0 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Apbil 3. 
forced and spring plants in bloom, such as Chinese 
Primulas, Epacrises, Narcissus, Hyacinths, early Tulips, 
Cinerarias, Coronillas, Cytisus, and many others, among 
which was an excellent Azalea, called Waterer’s Vitata 
rosea; the colours were straw, rose, and white stripes. 
Mr. Henderson told me this was the best forcing one he 
knew, as it required very little heat to bring it on thus 
early. 
There are two houses entirely for Chinese Azaleas, 
except that Camellias are grown against the back wall of 
one of them—the regular Azalea house; the irregular 
house, if 1 may so call it, stretches along the back of the 
regular, and with a dead north or north-east aspect; the 
large specimen plants in this north house will not show 
a single bloom till all those in the regular house have 
done blooming; thus, without forcing, these Azaleas will 
be had in bloom till late in June; so that by a system 
of forcing, tins one tribe could he had in bloom every 
day from November till June or July. They and all the 
Camellias require only one half the fuel that bedding 
Geraniums require to keep them in good condition. 
I do not know a single individual among our highest 
nobility who indulges one half so freely in the luxury 
of these Camellias and Azaleas as Mr. Byatn Martin, 
and he is the only gentleman that I know of, in the 
three kingdoms, who is growing pot Vines on the right 
principle, and that principle is, that they should pay for 
their keep. It is all very well to fill the heads of young 
amateurs with the notion that Vines can be grown in 
pots to pay their cost, or to tell a city prince that 
nothing pays better than farming, if be would but try; 
but all that is moonshine to an old gardener like me, 
who knows very well that no man ever yet succeeded in 
growing Vines in pots at less cost than he could buy 
them in the market, or grow them up against the rafters, 
f told, in ray autobiography, who first introduced the 
right way of growing pot-vines—Mr. Niven, now of 
Dublin, and here the plan is improved on, according to 
the improvements of the age. The Vines are from eyes 
one season, and trained up where there is room for them, 
and in November they are turned out of the pots, the 
balls plunged in good melon-soil, enriched over a tank- 
bed, and the rods are trained over trellis, just like so 
many Cucumbers; when the crop is over, the Vines are 
rooted out and thrown away to make room for Melons, 
or Cucumbers, or both, and the pit to be ready by the 
following November for a fresh lot of plants. Once you 
get them “ on their legs” on this plan, there is no more 
work or bother with them than would be with Vines 
against a cottage wall. I would recommend this as the 
best plan for the earliest crop to all those who want 
Grapes every day irf the year, and to others who can 
grow Vines in one year so as to be in a condition to 
fruit the next season. The great art is in growing, not in 
putting the Vines in pots. There are two varieties of 
Egyptian, or Indian, Grapes, which will fruit here this 
season, on this plan, for the first time in England—the 
Hubshee, a plum, or copper-coloured Grape, aud the 
Abee, or Able, a white kind. Do any of our readers 
know these Grapes in their native places? 
There is anewly-built pit, east and west, with abackpas- 
sage inside, over which are two shelves against the back 
wall; the top shelf was filled with Black Prince Straw¬ 
berries, in fruit, and the lower shelf with two or three early 
kinds of Kidney Beans in pots, and all in the highest 
health and bearing. The Early Six Weeks Bean were fairly 
tried against Fulmers Early, and the experiment has 
proved the rascality of some one, for the “ Six Weeks ” 
is nearly so many weeks behind the older kind. Would 
that we had brass pens, to write down that kind of 
deception which killed our brave soldiers, and which tries 
to cheat us with false names and colours at home. The 
Early Six Weeks Bean is not worth forcing at all as 
compared with Fulmer s Early Bean. There is another 
i parallel range of large pits, or narrow Dutch houses, 
and both are chambered and heated with hot-water pipes 
with a close covering of slate over them; the front range 
is devoted to the fruiting of Grapes, and for growing 
Melons and Cucumbers, but with a division between; 
and the back range is now filled with an immense 
quautity of bedding-plants, all potted off some time 
since. Unique, Cerise, and Lady Middleton Geraniums 
i seem to be great favourites, also the new variegated ones; 
and some of the Tom Thumbs are bigger than Barnum 
himself. At the farthest end of this division are a 
number of Cherry-trees in full bloom, (middle of March,) 
with the same heat as the bedders, and on the back 
shelves were succession pots of Strawberries; from this 
you enter by a division door into a regular orchard- 
house, or rather such a crop in pots, for this division is 
as substantially built as the others. The Peaehes and 
Nectarines were just setting with a fair “show;” the 
Elruge Nectarine being the best promising. The back 
shelves were full of Strawberries coming on. 
The early Vinery was very promising; but in the pit 
will be the earliest Grapes. Mr. Henderson told me, 
that he w r ould thin the Cannon Hall Grape in the bud, 
before the flower-buds opened, and tliat he would dust 
them with other pollen as they were open; if he 
thus succeeds in setting them, he will have the best 
Cannon Hall Muscats in the county of Surrey this 
season. 
But the object of my visit was to see the effect 
of the frost out-of-doors, and 1 am glad to say, that not¬ 
withstanding the large assortments of the linest 
Rhododendrons, Pines, Cypresses, and all that class 
of plants, they have hardly lost a leaf. The Cephalotaxi 
appear as hardy as old Yew, they are in that style; but 
of a much better green the common Yew; there is not 
a brown leaf on them. Taxodium sempervirens, twenty 
feet high, is nearly as green as it was last October; yet 
it seems the most touchy of all our new trees. Here they 
are hardly a hundred yards from the Thames, aud not 
many feet above tide mark. The Funebral Cypress escaped 
entirely; some plants of it here are four feet high, and 
bushy from the grass, and not a leaf has been browned. 
Skinneria Japonica looks like a young Pontic Rhododen¬ 
dron, and seems as hardy; two plants of it were then 
coming into bloom like a Daphne, but it is in the scarlet 
berries, in winter, that the value of this low evergreen is 
more conspicuous. Libocedrus cliilensis, now about four 
feet high, and “ well clothed,” has not a leaf browned, but 
one short branch near the top is killed, by some accident, 
not by the frost. This will make a noble evergreen some 
day. Fitzroya patagonica, six feet high, is browned in 
the leaves, but the wood is not hurt. Cupressus thurifera 
elegans, “ the handsomest of the tribe,” is also a little 
browned in the leaves, as are also those of Picea nobilis, 
and those are all that I could see the least touched of all 
the Conifers here, and the most of them are at that 
particular stage of size and growth which is most sus¬ 
ceptible of hurt by frost. Witness the following list— 
Abies morinda, ten feet. Douglassii, thirty-six feet. 
Thuja compacta, aurea, and pendula, all about four feet. 
Wareana, nine feet. Cupressus macrocarpa alias Lum¬ 
ber tiana, fourteen feet. C. goveniana, nearly the same. 
Juniperus Chinensis, fourteen feet. Pinus excelsa, ten 
feet. Jnsignis, from ten to twenty-four feet. Mac¬ 
rocarpa, eighteen feet. Montezeuma, Llareana, Sabi- 
niana, Monticola, Halepensis, all under ten feet, and not 
the least touched ; but Pinus mmicata, aud Ayacahuite, 
are slightly browned. Cryptomeria Japonica, from eight 
to fifteen feet, all untouched in the least. Indeed, there 
were no trees or shrubs hurt by the frost here, except a 
few of the best hybrid Rhododendrons, and that was 
from the sun one or two days. The best of the new 
Sikkim Rhododendrons passed the winter here with 
impunity. I handled a plant of Ciliaris nearly a yard 
