289 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[August 8. 
gardeners which not only leads up to, hut explains the 
cause of the different opinions entertained by the great 
i rose-growers on the best stocks for their staple com- 
! modity. When a young gardener, “ who has a thorough 
; knowledge of his profession,” gets into his maiden place, 
! he learns more the first season than “his thorough 
■ knowledge ” will allow him to confess; still it is real 
I useful knowledge gained—it maybe by sad experience; 
but by and bye he begins to plant his cabbages wrong 
end upwards, and for this he is soon in the market 
again, with his “ thorough knowledge,” and something 
more this time ; and by the time he rings the changes 
half a dozen times, say in as many counties, and, per¬ 
haps, on as many soils and situations, he is really a 
sound practical man—he will tell you many facts hard 
to be understood, yet true enough for all that. His 
vines at Maldo were always very fine, with very little 
trouble to himself, but his pinks and carnations “ his 
thorough knowledge ” could not manage at all at all! 
On the other hand, when he was at Parkstone, do what 
he could his grapes were the poorest in that part of the 
country, but then his pinks and carnations required no 
pains or trouble taken on tlieir behalf, for they would 
do “anyhow;” and something in the same way influ¬ 
enced all his plants and crops in different degrees in 
each place; and so he chimes in at last with those who 
say, that soils which exhibit the same properties under 
the analysis of the chemist may still be opposite in the 
results they show under the hands of the gardener or 
farmer: in short, that there is a something still—a 
principle, if tliat suits better—in the composition of 
soils which has hitherto escaped the labours of the 
chemist, and to this day are, and can only be, known by 
the results they produce. It is very different with the 
unassuming man who begins the world with a mistrust 
of his own “ knowledge : ” he tries to do everything in 
the best manner, and at the right time, and he succeeds 
so far that at last he masters all the difficulties of his 
position in some way or other. Things which do not 
answer well in his garden he shuns, and pays more 
attention to those things which he finds will suit, and 
thus he gains the confidence of his employer, and is 
pronounced “ a good gardener; ” but in truth he is no 
such thing—he is only a good gardener in a particular 
locality and under particular circumstances. Send him 
to Maido, or to Parkstone, or to any of the half dozen 
other places where the “ thorough knowledge of his pro¬ 
fession” man failed, and he would fail too in all proba¬ 
bility. The fast man has the advantage over him now, 
and if at this stage they were both sent into a new field, 
lie would soon show the superiority of his knowledge; 
; fast as lie may have been formerly, he will not content 
j himself in the new field to trust his labours under one 
set of rules, like the “ good gardener,” but will conduct 
1 his principal operations under three or four sets of rules 
at the same time ; and thus is in possession of the capa¬ 
bilities of the new field the first season, and without a dis¬ 
appointment ; for even if some of his rules fail, as there 
is no doubt they will, no one knows it but himself, and 
I his failures of one season he avoids in the following. 
He, now, is the good gardener, and the “ good gardener” 
is discharged, because he persisted in doing everything 
as ho used to do them, although he failed three years 
J running. Now all this is literally drawn from real life, 
and within my own personal knowledge; and I adduce 
! it to account for the strange fact, that two or three emi¬ 
nent rose-growers should entirely disagree as to the 
merits of this, that, or the other kind of stock best 
! suited to work upon; and I cannot help thinking that 
they are doing some harm to the trade, besides disquiet- 
I ing the rose mind, if there is such, all over the country. 
| They are like “ the good gardener”—and I have no fear 
i of their being angry with me for saying so ; their respec- 
i tive experience is formed and matured in one given 
locality, and if they were to change to one very different 
they would find their present practice would need to be 
altogether remoddeled. If there is anything more firmly 
established in the heads of old gardeners than another, 
it is this—that every kind of stock (whether for roses, or 
for apples, or any other flower or fruiting plant) will \ 
grow in one particular kind of soil better than in any 
other; and as no mode has yet been discovered by which 
one could tell beforehand whether a certain plant will 
do or answer on a given soil or not, without giving it a 
trial, it is of very little practical use to insist exclusively 
on the merits or faults of any given stock. The dog rose 
is allowed by nine-tenths of the rose-growers of this 
country to be the best suited to work the different varie¬ 
ties on; now this same dog rose will not live more 
than five or six years in the soil of the garden here, and 
no variety that I have hitherto tried will look quite 
healthy on the dog rose more than three years. Should 
I, therefore, be justified to run down the dog rose, and 
call it a dangerous experiment to try it ? Certainly not! 
Even where all kinds of roses answer well it will be 
found, that certain varieties will do better on one parti¬ 
cular kind of stock than on any other. 
I must apologise for occupying so much room, but I 
have had queries enough this season to convince mo 
that more room must be spared to talk and write about 
roses. D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Propagating Florists’ Pelargoniums, &c. —I thought 
that this subject had already been sufficiently referred 
to, but the continued inquiries of correspondents, and 
the hint of our good editor, influenced by these inquiries, 
that something more of a simple nature would be accept¬ 
able, have led me to give the matter this prominence ; 
though fully aware that I cannot give utterance to one 
idea that has not already been referred to, if not by 
myself, by others more qualified to do the matter full 
justice. Though over glad to attend to all inquiries 
that come in my way, I sometimes think that time and 
postage would be saved by a reference to the index of 
past numbers. I know, however, that in tlio case of those 
who do no possess past volumes it is somewhat tan¬ 
talising thus to tell them, in a quiet way, to go to a book¬ 
seller’s and got them! The pages of a periodical work 
should, in some respects, resemble a well-conducted 
railway-train, that sets down and takes up passengers at 
every station—attending to the comforts of all. It is 
not only a harmless but a praiseworthy curiosity that 
leads the last admitted passengers politely to inquire 
about the state of the country through which the farther- 
travelled passengers have passed ; and we should set 
them down as clownish churls who, because a few that 
started from the terminus had already observed the 
country, and expressed to each other their relative 
opinions, were snappishly to tell the new comers to 
go and look, and then form opinions for themselves. 
Older subscribers, therefore, when they meet ifith 
articles—the matter of which they are perfectly con¬ 
versant with—will just be so good as skim them over 
with the thought, that what may be of no interest to 
them may yet possess attractions for many who have 
had less experience. 
In order to simplify the matter, let us glance for a 
moment at what a cutting is. In general, it may be 
described as part of a healthy plant, containing one, 
two, or more joints, with a bud or buds either fully de¬ 
veloped, if the wood is ripe, or with buds formed or 
forming in the axils of the leaves, if the wood is still 
green and growing. From these buds, formed or still to 
! be formed, possessing a growing point, and connected at 
