September 19.] 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
381 
respectively. When growing freely, the shoots were 
brought out anti fastened in the desired place to the 
slender wires, and when the blooming season came, a 
mass of bloom was thus presented that I have never 
seen by any other method. Here the nature of the plant 
being known, and a peculiar system being adopted, 
enabled the cultivator to render apparent the fitness of a 
medium of training, which otherwise would have seemed 
the most unfit. Hence the difficulty of stating, as some 
friends wish us to do, the best form and method of 
training different plants, as that will be more variously 
and also effectually done by studying the nature and 
capabilities of the plant, than by attending to anything 
like a prescribed stereotyped form, however beautiful it 
may be. Variety in mode and form is ever pleasing; 
imitation soon becomes insipid. 
The third element to be attended to is apparent utility. 
We have already noticed that the medium of support 
should ever appear a secondary, not a primary object. 
When in perfection a plant should conceal the frame¬ 
work, which has set it off to the best advantage. That 
frame-work, whether it be a wire trellis or a stake or 
stakes of wood, should never, therefore, be of a colour 
glaring or attractive in their appearance. A dull lead, a 
dark stone, or a sombre brown colour, are among the 
best. Hence, to our eye, there is no comparison between 
a well seasoned hazel rod, with its brown bark on, and 
a painted stick of any kind, or one cut out of double 
laths, as is so prevalent in our nurseries. The latter 
only becomes tolerable when the freshness, the result of 
the “ whittling,” has disappeared by exposure and use. 
A correspondent contains that neither he nor his gar¬ 
dener can manage, to his mind, the Cliironia fioribuncla, 
because “the smallest sticks show.” Now this is just 
one of many plants with respect to which a number of 
small sticks are not necessary. The tying of the pro¬ 
gressing shoots to one upright stake until they reached 
a certain height, in the present case one or two feet, and 
then allowing them to bend and hang downwards, or 
the fastening of the shoots to a slender wire trellis, and 
dispensing with stakes altogether, would, in such cases, 
confer satisfaction upon the cultivator. But thou, for 
all that, when the plant is growing there is no fault to 
be found with seeing either stake or trellis, provided 
they do “ show ” rather conspicuously. Their seen 
utility marks their appropriateness. Even in or around 
the precincts of a garden common delicacy, without any 
overstrained sentimental refinement, suggests the im¬ 
portance of some objects and operations being concealed 
from general view; just as in the various departments 
of the garden it is desirable that we should be able to 
contemplate one series of objects, without being dis¬ 
turbed by viewing a totally different class of objects in 
their immediate vicinity. But making allowance for 
such like exceptions as tlies.e, I honestly affirm, that 
where there is a seen utility, it can never be associated 
with the ugly or the unnecessary. Small plants when 
beginning to be fastened to their stake or trellis, may 
seem somewhat incongruous when placed among other 
plants that have arrived at perfection. Here, in the 
case of those who wish to preserve unity of expression, 
there may be a necessity for dividing their house, how¬ 
ever small, into an exhibiting and a growing depart¬ 
ment, as 1 have several times recommended; but the 
seeing a large part of a stake or a trellis unoccupied by 
a young growing plant, cannot be construed into the 
ugly or the unnecessary, except by those minds that 
cannot perceive what the plants are desired, and ulti¬ 
mately destined, to accomplish. Hence, much as we 
disapproved of seeing geraniums and calceolarias stilted 
up with a forest of sticks, and rejoicing as we do in wit¬ 
nessing a better taste prevailing, still, upon the principle 
of utility and fitness, a degree of allowance ought to be 
made in these matters for plants that have to be con¬ 
veyed to exhibition tables, over all kinds of roads, that 
there would be no necessity for tolerating in the case of . 
plants that were never removed from the garden. 
For all creeping, climbing, twisting, and very slender J 
growing plants, where it is not intended that the shoots | 
should hang over the sides of the pot or basket, from 
either of these being suspended, most people who are 
admirers of great neatness will patronise slender wire 
trainers. For slender things, the main supporting wires 
need not be made more than one-eighth of an inch in 
diameter, and the binding wire which forms the open 
network less than the sixteenth of an inch. For strong 
growing plants the main wire should be from a quarter 
to three-eigliths of an inch in diameter, and bound and 
twisted with wire proportionately stronger than for the 
smaller trainers. For an upright round trainer, all that 
is necessary is to take two or three wires of the requisite 
thickness, bend them into a semicircular form in the 
middle, fasten them there together, and then you have 
four or six supporting legs, which you must keep at 
equal distances, and fill up between with smaller wire 
in a manner to suit your fancy. The bottom of these 
legs may go into the soil, and thus serve the purpose of 
feet; or, what is better, they may be bent over the rim 
of the pot, and descend halfway down its sides outside ; 
while a ring brought up from the bottom and securely 
fastened over them would keep the trellis firm. A fiat 
trellis is made in a similar manner, only two side pieces 
and a centre one of strong wire will be required. It is 
better to fasten on a cross piece at bottom, that there 
may be four feet instead of two. When these fiat or 
round trainers are not fastened externally by the side of 
the pot, but descend among the soil inside, a wire should 
be fastened round the rim of the pot outside, and to this 
the trellis should be firmly secured by wire in various 
places, as nothing injures plants or trellises more than 
the liability of these trellises to be moved and knocked 
from their places. Various blocks for bending the wire 
and a pair of wire pincers will be necessary; but the 
nearest worker in wire will make them cheaper and 
better than you will be able to do yourselves, and the 
slightest sketch you may give him will be attended to 
even to the very minutiae. 
But some do not like wire,—would rather have some¬ 
thing more simple, that would give work and cost little 
or nothing. Well, the same methods may be adopted 
with long rods of wood, such as brier and bramble, and 
crossed and recrossed with waxed string. Slender things 
may be attached to a branch of a tree with all its twigs 
remaining. The branch of a larch or a spruce, when 
peeled in spring, answers well for this purpose. Young 
trees of the spruce and the larch thus peeled we have 
often used for such plants as Thunhergia , Torrenia, 
Tropccolum, &c.; and as they were fastened to, and al¬ 
lowed to run among the slender twigs until they com¬ 
pletely covered them, the effect was very pleasing, and 
looked perhaps more natural than could be done by 
attaching them to a trellis. In that case it was par¬ 
ticularly necessary that the young peeled tree should be 
attached by wires to the wire round the rim of the pot, 
to prevent its being shaken. 
For plants that may be grown in something of a 
pyramidal form, one stake in the centre will generally be 
sufficient, if a system of what may be termed hasping is 
resorted to. Thus the lower branches are fastened 
horizontally to the wire round the rim of the pot, the last 
and succeeding layers are kept in the desired place by a 
small thread fastened to the stake on one side, and to a 
lower tier of branches on the other. In the process of 
growth the threads are not seen, and the branches soon 
retain of themselves the position thus given them, and 
thus a parapharnalia of sticks is got rid of. Plants 
grown rather flat-headed may be treated in a similar 
manner, oven such as geraniums and calceolarias. I 
