74 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 1. 
i trees. An officer, fond of flowers, had spent several 
years in India, and being about to return home, col¬ 
lected a great lot of various seeds. He came to reside 
in St. John’s Wood, Mary-le-bone, London, and visited i 
Pine-Apple Place, and offered Messrs. Henderson any 
of the seeds be had brought home. 1 was sent up to 
his house to examine them, and to his great surprize, 
1 told him ninety-nine out of a hundred were of no use 
in this country. They no doubt were fine things in an 
Indian climate, but we should require acres of glass as 
high as St. Paul’s to grow them. What could we do 
with Bauhinias, Greivias, Spathodeas, and such-like 
trees, in Britain? He then despairingly enquired, What 
! shall I collect when I return ? I answered, Dwarf, 
showy shrubs, such as Ixoras, or even the mere weeds 
i that had large flowers, highly coloured and sweet- 
scented ; such we should be glad of, and could find 
space to grow them. I tried to tempt him to collect 
Orchids; but no, they grow in the jungles of India, and it 
is, he said, almost certain death to go into them when 
the Orchids are in bloom ; but he would try to gather 
seeds of what they consider there as mere weeds. So 
it is in Australia. Persons unacquainted with what 
we already possess, or what is manageable here, send or 
bring over, in almost all cases, useless things. This is a 
little episode or digression, which I trust will be excused. 
It will be useful, perhaps, as a warning to some well- 
meaning but ignorant persons, who may visit foreign 
j countries, and may prevent them much useless labour 
and waste of time in collecting seeds. 
To return to those low-growing curious weeds of New 
Holland, the Stylidiums. 
CULTURE IN OUR GREENHOUSES. 
Propagation.— By Seeds. —The herbaceous species 
produce seed very frequently. Gather it as soon as it 
: is ripe, and sow immediately in peat, loam, and sand in 
1 equal parts. Sow it in well-drained, shallow pans, very 
lightly covered with fine sifted soil ; water sparingly, 
place them in a gentle heat, till the seedlings comeup and 
have made some progress ; then place the pans on a shelf 
near the glass in a good greenhouse till spring. As 
soon as the warm days return, pot them olf into the 
smallest tiny pots, and place them in a cold frame, 
shading from the sun, and sheltering from the cold at 
night. They will require repotting during the summer, 
and will make nice plants the spring following, and 
some will flower. 
By Cuttings. —The shrubby varieties should be in¬ 
creased by this method. In spring, take off young tops, 
trim off the lower leaves, insert them in sand in a gentle 
boat under a bell-glass, and sprinkle with water oc¬ 
casionally. They root quickly, and should then be 
potted off, kept close for a fortnight, and then treated 
like the old plants. 
By Division. —All the herbaceous species may be 
increased by dividing them. Take a plant with several 
stems, turn it out of the pot, and gently shake part of 
ihe soil from it; then pass a sharp knife-blade just 
through the crown of the plant as many times as there 
are stems, then pull them gently asunder, pot each 
division under a small pot, and place them under a 
hand-light, either in a warm pit or propagating bouse, 
or even a shady part of the greenhouse. They will soon 
make fresh roots and new growths, and as soon as that 
is perceived, the band-light should be lifted up to give 
air and dry up damps, and finally remove the glass off, 
and gradually inure the plants to bear full exposure. 
Then place them on a shelf near the glass in the green¬ 
house through the winter, giving small but frequent 
supplies of water to keep them alive. 
GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 
Soil. —I have used the following compost for these 
plants with perfect success: light loam, sandy peat, and 
leaf-mould in equal parts, well mixed together with a 
liberal addition of silver sand, the whole passed through 
a sieve with middling-sized meshes. 
rotting .—The proper time for this operation is in 
spring, just when the plants are beginning to make 
growth. As the greater part of the species are small 
growers, the pots should be in proportion in size ; they 
will not thrive in large pots. Let the pots be quite 
clean and sweet. Drain well with small crocks, and 
when the potting is finished, place all the pots as near 
to the glass as convenient; they love plenty of light. 
Watering .—This must be carefully given ; too much 
is quite as injurious as too little. In dry weather the 
plants should be looked over every day. Evening, 
except in frosty weather, is the best time for watering. 
Use rain-water always, if possible, or water which has 
been exposed to the air for some days; wet the leaves 
as little as possible. By paying due attention to these 
points of culture, these curiously-interesting plants may 
be successfully cultivated. T. Appleby. 
THE TWO PRAYERS. 
By the Authoress of “ My Flowers.” 
Some months ago, I was unusually delighted with a little 
circumstance introduced into an article in that very valuable 
and sound periodical, “ The Churchman’s Monthly Penny 
Magazine.” It is so simply and beautifully told, the anec¬ 
dote is so striking and affecting, and the subject so deeply 
important to all and each of us, that I cannot refrain from 
extracting it, and giving my readers the same pleasure I 
experienced, in the hope that to some it may be a “ word in 
season,” as well as an interesting fact. 
“ There was a good minister in Scotland, who used some¬ 
times to travel about from place to place upon his little 
grey pony, and he made this rule for himself, that wherever 
he staid the night, he would, if possible, get the people of 
the house together for family prayers. One night he ar¬ 
rived rather late at a little country inn, and one of his first 
questions was to ask the landlord if he would allow him to 
! assemble his family and lodgers for prayers, before they 
went to bed. The landlord made no objection, and the 
minister found quite a roomful when he went in to them, 
lie expressed his pleasure in seeing them, and asked if all 
were there ? ‘All, sir,’ said the landlord, ‘ except the little 
kitchen-maid, and she is too dirty and too ignorant to make 
one of us.’ ‘ Ah, my friend,’said the clergyman earnestly, 
‘ that poor girl has a soul to be saved, just as much as you 
or I have. Let me beg for her that she should come in 
to night.’ But the master did not seem to wish it, and the 
clergyman said no more till prayers were over, when he laid 
his hand upon the landlord’s shoulder,‘I should like to 
say a word to that little girl, if you would kindly allow me 
to see her.’ The landlord looked surprised, as if he thought 
he had rather a strange visitor in the house; however, he 
led the way to the back-place, where the little maid was 
very busy washing up her dishes. 
“ The clergyman began to talk to her, and found, indeed, 
that she was as ignorant as she was dirty. She did not 
seem to know or care anything about her soul. At last he 
said, ‘ I am going to teach you a little prayer, and if you 
will promise to learn it, and use it every morning and every 
night until I come again, I will bring you a smart new 
handkerchief from Edinburgh.’ The girl’s eyes brightened 
at this, and she promised. Then the minister said seriously, 
“ You will never care to be saved, until you know what 
danger you are in; and you will never know you are in 
danger, until you see how full of sin your heart is. I want 
you to ask God every day, ‘ Lord, show me myself! ’ It is a 
short prayer.’ The girl repeated it after him, and promised 
to use it every day. The minister then went away and left 
her. 
“ The next time he came to the inn on his little grey pony, 
—it was some months after,—he asked the landlord, after 
he had enquired after the rest of his family, ‘ and pray how 
