Aprtl 10. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
23 
fore, when -an Acacia is big enough for its place on the 
wall, or in the pot, all you have to mind is this, that 
every bit of it which dowered that spring may be cut in 
to the last joint or two; and during the summer the 
shoots or young wood are to be kept thin rather than 
crowded. D. Beaton. 
LITTLE MATTERS. 
There are few things that please me more than 
meeting with habits of thoughtfulness among young 
gardeners. Great improvements have taken place as 
respects the heating and mechanical powers brought to 
bear upon gardening; but I question if, as a whole, 
young men pay half the attention to “ little matters” that 
they were forced to do twenty years ago. There were 
failures then; failures from sheer carelessness, from 
thorough want of thinking rather than from want of 
theoretic intelligence, are quite as frequent now, when 
there is less excuse for them. In those by-gone days, 
when quirks and great secrets were hoarded more 
carefully than they are now, a youngster would be apt to 
be told by a grey-headed veteran to do as he was bid, 
and let the thinking alone to him. Now, it is in¬ 
dispensable that authority should be respected, and 
definite instructions and orders faithfully carried out; 
but few masters, even if they did not adopt, would fail 
to listen attentively to any suggestion of an assistant 
for performing a particular operation in a different way. 
Notwithstanding the increasing numbers of clever young 
men—and they are increasing wonderfully—there is a 
growing complaint, that extra attention and thought¬ 
fulness are not keeping pace with more general and 
professional intelligence. I have seen men start several 
times from their breakfast to give or to reduce air, as the 
sky was clear or clouded; and something of this attention 
was required to cut Cucumbers in dung-beds in January, 
and Melons in April and May. Improvements, and 
acquaintance with general principles, may have obviated 
the necessity of such absolute nicety, but there seems to 
be a growing tendency to perform operations somewhat 
mechanically, which too often precipitates results that 
never could have been arrived at had the operator 
merely troubled himself to think. 
LITTLE MATTERS IN WATERING. 
During the last twelvemonths. I have met with many 
instances of great thoughtfulness among young gardeners, 
no less great because the actions developing it were in 
themselves so trivial and simple. Allow me to mention 
a few. There is Jacob Careful watering some tender 
plants in a stormy day in February, as they stand in a 
pit properly heated. The sash is opened sufficiently to 
admit the suitable performing of the'operations, and a 
mat is suspended over the opening. At no great distance, 
Jack Slasher is leisurely performing a similar operation, 
with the sash drawn back and the cold wind making the 
leaves a tempting bait for insects, if not candidates for 
rubbish-heap fame. Here comes the same Slasher to a 
batch of small seedlings—Lobelias, Calceolarias, &c. 
He sees the soil is dry, some of tire plants are just 
appearing, others not yet perceptible, and down comes a 
refresher, in the shape of a torrent from a watering-pot, 
and then the wonder grows, that the seedlings shank off 
by the surface of the soil, and many never coming at 
ail, furnish a nice tirade against the rogue of a seeds¬ 
man, who sends out stuff never intended to vegetate ; 
when a fairish microscope would discover the seed 
drenched down to a depth beyond the possibility of 
germinating, or washed overboard, and swept away by 
the washing and sweeping of shelves and paths. There 
is Mr. Careful preparing the same needful operation to 
seeds taken, in all likelihood, from the same general 
store ; but see, he lias got a concave piece of broken pot 
in his hand, or a small oyster-shell; he holds that a little 
slanting, close to the inside rim of his seed-pot, and on 
that he ponrs gently a sufficiency of heated water to 
flood the seedlings sufficiently, and wet the soil to the 
bottom; and his seed-pots, in consequence, are as full 
and as promising as possible. Fie has a few others that 
are still more sensitive to moisture retained about their 
tiny stems, and he takes the pots of these and sets them 
in a vessel of water, that the moisture may be admitted 
from beneath. Or, after having prepared his pots 
properly, and seen that the compost was well moistened 
previously to sowing, the pots are then plunged thinly in 
such a body as moss, so that by keeping the latter wet, 
sufficient moisture is absorbed by the pots without 
watering, and thus one great cause of failure is obviated. 
Even the simple thing of preparing such moss is im¬ 
portant. Slasher brings it at once from wood, or dell, 
j and cannot conceive where numberless little slugs that 
crop over his seedlings so admirably come from. Careful 
takes the precaution to saturate his moss in a tub with 
| hot lime-water, and no cropping or eating over valuable 
| seedlings annoys him. 
LITTLE MATTERS ABOUT CUCUMBERS. 
I might fill volumes with such valuable trifles as these. 
I will merely mention two more oases. Here are Cu¬ 
cumbers growing in a house, bottom heat supplied by 
hot-water; they are getting exhausted, and a fresh top¬ 
dressing is resolved upon. The success of the plan will 
greatly depend on getting roots to ramify freely in the 
fresh, new compost. Mr. Slasher puts the compost 
properly on, and trusts to Hercules or to luck for a 
favourable result. Mr. Careful has abjured all chance 
inter-meddlings, and trusts to right-directed efforts; and 
having the fresh dressing put on all right, he covers the 
surface with slates or tiles. The absorption of heat by 
these from the sun, the retention of the heat passing 
through the earth, from the medium of heating beneath, 
causes the fresh surface to be nice and warm, and these 
entice the roots to enter and ramify in it, and soon the 
compost is interlaced with vigorous, healthy absorbents; 
while the compost of Mr. Slasher is comparatively un¬ 
occupied. 
Here are Cucumbers growing in a common dung-bed 
frame; the leaves are so nigh the glass, that they can 
escape scorching only by shading; it is resolved to lift 
the "frame four or eight inches. Common bricks put 
below the four corners of the bed are as good as may be 
for this purpose, and Mr. Slasher soon does it; and 
relying upon it, he has the satisfaction of having the 
foliage burnt some few days afterwards, because the 
foliage was as near the glass as ever, or the steam from 
the linings has got in through some opening at the 
sides not properly secured. The weight of the frame 
soon pressed the bricks down into the decomposing 
materia], and the box gets back again into its old place. 
Mr. Careful prevents all this. He places a broad piece 
of board, the length of several bricks, across the corners 
of the frame for the bricks to rest upon, and sinking is 
thus prevented; while rotten or sweet dung is beat 
round the frame outside, and the earth is firmly secured 
all round the inside, to prevent any steam from dung 
not perfectly sweet from entering, and no prejudicial 
result does or can well follow. 
LITTLE MATTERS ABOUT FRAMES. 
Some such occurrence as the last, blended with views 
of economy, no doubt, elicited some of the ideas con- 
| tained in the letter, from “A young Gardener—Fulham,” 
1 that has prompted these remarks. To these propositions 
j 1 will now shortly advert. 
