THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[September 12. 
308 
oues. We gardeners, who have to carry on complicated 
concerns by the assistance of under gardeners, know 
well the value of this system, or principle; and we could 
never succeed as we do, unless we acted on it. We set 
every one, who has charge of a department under us, 
thinking for himself; and, although wc may be disap¬ 
pointed at times, in the long run we are sure to benefit 
both ourselves and our assistants. D. Beaton. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Arrangement—Fitness—Neatness—Doing Things 
in Time. —In the case of some of our cottage gardeners, 
attention to those seeming trilles upon which success 
depends, come upon them by fits and starts. The 
greatest pleasure and enjoyment can only bo derived 
when that attention is continuous ; a day’s neglect will 
often destroy the labours of previous months. When 
the dreariness of winter is passing, and the lengthening 
day is diffusing cheerfulness, and eliciting fresh vege¬ 
table liveliness, there are few who possess anything in 
the shape of plants, or gardens, however small, but feel 
a desire, ending in the practical resolution to put their 
gardening something in harmony with the freshness of 
nature around them. Hence, plants in windows and 
greenhouses are cleaned, the pots are scoured, and 
possibly ornamented for the season, fresh earth either as 
a top-dressing, or as a resliifting, is imparted ; seeds are 
sown in profusion; the ground outside receives its 
spring dressing ; edgings are clipped; walks gravelled 
and rolled ; and all bespeak the determination, that 
whatever previous seasons may have been, the ensuing 
one shall be distinguished for untiring assiduity and 
attention to the means of excelling. Few things are more 
exciting than an evening stroll where all these operations 
are proceeding at railroad pace. Creatures so far of 
circumstances and example, the diligence becomes con¬ 
tagious; the drones in the human hive—even those 
whose chief ambition is to be thought the big trigs of 
the public parlour—are aroused for once ; example and 
activity combined (and for the manifestation of both in 
a right direction we are more responsible than we often 
think), have transferred rural homes and city window- 
gardens into scenes of loveliness, that lead our thoughts 
back to the happiness and innocence of paradisaical 
times. And why should such well-directed care be often 
solely exhibited during the early months of spring and 
summer? Is the love of flowers a civilising influence— 
and we maintain it is—then we inquire why that love 
should not he as potent in September as it is in April? 
Wo are told somewhere, that “ order is heaven’s first 
law;” and never do plants look so well as when neatly 
trained and scrupulously clean, they aro arranged in 
circumstances most suitable to their own nature, and 
so as to command the greatest degree of attention. Such 
order, not only testifies at once to a certain degree of 
mental discipline, and appreciation of the beautiful, but 
furnishes an index of the regularity, punctuality, and 
attention to trilles, manifested by a man or woman in 
the various departments of life. If such attention is so 
desirable, why should it not be lasting? 
The evils inseparable from a growing carelessness 
are every where perceptible, though a vast improvement 
has taken place within a few years—so far as the range 
of my observation extends. 1 am not vain enough to 
supposo that I had any thing much to do with it, though 
frequent were the notes I received as to the hard hits I 
| had been giving ; but hard or soft, the writers of these 
j notes in every case amended their own practice. I hope 
there are no readers of The Cottage Gardener that 
need apply those remarks to themselves; if the coat 
does not fit, there is no occasion for wearing it; but a 
word “ fitly spoken,” a hint kindly given, may be of 
much importance to some of their less favoured, and 
less attentive neighbours. When direct attack, open 
opposition, a sly sneer, or a biting sarcasm would 
utterly fail, it is amazing the effect often produced by 
a quiet hint, seen to be prompted by benevolence and 
good will; and until our human nature is changed we all 
prefer being led instead of being driven. 
Leaving, therefore, for the present, to our friends to 
lesson the contrast presented by many cottage gardens 
in spring and autumn, at one time marked by true neat¬ 
ness, and at the other by slovenly neglect—leaving them 
to effect the necessary remedy in those windows well 
filled with nice fioweriug plants during the fashionable 
period, and now either empty or worse than empty, 
studded with leggy, lanky specimens of diseased and 
insect-covered vegetation. Allow us at random to peep 
into the greenhouses of several of those who once looked 
upon the possession of one of these structures as the sum¬ 
mit of their ambition, resolving that in their case, such 
structures should be patterns of neatness and order ; 
merely premising that each and every one ol them 
might have been taken as patterns, in the early months 
of summer, for attentive gardening. 
We call upon friend A.: his house, so beautiful in 
May and June with geraniums, cinerarias, &c„ is now 
completely empty, but perfectly clean,—no, not empty, 
for depending from the roof were a number of line 
bunches of grapes, with which he is to do great things 
in September and October. Now, here we at once see 
the propriety of the course adopted. The house is 
intended as a greenhouse in winter and spring, and as 
a vinery in the end of summer and beginning of autumn. 
Every plant introduced at this season would, less or 
more, interfere with the good condition of the grapes. 
Many would like even then to see a few ornamental 
plants; but they could not complain, because utility 
and Jitness for the end contemplated would be at once 
apparent. 
We look in upon friend B. This house is seen from 
the principal sitting-room, and therefore is a striking 
object in the little garden, ornamented now with some 
nice beds of tender flowers, which the greenhouse had 
protected during the winter. Admiring them, wc pass 
on, expecting to see something prettier still in the green¬ 
house, but find it completely empty, with the exception 
of some starved-like creepers, which have been neglected 
since the other plants were all removed. 
Disappointed as we were, we became much more so 
when in looking in upon a similar structure belonging 
to 0., we beheld, instead of plants, the interior covered 
with lettuce seed, onions, and peas’ haulm, drying before 
they could be sorted and stored. Now the disap¬ 
pointment here was perfectly natural. The house was 
made for plants, and not for the drying of seeds. If out 
of sight, and in the kitchen-garden, the inconsistency 
would not have been so apparent. As it was, fitness for 
its object was interfered with. Seen from the window, 
expectations would be raised. The finer the lawn—the 
prettier the flower-beds before you reached it—the higher 
would these expectations be, and, consequently, the 
deeper would be the disappointment. The blank ex¬ 
pression on the face of your visitors would at once tell 
you of your mistake. Surprise people, if you will, by 
bringing them suddenly upon some beautiful object 
which they did not expect, and from this unexpected 
pleasure every thing else will derive an additional lustre. 
Erect a plant-house in a conspicuous part of your 
grounds, and—whatever you may have in the open air— 
there your visitors will expect to see something nicer, 
and different from what is outside, and this may easily 
be done with little groups of balsams, achimenes, fuchsias, 
clcrodendrums, &c. Disappoint them, by showing an 
