THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 21. 
3C8 
the metal whose extreme lightness and incapability 
of being tarnished renders it so muoh better adapted to 
his wants. The most curious part of the tale has now 
to be told. The source of Aluminium is inexhaustible, 
j clay being one of the most common materials known. 
Strange things come to pass. Who could have thought 
that a vulgar brick-field would some day rival the 
shining nuggets of Geelong and San Erancisco?— 
Lloyd's Weekly Paper. 
SOWING FLOWER SEEDS. 
Seeds of many kinds of hardy plants may be sown 
before the end of August, or early in September, par¬ 
ticularly the best kinds of annuals, to flower from the 
end of April till the bedding-plants are established, a 
practice which is not so generally in use as it deserves 
to be, and the want of which leaves us so bare at the 
end of spring in the flower-garden, and also in the 
greenhouse. If you had seen how gay the large Con¬ 
servatory in the garden of the Horticultural Society 
had been last May with choice annuals, you would 
never do, as most people are in the habit of doing, 
neglect to sow a proper selection of hardy annuals at 
the proper time. 
There was one kind of annual in this large house 
which I could not make out from the outside, although 
there might be a couple of dozen of it in different parts 
of the house. A flat, dwarf, white, Lychnis-like plant, 
and not a leaf to be seen with the mass of flowers. 
What could it be? A bedding-plant of the very best 
character, and as hardy as the Daisy. It was the white 
variety of Silene pendula. A recent addition to our 
stock, whose history escaped my notice. I sowed a 
packet of this useful plant the day before yesterday, and 
when the seedlings are fit to handle, I shall transplant 
them, and allow every plant four inches every way, so 
that I may have compact little plants for potting early 
next March, and some to flower behind my Crocuses 
and Mimuluses, two of the best spring flowers we have, 
and some to give away. Those that will be potted, 
shall be petted up for my own conservatory, in case I 
may have one by that time ; at all events, I shall try to 
have them as good as the Horticultural Society had 
them last May. There is one thing much against me 
in my attempts at rearing winter annuals, so to speak, 
all my ground has been trenched four feet deep, and 
everything grows so luxuriantly with me that the frost 
takes them off in February, after all my care. The 
right kind of place for such things is a dry, cold, open 
situation, where the soil is old and powdery, and where 
no leaves are apt to collect in the autumn. It might 
face any way except the midday sun, and have no more 
preparation than self-sown seeds usually require, that 
is, the surface to be just loosened with the hoe and no 
more. When we prepare a border for Geranium cut¬ 
tings, we do it with an old stumpy fork or spade, going 
down two inches only, all below that should be rather 
firm. Now, half that depth would be sufficient in the 
autumn for all the flower-seeds I know of. I would 
sow all kinds of flower-seeds rather thick at this season, 
and take all chances. If the autumn happens to bold 
out long and favourable, and cause the seedlings to grow 
too much, and crowd each other, what is easier than to 
thin them, and when a bed, or row, or patch of them is 
thinned, that would be an excellent opportunity to 
scatter a lot of dry, poor mould, or sand, or ashes 
among them, to fill up the surface again, and keep them 
tidy for the winter. When there is a long continuance 
of dry, frosty winds, without snow, a lot of Pea-sticks 
should be laid over the seed-plots, but to be taken off' 
every time the weather turns mild ; if it was a very wet, 
foggy time, and the soil looked sour-like, or very much 
soddened, and frost came on the heels of that, it 
would destroy almost any seedlings. Wheat or barley ■ 
would suffer from the same cause ; but on a small scale, 
there is a remedy for garden seeds under such disad¬ 
vantage; an off-hand kind of draining, which seldom 
fails:—take the handle of ahoe, or rake, or a sharp-pointed 
stick, which is better, and make deep holes all over and 
near to the seed-beds, taking care not to hurt the seed¬ 
lings, and after a week or ten days, or the next change 
to fair weather, these holes should be filled up level, and 
nothing is better for that than fine-sifted coal-ashes. 
This is only a larger edition of the very common, and 
very useful way of managing seed-pots of Calceolarias, 
Lobelias, and such like, during long winter, or bad, 
foggy weather, only that clean sand is used for filling 
the holes made in seedling-pots. 
Now, with the most ordinary attention, I cannot see 
why the smallest cottager in the kingdom should not 
rear winter annuals as well as the Duke of any place, 
and I am quite sure that nothing can be more handy in 
the spring than to have plenty of plants of some kind 
or other. I never knew a man who had too many border 
flowers in the spring; and then, see how well many of 
them will do in a greenhouse, as Mr. Fish has often told 
us ; but it is astonishing to find the difference between 
being told and seeing a thing with one’s own eyes. 
After all my own experience, I was quite struck with 
the effect of the large masses of annuals which made 
up the best part of the show in the said Conservatory, 
but many of the plants were kept in pots, and in shelter, 
all through the winter, by first-rate gardeners; a plan 
which few can follow, of those for whom all this is 
being told ; still, if the plants from my telling could be 
only half as good-looking as those I allude to, there 
would be little reason for complaining. I would not 
recommend to a new beginner, nor to any one except 
a professed hand, to sow even Mignonette in pots to 
keep over the winter, but all the annuals that I shall 
name to day, and almost all the hardy annuals that will 
stand over the winter, may be taken up in March, or as 
late as the beginning of April, to be potted in rich, 
light mould, to flower anywhere in-doors. 
When the Colliusias and Gillias came out first, I 
recollect that most people flowered them in pots for a few 
years. I have even seen them at public shows competing 
for prizes. I have had CoUinsia licolor in bloom myself 
as early as the middle of April, and much finer than I 
ever saw it out-of-doors ; but there were far better than 
mine to be seen in those days. I once saw two match 
plants of Schizanthus pxnnatus , nine feet high, and 
clothed to the pots; it was in 1828, and at a place on 
the south side of Edinburgh, and I am almost sure that 
a five guinea medal could not produce two such plants, 
at the present day, under three years; that is, until 
some one had learned the mode on purpose to win the 
medal. No one out of fifty could grow Air plants in 
those days, and the generation who havelearned to grow 
Air plants to such wonderful perfection, can hardly grow 
a common annual in a pot fit to be seen, so that if the 
present race of gardeners do wonders, it is really won¬ 
derful how much good gardening has been all but for¬ 
gotten during this great revolution in gardening, and I 
am not at all surprised at being now asked—“ How and 
when should the red and white Candytuft be sown, so 
as to have it blooming in pots in the spring? ” or, “ If 
there should be any other sort of annual to recommend 
for a similar purpose, you would greatly oblige, &c., &c.” 
Perhaps I have done as much with annuals as any 
man of my time, and I know, that to grow them well is 
more than the bulk of gardeners can accomplish, and 
for this reason, that they have not sufficient room for 
them, in the first place; nor time enough to spare from 
other things, to attend to them properly ; and the con¬ 
sequence is that they are neglected; but that is no 
