COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
April 17. 
45 
Gardener for lowish-roofed houses. It, however, looks 
uncommonly well, and for parties who are near towns, and 
who wish a very cheap house, it will be quite an easy matter 
to get windows in these shop-altering days at five shillings 
each ; for a glazier will not take out the glass for its value, 
and the window will not be put into a new house. This 
house is seventeen-and-a-lialf feet long, three feet eight 
inches wide, three feet eleven inches high in front, and 
live feet eight inches high at the back (the two top windows 
being two or three inches wider than the side ones). 
The expense of this house w r as, for the live windows, twenty- 
live shillings; for posts, hinges, screws, and mending 
a pane or two of broken glass, ten shillings; in all, only 
thirty-five shillings for a greenhouse of about sixty square 
feet of ground area ! 
I have only one word to say as to my fire. I always 
attend to it myself. When I rise in the mornings, I supply 
it; it is then very seldom out; I give a farther supply when 
I go to my business at nine. It occasionally gets a mend 
in the forenoon; but those days it has not it is still alive at 
half-past three, when I get home ; I then put on some 
more coals. I again mend it as I leave at seven, and finally, 
as I get home at ten. This is all the trouble it gives. So 
you see, if large pieces of coal were put in, they would soon 
blaze off, and it would be continually out when I went to it. 
I made atrial, yesterday morning, at six, in a little frost and 
no sun; there was no fire on during the night, and I found 
the thermometer, hanging in the very middle of the house, to 
rise gradually 10° in half-an-hour from the time of putting 
the lucifer-match to the lighting in the furnace.—A. G. 
Edinburgh. 
P.S. The adage goes, “ Experience teaches fools ; ’’ but 
experience may teach wiser men. At any rate, any one 
may see, that by certain modifications on No. 1, such a 
house might be made for about seven pounds; such as 
having more brick and less glass for the sides; ordering the 
small wood three by two inches, and afterwards ripping it 
up ; using glass broader than mine ; and which I see, from 
advertisements in The Cottage Gardener, could be got 
for tbe same price I paid for mine, which would thus reduce 
the quantity and price of wood ; with such other retrench¬ 
ments as might present themselves to the builder. 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
GARDENING. 
BLOOMING FORTUNE’S YELLOW AND COPPER- 
COLOURED ROSES. 
“ Will you do me the favour to give me some information 
on the proper mode of treating Fortune’s yellow and copper- 
coloured Roses, to ensure their flowering ? I have a plant 
i of each on a south wall; they grow well, but do not flower. 
| —A. P. B. H.” 
[No one about London seems to hit the right way of 
flowering these Roses. When they flowered in the Garden of 
the Society, people said that Mr. Fortune’s estimate of them 
was at fault; but we heard of some one near IJereford, 
some friend of Mr. Bentham, the great botanist, who used 
to be connected with the Society, who bloomed them “mag¬ 
nificently.” Can Mr. Goodsal, or some other friend in that 
quarter, tell us how ? We are all in the dark here about 
them, as much so as A. P. B. H.] 
MUSHROOM BEDS.—ARCHDUKE CHARLES PEAR. 
“ I have a Mushroom-bed which was finished soiling 
(having been previously spawned) on Saturday last. I have 
now covered it over seven or eight inches thick, lightly , with 
littery-dung. I expect to have to remove this before any 
j Mushrooms make their appearance. How long must I 
I allow it to remain on the bed before I remove it ? How 
: long will it be before I may expect any Mushrooms ? and 
how long will the bed (eight feet long by two-and-a-half 
; broad) continue bearing ? Also, the character of the Arch- 
j dulce Charles Pear ? Is it early or late ; large or small ? and 
what aspect suits it thirteen miles north of York ?—J. R., 
Easingwold." 
[The Archduke Charles Pear, or, as it is sometimes called, 
Charles d'Autriche, is, when well grown, three to three-and- 
a-half inches long, and two-and-a-half wide; of an abrupt, 
conical shape, and ripens in October. It likes a warm soil, 
and warm situation, and, therefore, north of Y 7 ork it would 
succeed best against a wall; a west aspect would do. 
Keep the covering of litter on the Musliroom-bed all the 
time it is producing, regulating the thickness of the covering 
by the temperature of the bed. The bed ought to begin 
producing four or five weeks from the time of making, and 
should continue yielding Mushrooms for several months. All 
this depends upon the favourable temperature and correct 
spawning of the bed.] 
BLOOMING GUERNSEY LILIES THE SECOND 
YEAR. 
“I should be much obliged if you would kindly give me 
all the particulars of Guernsey Lily culture. I am led to 
believe it is very difficult, but not impossible, to blossom 
them the second year, and am very anxious to do my best 
for that end. Mine blossomed finely last year, and are at 
present throwing up strong-looking leaves. I have no glass, 
but a hotbed and cold pit, though, if desirable, the plants 
could be kept in a warm sitting-room. Would the climate 
here (south-west part of Dorset) be too cold to adopt, with 
any chance of success, the mode practised and recommended 
by C. B. Saunders, of the Caesarean Nursery, Jersey, page 
86 of your 260th number? Perhaps, if that gentleman 
catches sight of this application in your Magazine, he would 
kindly add any hints. 
“ Do you find many complaints of the loss of Carnations 
from this hard winter? I have always understood them be to 
comparatively hardy; but this winter, though I have 
preserved nearly 500 Geraniums, Salvias, Verbenas, Ac., 
in the pit, I have lost full half the Carnations in the 
garden.—J. S. K.” 
[No one in the British Islands ever flowered the Guernsey 
Lily two years running under any mode of management; 
and we fear, if all the nurserymen in Guernsey, or Jersey, 
were to fill The Cottage Gardener with all they know 
about them, you would never do the least good with them. 
We have heard no complaints yet about Carnations 
having suffered by the frost, but it is not at all unlikely.] 
COMPOST FOR THE COCKSCOMB. 
“ Can you inform me, in your next number, whatis considered 
the best or richest compost for Cockscombs when they have 
attained the height of two inches ? and also the best liquid- 
manure for them ? The valuable information in your volume 
for 1848 does not clearly state the mixtures. Your other 
numbers I am sorry to say I have not, between that 
and 1854.— An Amateur and Subscriber.” 
[Any sweet, fresh soil, rather light, will grow the Cocks¬ 
comb well, if the pot is well drained, and strength given by 
weak manure-waterings. Of artificial manures, good guano 
is the best, one ounce to the gallon ; from domestic animals, 
we prefer cow-dung after the liquid has fermented, and been 
cleared with a little quick lime thrown into it. About a 
bushel of cow-dung would do for a 36-gallon barrel, and 
then, when using the liquid, you must add to it an equal 
quantity of clean water. One part of good fresh loam from 
the side of a highway, one fourth part of decayed sweet 
leaf-mould, and one fourth silver sand, will grow Cockscombs 
admirably. We have used dried nodules of cow-dung with 
good effect, instead of leaf-mould, but the dung was two 
years old. The plants dearly like a little Fottom-heat.] 
PROMOTING THE GROWTH OF CAMELLIAS. 
“ Will it do to put my Camellias into the Greenhouse, 
now that they are making their wood? The house has a 
constant fire to keep the Vines growing which are in it. 
