THE COTTAGE GARDENER 
July 31. 
316 
appreciated, and that those best adapted for their specified 
purposes would pass for their sterling value, and that the 
others found deficient would he rejected as worthless. 
Cloves, Carnations, and Picotees should he layered 
at once. The pegs for fastening them can be made of any 
small, green twigs, such as privet, willow, &c., cut to the 
lengths desired, and bent double when they crack at the 
angle, and remain sufficiently tough for the purpose intended. 
Roses in abundance should adorn the garden of every 
cottager. The half-ripened wood of China, Noisette, and 
other Roses should be put in a shady border where they will 
strike freely. Proceed with budding when the bark rises 
freely. 
Cuttings of Scarlet and other Geraniums will now 
strike in the open ground, exposed to the sun, and watered 
occasionally if the weather is dry. 
All Flower Seeds should be gathered as they ripen. 
The capsules or seed-pods of Carnations, Picotees, and 
Pinks, should be covered, or they are apt to rot. 
A few Cuttings of every description of plants for bedding- 
out should now be put in, to be potted off before autumn, 
when they become strong plants, and better able to withstand 
the severity of winter. 
The bettor sorts of Herbaceous Plants which it is 
desirable to multiply should be now increased by removing 
the side-shoots. 
Dahlias must be regularly tied up to their stakes, as they 
are now making vigorous growth. Occasional waterings 
with liquid-manure will be of service to them and to every 
crop to which it is now applied. 
When sticks for Scarlet Runners are not conveniently 
at hand, attention must be paid to topping, which has the 
effect of inducing abundant produce. 
Lettuces. —Sow a few seeds of the Brown Coss, Black 
Seeded Green Coss, Hammersmith, and Brown Dutch, for 
standing the winter. 
Onions. —The tops of the main crop should be gently 
laid down, and the pickling sort taken up and dried, for if 
any are left too long in the ground they often make a second 
growth, which spoils them for keeping. Many market- 
gardeners around London sow their main crop about the 
middle of the month, they are thinned out in the spring, 
and sold as young Onions, and the crop is ripe and cleared 
off the ground by the middle of May. 
Spinach. —About the end of the month is a good time to 
sow the main crop of the winter, or prickly sort. 
Cabbages. — The Early York, Vanack, Battersea, or 
Fulham, are good sorts to be sown about the middle of the 
month for transplanting in spripg. All seeds of plants 
left to stand in the seed-beds during the winter should be 
sown thinly, to admit a circulation of air so needful for stout 
growth. 
Cultivation of Rye. —The seed should be sown about 
the end of the month, at the rate of three bushels to an 
acre. It delights in land of a sandy or gravelly quality, and 
of lino tilth. It should be sown when the weather is per¬ 
fectly dry, and the land slightly harrowed, so that it may be 
covered as lightly as possible, and left without rolling. If 
the Rye is very forward (which, from having a mild autumn, 
is sometimes the case), it will, in the event of a heavy fall 
of snow succeeding, be sometimes greatly injured for spring 
use; but it should not be fed off, as it never comes well to 
the scythe afterwards. By manuring or top-dressing a 
portion, the produce is a week or ten days earlier, which, 
in ordinary seasons, gives a successional cutting from the 
commencement of April. 
Winter Vetches may be sown this month or any time in 
the next, in good, dry, and deep ground. About the one- 
sixth part of wheat mixed with the seed assists in sup¬ 
porting the Vetches. To be sown broadcast, and covered by 
harrowing and shovelling the furrows. 
Rape will produce a fair crop on a great variety of soils, 
and at a considerable elevation, but, like all other crops, the 
better the land, and the more carefully it is prepared, and 
the greater the attention to after-management, the better 
will it remunerate. A sowing of the Broad-leaved Dutch, 
or Winter Rape, should be sown broadcast early in the 
month, at the rate of 10 lbs. per acre. It is often taken as 
an intermediate, or, as it is termed, “ stolen ” crop, on land 
from which Vetches or early corn have been removed. When 
the crop is eaten or cut down in spring, it leaves the land in 
a fine state for barley, or the crop may be left to produce 
seed, for which a good round sum may be received, but at 
the cost of much injury in exhausting the land. 
William Keane. 
E E E-KEE PE R’ S C ALE N DER— August. 
By J. H. Payne, Esq., Author of “ The Bee-Keeper's 
Guide.” 
The Season. —The season has been by no means a good 
one; but in certain favourable localities very strong stocks 
will have a little honey to spare; but even in these places 
weak stocks have become more weak and are wasting away 
to nothing. I have not yet heard of one good glass of 
honey having been obtained this season. 
Soters. —Supers must be removed with great caution, for 
unless the stock be left with at least twenty pounds of 
honey, the trouble of feeding will be incurred as well as the 
risk of losing the stock. In removing a super, should it 
be found to contain brood in the centre, it will be better to 
replace it until the brood is hatched ; but the colour of the 
combs will sutler greatly. 
Swarms. —Swarms have been generally very scarce this 
year as well as very late, owing in all probability to the loDg 
cold spring, and the prevalency of east and north-easterly 
winds. A cottager told me, a few days since, that from 
twenty.eight stocks which he had kept through the winter 
he had only eight swarms; that from his strongest stocks 
he had obtained a few small boxes of honey, but that the 
weak ones had done nothing, and were even in a worse con¬ 
dition than in the spring. 
New Queen. —Under this head, in my June paper, I 
mentioned a queen having been brought out of one of my 
stocks in April, and the hope, and pretty well the certainty, 
that a new one was made; however, was it so or not, the 
stock soon became inactive and very much reduced in 
numbers; was ultimately attacked by robbers, which they 
joined on bringing away their little store. The combs being 
very good, and a small portion of honey left on them, I 
put a late swarm into the hive which appears to be doing 
pretty well. 
Shading. —Should the present month prove hot it will be 
well to screen the swarms of the present year from the 
intense heat of the sun, or the combs, being new and tender, 
may be melted by it; where this unfortunately happens the 
stock is usually destroyed. - 
Drone-Killing. —This operation is late this year, which 
induces me to hope that honey gathering is not quite over; 
should we have a few weeks warm, dry weather after these 
delightful rains, perhaps, a little more may be done. 
Robbers. —Late swarms and stocks that are weak must he 
closely watched, and if the least appearance of robbing dis¬ 
covers itself, the entrance to the hive must be closed so as 
to admit but one bee at a time. 
RULE FOR EXHIBITING GOSLINGS. 
“ Alas ! what bothers do increase 
Around his head who shows young geese.”— Hudibras. 
Not satisfied with having been a not unsuccessful exhi¬ 
bitor of poultry, I must needs, for my sins, dabble a little in 
the Goose line; and a very pretty kettle of fish I have made 
of it. 
I venture to pour my sorrows into your sympathising ear, 
partly from the wish that my fate may tend to keep other 
ambitious exhibitors from the Slough of Despond—into 
which I find I have gone and put my foot, —and partly 
because I am not without a hope that Poultry Committees, 
who may hear my case, may be induced to make such 
changes in the classification of their Prize-Lists as may 
prevent future disappointment on one side or annoyance on 
the other. 
In the early summer of 1854, I encountered, in a farm¬ 
yard in the north of England, some of the finest Goslings 
I had ever seen. A bargain was soon struck; and after a 
jury of (Goose) matrons had sat on the sexes of the birds, 
