September 12.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENElt. 
307 
frames, except for limited use, is all out of the question. 
We must, therefore, sow with a liberal hand, and let 
them take their chance. 
I have so often told the best way to sow them, and 
the best sorts for the purpose, that referring to our 
indexes is all that is left for me to do now. I may 
remark, however, that the small siftings from coal ashes 
is an excellent dressing for seed-beds of any kind in the 
autumn, where the plants or seedlings are intended to 
he left in them over the winter; and that autumn seed¬ 
beds should not be dug deep; to break the surface with 
a hoc an inch or two, then to strew the ashes over it, 
and to rake the whole backwards and forwards to mix 
the ashes well with the soil, is about as good a way as 
any we can adopt. 
All the Californian annuals, and they are many, seem 
to answer better from autumn-sown seeds than from 
seed put in in the spring. They present the same magic 
effect in the warm valleys of California which the Ixias 
and other irids do in our Cape Colony on the approach 
ot the periodical rains. In California the annuals take 
a range different from anything else we know of in other 
countries. There one species occupies some hundreds 
of acres in succession, to the almost exclusion of all 
other plants. Then another and another follows exactly 
in the same way—a flower-garden, in short, on a mag¬ 
nificent scale, like all the works of nature on those vast 
regions. In April, tho whole valleys are thus luxuriantly 
clothed from one end to the other, but return thither by 
the end of May, aud all is as barren and naked as a 
wilderness; the annuals are scorched to cinders, and 
the seeds, self-sown, remain on the baked crust until the 
autumnal rains, acting, hot-bed like, on the heated sur¬ 
face, bring them into instantaneous growth ; after that, 
they progress slowly through the mild winters for four 
or live months. Not as in South Africa, where the bulbs 
are up and done with in half that time. Hence their 
suitableness for autumn sowing with us. I/ate in the 
spring whole beds may be entirely devoted to annuals 
alone, such as GlarJcias, Gollinsias, Nemophilas, and 
others, which may be gathered from our former lists as 
early flowers, that would help on from the end of April 
through May; others, and they have been all mentioned 
already, that grow taller and come in later, should be 
planted out in regular rows in April, and the spaces 
between them left so as to admit of the usual planting 
of “ bedding out ” plants in the old regular way. One 
grand object should be kept in view, and that is, that 
all the dug beds should be full; anything better than 
mere weeds will look more cheering than naked earth. 
Then there are many old border plants that can be used 
as annuals, of which the double varieties of roclccts are 
a good example of early flowers. They, the rockets, 
come in in May, and as soon as they are over can be 
removed for a succession of other things ; and where is 
a finer flower than the double lilac Delphinium and the 
tall single perennial Poppies (Papaver bractiatum and 
orientate); and there is a variety or two of each with the 
edge or bottom of the flower more or less marked with 
dark or lighter shades. The dwarf mimuluses are also 
very gay in April and May, and there are many very 
beautiful varieties of them, and of the taller rnimulus 
too, of which rosea is, or was, the head of the section. 
The narcissus family supply many useful varieties for 
May, and tho English and Spanish bulbous irises come 
in after them in June; but by far tho best, the gayest, 
and the cheapest way to make a blaze in May and early 
J une, is with the much neglected annuals. 
I have, over and over again, in these pages, iusisted 
on this; and regretted the prevailing fashion of having so 
few plants in ilower in our bestgardeus early in the season. 
We should, also, begin at once to lay a good foundation, 
not only to succeed these annuals, but to have our bed¬ 
ding plants more forward than usual for planting out 
next May; and the best way to do that is, to lay in a 
larger stock of store pots of all the verbenas, petunias, 
anagallis, senecio, and such things, so that a first crop of 
cuttings of them may bo had in quantities by the middle 
of January; or, at any rate, that we should have plants 
enough in storo to provide all the spring cuttings before 
the middle of February; for, although the old plants 
from the autumn propagation make stronger plants, they 
do not come into flower so early in May as young stuff, 
provided it is propagated and ready to pot off by the first 
week in March. I long had an idea, which was then pre¬ 
valent among gardeners, that these soft plants were better 
from autumn-struck cuttings; and now I have no doubt 
but they would be the best, provided we could give them 
proper justice all through the winter and spring, but there 
is not one place in a thousand where sufficient room can 
he provided for such a stock. In the most favoured places 
such plants are too much crowded by one half to pass 
over the winter without suffering in health ; and if once 
they get into ill health, good bye to them. It is a hope¬ 
less task to strive to recruit them again in time to be 
of much use early that season. All this having been 
proved and brought out in practice, we now, or at least 
most of us, plant these low soft plants from spring pro¬ 
pagation. 
I have said before, that the planter ought also to 
be the propagator; that is the way I manage here, and 
I am very fortunate in having one of the very best 
of that class to attend to this department. His name 
is Henry Faires, and a more industrious fellow never 
lived. Some great spirit—perhaps Linnaeus himself— 
found him at the Suffolk plough and cast his mantle 
over him, and here he is ; and there is not a flower-bed, 
or box, or vase, in the whole garden, but he can tell you 
at once how many plants—of any sort—it will take to 
fill it “chuck full,” as he calls it. I have been consult¬ 
ing him, for the last fortnight, as to the best means of 
getting the flower-garden in bloom next May and June, 
as for some years past we only required to be up to the 
mark by the beginning or middle of July, when the 
“London season” was over. He says it is all plain 
enough; but I shall give him another week to consider 
his plans, and then I shall give a true and particular 
account of all his plans; and it is hard if, between us, 
we do not hit on something that will be useful to many 
who are placed under less favourable circumstances. 
Now all this brings me to a point which has never yet 
been properly mooted in any of our periodicals, and as 
our Editor has now more room in his pages, and is never 
angry with me for what I say, I cannot do better than 
fill the rest of my letter with a statement of what I mean. 
When we are engaged on any work, if only planting 
cabbages, if we require tho assistance of a second party, 
and expect to benefit to the fullest extent by his or her 
assistance, we ought to allow him or them a kind of self- 
interest in the undertaking; or, asw r e say in the country, 
“ let them have a finger in the pie.” By doing this we 
may get more work done, aud done better too, than if we 
go on a different tack, and say—“such and such things I 
must be done by such and such a time, at all hazards; 
and if so and so cannot do it, why some others must.” j 
By this kind of overawing we may get the letter of tho 
law complied with; hut, depend upon it, that is not the 1 
right way to make the host of your man, even if he is a 1 
stupid fellow. Self-pride, of which no human being is J 
quite free, is not thus subdued, or made the most of. , 
No matter how low the natural capacity or the intelli- I 
gence of your assistant may be, let him but clearly un¬ 
derstand that the issue of an experiment or job, rests as 1 
much upon his exertions in carrying it out as on your 
judgment in planning it, and you are sure, not only of 
your instructions being literally complied with, but of all 
that is in him to the bargain; and we all know that two 
heads are better than one, even if they are only ordinary 
