180 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[June 27. 
I as a shelter in northern climes, is at one fell swoop de- 
i stroyed, and the hitherto protected hud placed entirely 
! at the tender mercies of the northern blast, and the 
withering frosts of a long period of extreme low tern 
perature. 
I We have little doubt that a part of the failures so 
often complained of with regard to the British Queen, is 
I attributable to this very error. The labourer, or jobbing 
J gardener, of the suburban villa, is anxious at the end 
j of summer, or when the leaves have fallen, to make a 
; general cleaning: a very commendable course to be sure. 
| Now it so happens, that half decayed strawberry leaves 
do not carry a very fresh appearance, albeit so useful as 
protectors. Away, then, goes the clothing of the poor 
strawberries in the general clearance ; no distinction is 
| made between the proper removal of dead and useless 
asparagus stems and the useful strawberry leaves. Look 
at all our best gardeners, and see what care they take 
over their strawberry pots for forcing. Surely they do 
not take all this trouble for nothing? 
Peaches and Nectarines. —The disbudding, accord¬ 
ing to former advice, having been duly carried out, the' 
fruits will now be in that stage termed, by practical gar- 
' deners, “ stoning;” and not to stay here to explain what 
i we would willingly fancy the largest portion of our 
readers already understand, we will merely point to the 
prospect that exists of a universal mode of expression, 
or, perhaps, it might better be said of understanding 
and accepting these plaguy conventionalities, through 
the medium of The Cottage Gardener s Dictionary. For 
our own part, and as connected with the fruit depart¬ 
ment, we heg to say, that all “the secrets of our prison- 
house shall be disclosed,” every technicality explained, to 
the gaze of the meanest gardening groom. But “ let us 
return to our sheep,” as the French say. 
We have before advised somewhere that a good deal 
of stopping, or pinching if you like so to call it, be prac¬ 
tised on peaches and nectarines, especially in northern 
districts. It has, also, been shown repeatedly how this 
stopping has a twofold tendency: viz., to ripen the wood 
by checking over-vigorous root action, and also to equalise 
the strength of the tree, by “ cutting off the supplies " 
from the gross shoots, and by consequence throwing the 
surplus on to the weaker shoots ; the latter, of course, left 
i unstopped to the end of the season. 
If our advice lias been followed, the gross shoots have 
been pinched long since, and by this time a host of 
; lateral or side spray will have been developed from their 
i sides. How to manage this has been fully discussed in 
! previous papers; but we may repeat, that it must be 
j kept duly thinned out; for one leader and a pair of late- 
\ rals, one right the other left, is as much as will in general 
prove of any benefit to the tree, except in the case of 
young and luxuriant trees. In the latter case, as much 
may be trained-in as space can be found for; remember¬ 
ing, that as soon as they have produced length enough 
j for the ensuing year, that the tops of all the superior 
I ones must be pinched off; this, as before observed, will 
i cause the inferior parts of the tree to increase in strength, 
and by such means assiduously attended to, the strength 
of a tree may be balanced to a nicety. 
Training. —If not commenced, no delay should be 
permitted, especially with young trees. The leading 
shoots in most cases should be secured, for fear of injury 
from storms; and these “laid in," the next strongest 
shoots may he fastened, the operator at the same time 
keeping a watchful eye on the condition of the tree, and 
removing all superfluous spray which is likely to shade 
the best shoots. 
The above remarks apply, in the main, to nearly all 
our trained fruits; still, as there are some special mat¬ 
ters which should be pointed out, we will endeavour to 
return to the subject shortly. R. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Since I last wrote I have been sight-seeing in and 
around London, where competition, in almost every¬ 
thing one can think of, runs higher than on any other 
part of the globe of equal extent,—from a cabbage to 
a pine-apple, and from the sowing of a seed to the last 
stage of the ripening of the second generation thereof. 
All is done there under the stimulus of competition, so 
that instead of being a nation of shopkeepers, as Napo¬ 
leon asserted long ago, we are rather a nation of gar¬ 
deners—from Her Most Gracious Majesty downwards, 
“ in country and in town.” But country-people, and 
especially country-gardeners, should “ go up to town,” at 
least ouce a-year, to see some of the wonders produced 
by all this competition ; to meet old friends, and make 
new ones; to exchange notes and ideas, aud to rub off the 
rust and prejudices which are almost inseparable from a 
private country life. There is a class of gardeners, and 
of others, commonly called “the strong-headed,” and 
they of all people in the country should be advised to 
go and see the New Houses of Parliament and London 
Bridge. No matter how hard or how soft, how dull or 
how refined and intellectual a head may be, let it but 
find its way to London, and there it is most sure to meet 
its equal; and then, to know that we are, after all, but 
one out of a common herd is a very good and effectual 
way to keep us humble—say, humble cottage gardeners. 
Last year when I was in London I kept looking up to 
the windows and balconies as I went along, to see what 
new arrangement I could spiy out for “ window-garden¬ 
ing,” but this season there was little in my head but 
flower-beds and bedding-plants; and amongst other things 
I got a promise of a good purple Verbena, at last, from 
one of the best flower-gardeners in this country, or in 
any other; and he agrees with me, that Emma and 
Heloise are not good purples, nor shades of purple. I 
also heard, that a verbena called Voltaire is the best 
striped one of this season ; and some of our readers 
may not be aware that Eclipse and Clotilde are the best 
striped ones of the older sorts. 
Of Geraniums which I did not mention in my former 
lists, I saw the Gooseberry-leaved used as an edging to a 
large bed in one of the flower-gardens belonging to the 
Royal Botanical Garden at Kew. It was very wrong of 
me to have forgotten this beautiful edging geranium, 
for I have used it some years; and a most interesting 
plant it is for an edging, or for very small beds ; and it 
is very easy to keep over the winter, although it looks 
very delicate. The flowers of it are the smallest of all 
our geraniums, but they are bright scarlet, of a starry 
shape, and so thickly produced that they soon make a 
bright mass. Here, also, I saw a large bed of a fancy 
geranium called Nosegay. It belongs to the old Yeat - 
manianum breed, with reddish front petals, streaked, and 
the back ones dark. It makes a good neutral bed, as 
does Bouquet tout Fait, which is of the same breed, and 
of which there was a good bed in the new flower-garden 
in front of the new conservatory at Kew. This is the 
first time I have seen this new flower-garden, and being 
in a public establishment I can refer to it with the greater 
confidence as an example of a very judicious system of 
planting such figures. It is a terrace garden, divided 
across the middle by a broad walk—the figures, or beds, 
in one division being a repetition of those in the other 
compartment; and the colours of the beds in one divi¬ 
sion are repeated in the other, but with different plants 
of the same height. The scarlets are represented in 
one of the divisions by Tom Thumb, and in the other 
by Diadematum rubescens, which is tallied there Diade- 
matum superbum,, —a wrong name, for rubescens has the 
priority,being an old name given, I believe, by Sweet, who 
was a great authority in such things. Of these scarlets 
there are four corner beds in each division; and the 
