 
noble Water Lily, the Victoria Regia. When 1 saw it, 
about the middle of August last, it bad fourteen perfectly 
healthy leaves, the largest measured five-leet-seven-and- 
a-half-inches in diameter, and showed the beautiful 
crimson edge turned up full four inches, forming, as it j 
were, a large leafy saucer. There was a flower expanded, 
which measured fourteen inches across. The plant was J 
growing in a square tank, measuring superficially j 
424 square feet, yet there was not room for the immense \ 
leaves. Mr. Cameron, the respectable curator, said, he i 
found it necessary to bend the leaf stems, in order to : 
make room for the leaves. Certainly, it is a magnificent j 
production of nature, and must, in its native rivers, j 
form one of the grandest sights imaginable. I have a j 
sou at Demerara, and in a letter he sent me, be said, j 
that ono day he and some others took a boat and went 
up the river a considerable distance. They came to a 
part where the river formed a sort of bay, and on open¬ 
ing into it, they found the surface of the water so 
covered with the leaves and stems of the Victoria Lily, 
that they could not force the boat through them. My 
son, being rather ventursome, and a light weight, got 
out of the vessel and walked upon the leaves. They 
were so large, and the stems so interwoven with them, 
that they bore him up quite safely for some distance 
from the boat. 
In the large stove of the Manchester Garden, I noted 
a fine plant, in bloom, of the rarely seen-in-that-state, 
Yucca aloefolia. I was told it was twenty-three years 
old, and a splendid object it was, with its long spike 
of pure white flowers. Near it stood a magnificent 
Palm, the Caryota urens, in fruit; it had grown to the 
very top of the lofty dome in the centre, and was in 
danger of breaking through the roof. To prevent this, 
and preserve the top, Mr. Campbell hit upon the novel 
expedient of lowering the root. The soil was excavated 
around and under it, and it was gradually let down 
lower into the earth, some four or five feet. This not 
only lowered the top, but checked the rapid growth also. 
The plant did not seem much worse by the operation. 
Another Palm, the Rhapis Jiabelliformis, in the same 
house, was also in fruit. 
The greenhouse plants, for want of room, have been 
kept in small pots, and thus the dwarfing system, a-la 
Chinese, has beeu effected. This want of room, how¬ 
ever, is about to be remedied—a large conservatory is 
about to be built. I saw the stakes put down where it 
is to be erected. It is to be sixty-five yards in length, 
and forty-live in breadth, and of a proportionate height, 
and is intended to be a promenading winter garden, as 
well as an habitation for plants. This noble building 
will be a credit to the public-spirited subscribers, and a 
very agreeable place of resort for the numerous inhabi¬ 
tants of the large, flourishing city of Manchester. 
In these gardens there was, formerly, a large piece of 
ground set out as a garden, to exhibit all the best kinds 
of fruits and vegetables. It was found to be almost 
useless, and is now converted into the more pleasing 
object—a popular flower-garden. I am promised apian, 
or*sketch, of it, and all the flower-beds also, with their 
forms, and a list of the plants grown in them. I think 
my good friend, Mr. Beaton, will be pleased with it, and 
I shall submit it to his inspection. Perhaps he and our 
Editor may think it worth publishing in The Cottage 
Gardener. I have never seen a flower-garden that 
pleased me better. 
In a secluded part of these gardens I met with 
a Rose garden of considerable dimensions. In the 
centre was a circular bed about twelve feet dia¬ 
meter. A gravel walk surrounds it, and then a bed 
three feet wide, then a walk, succeeded by another 
bed, and so on to the outer circle These beds are 
crossed by four walks at right angles, leading to the 
centre bed. The Roses are planted in single rows; the 
