364 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[September 12. 
keep him out. I matted tlie top : being low this was not diffi¬ 
cult ; but still my thermometer told me that I was too cold 
within. I determined to find a stove, and after some consider¬ 
ation I purchased one at Cadman's, Newgate-street, for 18s., 
and a sack of fuel for 5s.; this, with the exception of a slight 
smell, answered the purpose admirably, as it would keep a 
fight, by management, for twelve hours easily, but the fuel 
was expensive. When this prepared fuel was gone I pro¬ 
cured some charcoal dust, almost useless in commerce, and 
having sifted the very fine away I charged my stove with 
this. To my great pleasure this burned quite as well as the 
more expensive coal, with little, if any, more smell, and cost 
me next to nothing. Now, then, I saw my plants in safety, 
and henceforward I entertained no fear; five shillings more 
than covered the expense of all the whiter months, and many 
times the fire continued untouched for twenty-four hours. I 
never lost a single plant all the winter. One drawback there 
was, especially if my plants had been hi delicate flower, 
namely, there was more dust than I could have wished; but 
my object was to preserve my plants, and in this I succeeded 
to my utmost wish. 
Winter now yielded as much pleasure in gardening almost 
as summer. JO very morning my wife and I visited our 
greenhouse, and inquired diligently of each, almost daily, 
how they fared. The geraniums continued in full leaf; the 
petunias continued to flower; the vorbenas mildewed a little; 
our phloxes also continued in bloom ; and every day almost 
some flower would greet our eyes. Then came the various 
experiments suggested by you, all which we put into practice. 
Thus the greater part of the winter passed, and about 
February we found our geraniums making way. Then came 
the idea given us by you of striking cuttings of verbenas and 
petunias for bedding out in spring. This we managed in a 
way peculiar, I think, to ourselves, and which I think worthy 
of recording. When 1 pinchased my stove, I had an iron 
pan made to fit the top, so that when I wished I could take 
away the usual cover or fid, by which aperture the stove is 
fed, and substitute as a cover my iron pan, holding water to 
create a moisture ; this was about five inches deep and four¬ 
teen inches square. We filled this for about three inches 
with broken charcoal and gravel, and above this one inch of 
pure sand, and having well watered it and prepared eighty- 
one cuttings of verbenas about two inches long, we placed 
them in the sand in nine rows. They looked like a little 
forest. The stove gave out its heat to the house, and gene¬ 
rated sufficient heat to the sand, so that in ton days 1 found 
my pretty little slips starting freely at the top. I scarcely 
dared to disturb one. However, about the twelfth day, I 
ventured to look at one of the most healthy, and .judge of my 
surprise to find that the roots had shot out on all sides, 
three-quarters of an inch long in some of them. No time 
was lost. Some small 60’s were prepared with common 
garden mould, four of the cuttings placed in each, carefully 
shaded and kept comfortably warm until they grew to six 
and eight-inch plants, and at length when May appeared 
took their place in a neat bed, heart-shape—for this was very 
near my heart—and soon produced such a grand and daz¬ 
zling appearance as almost to intoxicate me with delight. 
This was my first effort, and from that moment to this when 
1 write, August 31, they have never failed to obtain the 
admiration of my friends ; nay more, my neighbour, a gar¬ 
dener of some experience, paid me the compliment of saying, 
“ You beat me at verbenas.” 
No sooner were my verbenas out of the pan than in went 
about the same number of petunias ; these seemed to strike 
still easier than the verbenas. They also took their place in 
another bed, and although at times the drenching rains 
shrivel the delicate bloom, they are still in most luxuriant 
flower. My geraniums I watched with great anxiety to see 
the flower buds ; at length they came, threw up their long 
stems, and, at the proper time, some in pots and others 
bedded out, have made my garden look, to my eye, quite 
like a paradise. Often after the labours of the day when 1 
have returned to my little retirement, my wife and 1 seated 
at our tea-table, overlooking our handywork, and with 
hearts rejoicing in the goodness of God, who has so wonder¬ 
fully beautified the face of creation, have with unfeigned 
gratitude thanked Him for His love, and you for leading 
us how to admire and train these, the exhibitions of His 
wondrous and Divine power! J. J3. 
THE ERUIT-GAEDEN. 
The Horticultural Structures of the Amateur.— 
Having conducted our readers—safely, we trust—through 
the busy part of the year, as regards the summer ma¬ 
nagement of fruits, we intend availing ourselves of the 
breathing time afforded during the next four or five 
weeks, to offer a few remarks on greenhouses, hothouses, 
&c., as well as on those generally subordinate structures— 
the pit and the frame. 
In taking a retrospective view of the past fruit 
season—for by the time this reaches our readers it will 
be nearly past—we are more than ever assured of the 
importance of attending closely to the principles of fruit 
culture, set forth in the past pages of The Cottage 
Gardener. Principles we say, and advisedly too ; for 
we have not been busied in recommending a set of 
mere “ blue apron ” rules, conceived and perpetuated 
with an equal amount of ignorance of those great first 
principles which, indeed,constitute nature’s own laws,— 
laws, to use the language of Pope—“ bound fast in fate 
and which may never be transgressed with impunity, 
however specious what are termed systems may appear. 
We introduce these remarks here, to try and coax our 
readers into a bestowal of their confidence, which we 
assuredly desire to possess; and, indeed, without which 
the goose quill will be handled in vain. We can boldly 
affirm, taking occasion to boast for a moment, in order 
to give a substance to our claims for confidence, that we 
never experienced so fortunate a fruit season as the 
present in its results, during the thirty years that we 
have had the charge of gardens. Gardeners who have 
visited here (Oulton Park), have been astonished at the 
crops of fruit of all kinds; whilst one-half of the king¬ 
dom has teemed with complaints of the ungenial 
character of the season. 
Peaches and nectarines have been especially com¬ 
plained of; ours are excellent; the trees, too, in the 
most perfect health, not a leaf amiss; no gum, no blister, 
no insect,—not a single naked branch on the whole of 
the trees. These seem bold affirmations, but they are 
literally true. Our pears, too, are capital; our plums 
enormous; and, iudeed, all but apples, which are only 
half a crop. Surely this is not to be referred to the 
chapter of accidents. Our management has been pre¬ 
cisely that laid down in The Cottage Gardener ; we 
use comparatively shallow soils, and are advocates for 
protecting blossoms. As this statement will necessarily 
bear a vaunting appearance, we beg to say that we deem 
it of importance, as bearing ou the coming season for 
alterations ; for, like other mortals, wo would fain pro¬ 
selytise as many as possible. Many persons who have 
admired the crops here insisted that we must have had 
milder weather than themselves, and that our locality 
must bo a very suug one. Now, differing from all this, 
we have always fancied ourselves very ill used; for being 
on the edge of Delamero Forest, or, as Nickson the Che¬ 
shire Prophet termed it, “ the forest of grey,” we have 
cold winds at least two-thirds of the year; and we are 
exposed, moreover, to the ungentle zephyrs of the wild 
Atlantic, or, perhaps, we ought to say, the Irish Channel. 
We, moreover, had a thermometer of sixteen degrees 
(sixteen degrees below freezing) in the last days of 
March. What less could mortal desire? 
And now liaviug done with this solf-gratulation, we 
will proceed to the subject with which we set out. 
Form of Hothouses. —Herein lies a wide subject for 
consideration, for hitherto there has generally prevailed 
but one notion—-a lean-to. Not but that “span-roofs” 
have been in use chiefly among nurserymen, but the 
amateur, and, we may add, the general gardener, has 
scarcely as yet availed himself of the advantages which 
such would seem to offer. Now, in scanning over the 
2 >roceeding as to hothouse building during the last score 
