THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 22 . 
neglected, yet, in a garden supported by the public purse, 
it is but just that it should bo so managed as to give 
pleasure to the general run of visitors. 
NEW PLANTS. 
In now or rare plants there were not many in bloom. 
One, named Besleria aniens, a beautiful plant, with 
bright orange-coloured blossoms, sent to Kew by Mr. 
Linden, of Brussells, promises to be a useful plant, worth 
everybody’s growing. 
In a low house, used as a nursing stove, I saw a very 
strange looking plant that had made its appearance out 
of some foreign soil. Mr. Houlston said it was thought 
to be a species of Streptocarpus. It had only ono leaf, 
and no stem. The leaf was six inches long, and nearly 
as broad. It laid itself Hat to the soil, and hung over 
the pot edge. From the root end of this large, strange- 
looking leaf the flower-stems spring, bearing numerous 
slender.branches and many (lowers on each, about half- 
an-inch across, and of a pleasing light blue colour. 
Unless this novel and most curious, and at the same 
time pretty flowering plant produces seeds, I do not see 
how it can be increased for distribution. 
The Orchidaceous Plants arc removed into a new, low 
lean-to house, where they are improving very much. It 
is, however, no new discovery that low, close houses 
suit Orchids best. 
In the open grounds, I was grieved to see many of the 
Coniforse much injured, but more especially on the side 
facing the north wind. Many of the Cupressinae and 
Juniperinse had their branches killed on that side, whilst 
the south side was as green and fresh as possible. This 
shows the necessity of shelter from winds blowing from 
tho north in frosty weather. Taxodium sempervirens, 
on the contrary, was browned, and the young shoots 
killed on every side. The fine Auracaria imhricata, 
perhaps the oldest in England, has greatly improved in 
its appearance. 1 had not seen it for three or four years, 
it was then an umbrella-looking tree, having lost all its 
branches; but now the lowest tier, and tho next to it, 
hang down nearly touching the ground, which gives it a 
pleasing, drooping character, quite different to any tree 
of the kind I know. I was glad to find the common 
Arbutus had stood tho winter’s breeze bravely; not a 
leaf appeared to be injured. T. Appleby. 
SELECTING THE SITUATION AND ASPECT 
FOR A GARDEN. 
In the first place, I may hazard an opinion, which I 
know is at variance with the one generally received, 
that a garden lying on a hill side facing the south is 
not always the earliest and most productive. To make 
my meaning clear, let us suppose a river running east 
or west through a valley of level land, say a mile wide, 
but that the ground on each side of this valley rises 
gradually until the summit of the hills is attained, 
which we will suppose to be 400 feet above the bed of 
the river on both sides, or we might double that ele¬ 
vation, but 400 feet is as much as is generally to be 
found at right angles to our English streams. 
Now, many people would supposo that a garden 
placed half-way down tho slope facing the south, would 
be much earlier than the same place on the opposite 
ono, and better adapted for gardening in every respect. 
This notion, I confess, for a long time I held, .and 
imagined the difference would amount to something 
like a week or so, when the two places were near each 
other, and local circumstances alike in both; but having 
had repeated chances to see the cultivation of both sides, 
my opinion of the “warm, sunny side” has been much 
altered ; and though 1 will not deny the possibility of 
the one facing the south being the earliest, it is certainly 
not so to the extent 1 imagined, and many other people 
believe. 
It may be true that the sun, whose rays would seem 
to strike more directly upon the surface more nearly at 
right angles with his meridian and strength, would heat 
such a place more than when such rays pass over in a 
half vertical direction, but in like manner the surface 
loses heat proportionately faster at night by evaporation. 
So that in reality the difference is not so porceptible as 
many people expect it to be. 
One thing, I dare say, wo shall all acknowledge, 
namely, that th<5 level flat land at the bottom is earlier 
than cithei\ This, I think, is a settled question, and 
I am willing to give a little advantage to what people 
call the favoured side, by admitting it may be so much 
earlier as to account for some fifty feet of elevation, 
the inclination being the same in both ; or, in other 
words, I will admit that a garden on the north side 
of the river, elevated 100 feet above it, may be as 
early as one on the other side fifty feet up ; shelter and 
other conditions being the same in both cases. 
I may here observe, that I have not confined my ob¬ 
servations to mere gardening matters, but taken a wider 
range, the shooting and ripening of corn, expanding of 
fruit blossom, spring in grass, and other features, which 
convey a more correct notion of the real nature of the 
place than the half-artificial condition in which gardens 
usually are kept in. For example, of the neutralising 
effects produced by heat and cold on a garden facing 
the south, as stated above, let us take it, for iustance, 
after a dry, sunny day in April, when the ground is dry; 
such days, in fact, of which the present spring offered 
many; well, then, we all know that large breadths in 
every kitchen-garden present their naked surfaces to 
the “ monarch of the day,” and are heated by him to a 
more or less extent, according to circumstances during 
the day; but then night comes, and a cool, chilly atmo¬ 
sphere sets in, accompanied, as in nine cases out of ten, 
with a north or cast wind, or one mid-way between. 
Now, it must be born in mind, the valley was heated 
as well as the slope, and it, too, is subjected to the 
cooling influence of the night; large volumes of the 
heated air in the valley is cooled down, or drawn up¬ 
wards, and its place supplied by this from the direction 
from which the wind blows. Now, as that is very often 
from the north, the chilly, cold air which loiters all day 
on the hill tops is driven down at night to replace the 
heated air in the valley carried upwards, or rather 
rendered more dense by the withdrawal of heat. This 
current of cold air passing ovor tho garden in question, 
is not likely to do so without imparting a certain degree 
of cold to it likewise. But then, it will be asked, does 
not the same effect follow on the southern side? Most 
certainly it would, were it not that the number of nights 
in which the wind is in tho north out-number by odds 
those in which it is in a contrary direction, and, con¬ 
sequently, the valley is cooled down by air from the 
northern slope ; while the garden on the southern slope 
is, in all probability, less disturbed by such curi'ents, 
and more truly in a state of repose. Most certainly, 
when we have spring frosts, they are more severe on the 
slope lying southwards than when in the contrary 
direction. Thus the advantages of what many call a 
“ well lying plot of ground ” has often been overstated; 
not that I mean to condemn gardens so situated; on the 
contrary, they possess many advantages, but it is not 
right to magnify these, nor to detract from the other; 
for, as I have said, the merits of the two are much 
nearer balanced than is generally known. 
Public opinion has much changed the last twenty or 
thirty years, on the sites most suitable for gardens, as 
well as in many things connected with their culture, 
