April 24. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
57 
KIDNEY BEANS. 
Scarlet Benner Beans. — This prolific and useful crop 
to the cottager should he sown the first or second week this 
month. The selection of a favourable situation we leave to 
the cottager himself, who is best able to judge where it will be 
most desirable for him to grow them, either to form an 
arbour in his allotment, to hide unsightly objects, or to cover 
I his cotttage-porch. The greatest produce may be expected 
| when sown in circles, two feet in diameter, and four feet 
apart, tied to stakes four or five feet high, and frequently 
stopped during their growth. 
Dwarf Kidney Beans. —Sow the first week for a full 
crop in July. 
CABBAGE WOKTS. 
Cauliflowers.— A little seed should be sown about the 
middle of the month. The crop will come into use in 1 
October. 
Brussels Sprouts, Borecole, and Savoys. —A little 
seed of each should be sown for the last crops, and of 
German Greens to come in for spring use. 
Transplant Lettuces , Cabbages , Brocoli and all other 
such things from the seed-beds on light soil, with rotten ; 
dung beneath, into which they emit fibrous roots, and can 
he safely moved with hulbs in showery weather. 
VEGETABLE MAEROW. 
This delicious vegetable is useful for culinary purposes in 
every stage of its growth, and is generally appreciated by 
the cottager. The seed should be sown early in the month 
under a hand-glass, with a very gentle bottom heat, and 
may be transplanted in showery weather, about the end of 
the month or the beginning of June, into good rich ground. 
When the runners have extended a few feet, and have been 
stopped, and again made shoots, if they are pegged down 
at the joints they will soon take root and flourish, if 
copiously supplied with water, or, what is better, with liquid- 
manure, in dry weather. 
RIDGE CUCUMBERS. 
If the cottager is ambitious to grow a few to give some 
degree of importance to his salad, and is prepared to devote 
a little extra attention to then cultivation, it is necessary to 
he provided with a small heap of dung that was frequently 
turned over until the rank steam had entirely evaporated, 
and with a few hand-lights, or a small frame, to protect the 
young plants, when they are turned out of the pots into the 
soil. The length of the trench, which should be three feet 
wide and eighteen inches deep, will depend upon the num¬ 
ber of hand-lights, or the width or length of the frame; 
it should then be filled with the dung, and in a few days 
hillocks of light rich soil, one foot thick and three feet apart, 
should he made, and the plants, two in a pot, that had been 
stopped beyond the first rough-leaf, should be turned out of 
their pots about the middle of the month, and planted in 
the centre of each hillock, covered with the hand-lights, and 
shaded for a few days. When they have established them¬ 
selves, and begin to grow, air should be given, and frequent 
earthings to the plants as their roots appear on the sides, 
hy which means they grow better than when planted at 
first in a large body of soil. Successful management will 
depend upon proper attention being given to stopping and 
thinning the shoots, and to regular and careful supplies of 
water. 
TURNIP CULTURE. 
The best season for sowing Swedish Turnips is from the 
middle of this month, in high, exposed situations, and about 
the middle of June, in low, warm situations. Aberdeen and 
Bale’s Hybrid from the middle of June to the first week in 
July, and for White Rounds anytime in July. If the ground 
had been dug in the autumn, and thrown up into ridges, as 
practised by gardeners, in straight lines, about twenty-four 
inches from centre to centre, it will be in a good, mellow, i 
and pulverised state for receiving the seed ; but if it had not ! 
been then done, the sooner it is done the better, and when 
the time arrives for sowing, the manure is spread between 
the ridges and covered by splitting them with the spade, 
breaking all clods, and patting down the surface of the drill 
with the back of the spade ; a shallow drill is then to be 
drawn on the crown of the ridge with the corner of a hoe, 
in which the seed may be sown with the hand, or from a 
bottle with a hit of goose-quill inserted in the cork, and 
then covered by drawing the back of the rake along the 
drill. A little guano or fowl’s dung scattered along the 
drills will excite the young seedlings into rapid vegetation ; 
when the rough-leaf is formed, the crop is safe from the 
attacks of the turnip fiy, which in some, and especially dry, 
seasons, commits great havoc amongst the young plants. 
The after-success of the crop depends upon thinning the 
plants from ten to twelve inches apart as soon as the 
rough-leaf is an inch broad, aud upon keeping the ground 
quite free from weeds. If vacancies occur, they may be 
filled up by sowing the other and later sorts described. 
Buck wheat. —This grain is useful for feeding poultry 
and pigs; it will grow, if sown broadcast in the beginning of 
the month, on any patch of inferior land on the allotment. 
CULTIVATION OF FLOWERS. 
Although I have not in my preceding communications on 
Allotment Gardening vouchsafed a hint on the cultivation of 
flowers, I do not see why the delightful amusement and 
recreation of rearing and tending the most various and 
interesting productions of nature should be excluded from 
the cottager’s enjoyments. Although there are many who 
look back with a wistful eye to old habits and old times, 
who prefer the wild-rose of the hedges, with its sharp and 
prickly thorns, with its poor and ragged blossoms, to all the 
advantages which cultivation has given to tlm rich progeny 
of more beautiful sorts, and who would confine education 
for the cottager to the narrow limits of being only able to 
read sufficiently to spell through his Bible, or to know 
sufficient of figures that he may not commit a mistake 
when sent to the neighbouring market by his master; 
nevertheless, the time is approaching when the gardener 
will be more at home amongst the cottagers, cultivating 
their faculties, unfolding new capabilities, elevating them to 
a level with prouder flowers, assisting them to rise above 
the eartliiness around them, and to take a loftier station 
as moral and social members of society. 
The Honeysuckles and Clematis on the cottage-porch 
should never be allowed to become entangled in their 
growth before they are trained. 
The Fuchsia, beautiful in its pendent habit of growth, 
beautiful in the vividness, variety and distinctness of its 
flowers, and beautiful for many months in bloom in the 
cottager’s window or flower-garden, requires equal parts of 
turfy-loam and leaf-mould, with a liberal sprinkling of sand, 
and to be now shifted into larger-sized pots with good 
drainage; to be carefully supplied with water during the 
growing season, and occasionally with liquid manure when 
in bloom. 
Dahlias. —Whoever have heen so fortunate as to save 
their old roots during the last severe winter should start 
them as soon as possible into growth ; by placing them in 
any warm, sheltered situation, and protecting them from 
frosts at night, they will soon begin to vegetate ; when two 
or three inches long, they may be divided into pieces, 
retaining an eye to each. Towards the end of the month 
they can be planted out with safety into some good, rich, 
well-dunged soil, and trained up with three or four stems, 
tied to stout stakes as they advance in growth. They 
require a liberal supply of water during dry weather, and 
the flower-stalks to be thinned to produce large blooms. 
W. Keane. 
NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE EXHIBITION OF 
POULTRY. 
For some time past the impression seemed to extend 
itself, that the taste for Poultry was gradually decreasing in 
public estimation; the Exhibition held, however, in the 
Corn Exchange, at New r castle-on-Tyne, on Wednesday and 
Thursday, the 11th and 12th of April, gives the most 
positive and direct refutation to such an opinion. It was not 
