18 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[April 11. 
commencement, and this must be our apology for this as 
well as for other repetitions. 
Some persons are content to dust sulphur on the 
leaves after they are attacked: our maxim is—prevention. 
We have found that sulphur made into a kind of paint as 
to consistence, it will adhere to the wall, and give out its 
fumes through a whole summer, so as to bid defiance to 
any injury from the red spider. Now this we have 
proved for several years ; and although it may appear a 
little troublesome at first sight, as does every departure 
from an old and beaten track, yet in reality the amount 
of labour and material is not worth a moment’s consider¬ 
ation. Our wall, 240 feet in length, employs a man a 
day and a half in applying the sulphur paint; who 
would not give three shillings in labour for an immunity 
of this kind? The sulphur is blended with thick clay- 
water, made by well-kneading a lump of clay until it is 
entirely dissolved, and of the consistence of paint. To 
this is added soft soap liquid, made by beating up about 
four ounces of soap to a gallon of water ; a fourth part 
of this is amply sufficient. In later years, we have used 
in addition about a pint of soot to a gallon of the aliove 
mixture, in order to subdue the too bright tint of the 
sulphur, and to render it inconspicuous ; and, probably, 
! the soot also renders the mixture still more repellant. 
j When this mixture is well blended, the operator applies 
it with a small painter’s brush, painting every bare patch 
of wall which the brush will reach, and drawing an 
extra band or stripe along the bottom of the wall. So 
adhesive is this, that our last year’s dressing is still 
visible; and so lengthened is its action, that the sulphur 
fumes may be plainly smelt until August, after which 
time it is not so very material if the spiders should 
commence operations; we never experience any injury 
worth recording. Let it be understood, however, that 
no engine-work must be practised after this operation ; 
such would doubtless remove the paint from the wall. 
We never use engine or syringe, and we are not aware 
of any more successful peach culture in any quarter, 
and that, too, in a climate in which hot walls, a genera¬ 
tion or two back, were thought indispensable. 
R. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Bedding Plants : Scarlet Geraniums. —Specimens 
of two soils from Sussex were lately analysed by Pro¬ 
fessor Way, the Consulting Chemist to the English 
Agricultural Society, and found by him to be “ exactly 
alike,” both in their mechanical and chemical proper¬ 
ties ; yet the two samples were respectively from the 
best and from the worst wheat land in the county. This 
is sufficiently curious, if not puzzling; but not more so, 
I think, than that two plants raised from seeds out of 
one pod should vary so much in their natures, that one 
of them refuses to bloom freely, or even to put out its 
leaves kindly, in tbe same bed, or on tlie same kind of 
soil, where tbe other flourishes in all the beauty of its 
native race. Yet such is a fact, which certain seedlings 
of Scarlet geraniums have clearly established, and of 
which I have often remarked in these pages. Of these 
scarlet geraniums for flower-beds I said enough last 
autumn, but to those new readers who may not have 
| that part of the work their names may be acceptable. 
! Shrubland Scarlet is the strongest of them all, and has 
the largest truss. Smith's Emperor and Superb, Prince of 
Wales, and several other names are also given to seed¬ 
lings of this variety which never fail to come true from 
seeds. I have reared hundreds of them from seeds, but 
never saw any variation, except in the leaf. The next 
largest trusser is a new one, sold last year by Mr. Ayres, 
of Blackheath, called The Gem of Scarlets. Conway’s 
Jloyalist and Erost’s Gompactum are the two next 
largest trussers, both of them being well liorse-sboe 
marked in the leaf. The Royalist is, indeed, the best 
“horse-shoe” geranium I have seen. Our seedling 
Punch is a far better bedder and trusser than either of 
the above, except tbe Shrubland Scarlet, on our light 
soil, but on rich or heavy land it does no good. Nine 
or ten celebrated seedlings have passed through my 
hands, which do remarkably well in the places where 
they originated, and in many other localities, but I 
failed to establish them here. Tom Thumb is one of 
the number. On tbe whole, therefore, to give a good 
list of scarlet geraniums would be as likely to disappoint 
as to be of general use. 
I have often said, one can hardly have too many scar¬ 
let geraniums; and 1 only know of one bed in a good 
flower-garden where they come amiss, and that is in the 
centre bed of a regular figure of any shape where the 
rest of the beds come all round it. No matter what 
beautiful plants and flowers may occupy tbe rest of the 
beds, the eye will pass over them and rest on the bril¬ 
liancy of the centre mass. Besides, some shades of pink 
and purple, which might occupy any of the beds next 
the centre one, would be neutralised by the scarlet in it; 
a neutral bed should always occupy the centre round 
which the chief colours in flower-garden plants are to be 
arranged; and for such a centre bed I know of no plant 
more suitable than Mangles Variegated Geranium. The 
flowers of this are small, and of a light pink shade, but 
the whiteness of the leaves drown the pink colour so far 
as to establish a neutral bed; and any colour may be 
placed next to this bed without imparing its strength, 
and yet we cannot call it a white bed. The old Bou- 
vardia and the Zauclisneria would pass for small scarlet 
beds, and so might tbe old Alonsoa; but where scarlet 
verbenas and geraniums are much used, these things 
are too sober or subdued colours for a good arrangement 
of tints; and they are only fit for a miscellaneous as¬ 
semblage of beds where no 'decided system of arranging 
the colours is attempted. 
Purple. —I find this colour the most difficult to repre¬ 
sent properly, either in shades of purple or strictly as a 
distinct colour. We have not a single true purple ver¬ 
bena yet worth planting as such, but they furnish abun¬ 
dance of shades. I thought, from a figure and descrip¬ 
tion of the Royal Purple Verbena in “ The Elorist,” that 
at last the desideratum was supplied, but I was deceived; 
and Waltons Emma is still tbe best purple verbena we 
have for a bed, but it is too dark for a real purple. The 
next best purple is Heloisc, a beautiful bedding verbena, 
but still not a true purple. Plant either of these two 
best purple verbenas alongside of tbe light purple variety 
of tbe American groundsel, or the petunia, nearest to that 
colour, and you will soon see the reason I have for say¬ 
ing that we have no real pmple amongst the verbenas. 
The original red or purple petunia, P.phcrnicea, has not 
yet been improved on in colour for a bed in that family, 
though we have several as good and many better ones 
with darker or lighter shades of purple; but we have 
nothing better than a petunia that will do for a bed to 
last out the season. 
We do not, in these days, call a plant fit for a flower- 
garden because it is a beautiful mass of colour while it 
lasts, which may not be longer than from a month to 
six weeks, unless it has other properties equally valuable 
in tbe eyes of a flower-gardener. One of the most es¬ 
sential secondary qualities of a flower-garden plant is 
to have creeping or very numerous fibrous roots, so as 
to enable the planter to remove it from place to place, 
either in tbe reserve garden before a place is open for it 
in tbe flower-garden, or from the flower-bed after it has 
done flowering. People who know little of these things 
will sit down and write you a fine story about the “ faci¬ 
lities in these our days ” for keeping up a succession of 
bloom, for a whole season, anywhere; all that you have 
to do is to remove everything as fast as it gets out of 
