THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[September 19. 
.988 
new conifers, such as the Deodar cedar, would also suit, and this is a very 
desirable tree. Your soil would do for a nursery of such trees, we think; 
but we speak doubtingly when you say it is “ a clayey loam ”—this can 
hardly be “lying high” and on “a subsoil of shale.” Your garden 
should have eighteen inches depth of soil. Loudon’s Arboretum Britan- 
nicum, and his edition of Re ji ton’s Landscape Gardening, are books 
which would suit. No one ever acquired a just taste for landscape gar¬ 
dening by reading. A landscape gardener is born so, not made by edu¬ 
cation. 
Walls of Slates (W. II.).—We have heard of, but never seen, 
walls made of large thick slates, let into wooden uprights, and well 
jointed together. The trees upon them were trained to iron netting or 
I other trellis put close to the slates. Thus constructed, with a bank of 
earth behind, and a coping projecting six inches on each side, we think 
that a very superior wall for fruit-trees would be obtained. There would 
be no friction of the young wood, if it were fastened to the wire trellis as 
we do with narrow slips of very thin lead, which can be twisted tightly 
with the greatest facility. In such a wall greater heat might be accumu¬ 
lated if shades were used at night to prevent radiation; there would be 
no nail holes to harbour insects ; and it would be very neat. There would 
not be too much heat accumulated, as we can testify from having a wall 
painted black facing the south. 
Potatoes ( Percontator ).—Do not manure for them at all, or, at the 
most, give a top dressing of soot and salt just previously to digging for 
planting. We recommend Martin’s Early Seedling , the Red Ash-leaved 
Kidney, and Rylott’s Flour Ball; they are the three best varieties we 
ever grew. A peck will hold about 400 small tubers sufficiently large for 
planting, therefore it is easy for you to calculate the quantity you will 
require after you have determined at what distances you will plant. 
Plan foe Flowee Gaeden (M. B. R.). —We invariably must decline 
to furnish such plans. So much depends upon situation, associations, 
and peculiarity of taste, to say nothing of soil, cultivation, &c., that 
though we might perchance give satisfaction the chances are infinitely in 
favour of our failing to do so. 
Teellis foe Feont of House (Ibid). —We prefer galvanized iron 
wire netting to any other; it is so much easier for training against, is so 
much more durable, and may be painted so as to be invisible. 
Club-eooted Savoys, &c. (W. W. H.).— For pouring over your soil 
previously to digging use the ammoniacal gas liquor as strong as you can 
obtain it. 
Forest-tree Seeds (T. it/.).— Autumn is the best season for sowing ; 
sow thickly, in drills a foot apart, and with a path between every five 
rows. The outer leaves of Cabbages flag more than the inner leaves, 
because the evaporation from them is greater; and when they become 
thus relaxed their greater length acts as a lever to weigh them down. 
The Grubs you enclose are the larvae of the Daddy-long-legs (' Tijmla 
oleracen), at least we think so; but the specimens were crushed. Water 
your cabbage plants two or three times with diluted ammoniacal gas 
liquor. 
Book on Bikds (G. D.).— Macgillivrav’s British Birds will suit you. 
It gives all the land birds. Yarrell’s work includes water birds, but is 
dearer. 
Hothouse (C -, Hull).—Yon will have seen what Mr. Errington 
said at page 364, and we agree with him. Use rough glass both for your 
vinery and forcing-house. 
Pasting-down Preserves.— Will “A. Aloes ” answer these queries; 
we have several of them. “ What we want to know is whether the pasted 
paper is to be placed on the preserve, or stretched over the edges of 
the jar ; and if lying on the preserve whether the pasted side of the paper 
is to be next the preserve?”— T. S. P ., &c. 
Kind of Iris ( M.J . C.).—You have the seeds and bulbs of “ a white 
kind of Iris.” They are a variety either of the Iris Xiphium or I. 
Xiphioides. Sow the seeds now, and put in the bulbs immediately three 
inches deep, in a light rich border; the seedlings will flower the third 
season and produce blue, and yellow, and brown flowers, notwithstanding 
they were gathered from a white one. 
Hyacinths (S. Y. R .).—You ask for the names of ten that will look 
well together in a glass bowl, the price not to exceed one shilling each. 
Bruidksleed, double rose, 8d. La belle Alliance, single, deep red, Is. 
Acingaris, double, light blue, 6d. Lawrens Koster, double, dark blue, 
Is. 6d. La grand Vedette , single, blue. La Tour d'Auvergne, pure 
double white, Is. 6d. Vainquer , single, white, 8d. Victoria regina, 
single, white, Is. VOr du Perou, double, yellow, 2s. Heroine, bright 
citron, single, Is. 
Earwigs {Ibid). —Any “sticky composition” to put round Dahlia 
stems for preventing the ascent of earwigs, is an imposition, for they 
have wings. The mode of treating potatoes , adopted by your brother in 
Essex, is not new. He had better take them up and store them strictly 
as we have directed. 
Depriving Bees (W. X. W .).—You say“ I have two hives, a first and 
second swarm, both strong and doing well, standing side by side, which I 
will call A and B. Now, I wish to unite these and get the produce from one 
hive. Now, I want to know if it would answer to drive, first, A into an 
empty hive, and then drive B into the same hive with A, and then drive 
the united A andB into one of the stored hives, either belonging to A or 
B. I think this would be better than risking artificial feeding, and I 
suppose that this might be done safely any time this month, September.” 
Feeding may be done with the least possible trouble, if done at the top 
of the hive, giving about 2 lbs. of food at a time, and which may be done j 
daily until each hive contains 20 lbs.; or you may drive in the way you ! 
propose, but then you will have but one, instead of two stocks, for which 
the little honey thus obtained will be a very inadequate compensation. 
Always Gay (Incognita), —Your excellent communication shall I 
appear next week. 
Name of Plant (M. A. P., Staffordshire)—It would save much j 
trouble if all correspondents would send their specimens in as good order 
as this came to hand. Your plant is the common hemp, Cannabis sativa. 
Your plant is the female plant; they are dioeceous plants. Do you not 
keep a bird and feed it with hemp-seed ? 
Calystegia Pubescens (T. M. W.). —It will grow well in good 
garden ground, for it is not at all particular about soil, but it does not 
like growing in a pot; only very clever gardeners can do anything with i 
it in pots. There is no fear that any degree of cold we experience in | 
England will injure it, that is, the roots, for, like our native bindweeds, 
it dies down to the roots every year. However, in case you should lose i 
it this winter, if planted out now, from some one dressing the garden 
and digging it out, the best plan is to bury it, pot and all, in some safe 
corner of a border until your garden is put in order next spring, and then 
to turn it out of the pot, and, meantime, you can think where you would 
like to see it best. No one, we think, has ever said in our pages anything 
so erroneous as that seedling petunias never produce fine flowers ! Why, 
raising seedlings is the only mode of improving them 1 
Flower-bed Plan (Elise). —Very good, indeed, for the size ; true in 
principle, and easy to work. You need not have the points of the grass 
diamond in the centre so sharp as they are now. It is not at all necessary, 
or even in good taste, when a flower-garden like yours is placed on gravel, 
that all parts of the gravel should be of the same width. The gravel 
forms the ground colour of such a garden, and that need not be laid out 
in regular stripes as walks any more than the ground colour of a dress, 
although in very regular symmetrical figures it cannot well be otherwise. 
You need not, therefore, be afraid of having a little more breadth of gravel 
opposite the corner of the diamond bed, and no other figure would answer 
better. 
Uniting Hives (Z).—Our correspondent writes thus (Aug. 31):—“ It 
may be satisfactory to you to know the result of the experiment I tried at 
the suggestion of “ A Country Curate.” The two colonies of bees which 
were placed in an empty hive this day three weeks, now weigh exactly 
twenty-two pounds. I have made a little variation from the kind of food re¬ 
commended. The beer and wine I wholly omitted, and substituted water ; | 
and finding, after feeding with two or three quarts, that the brown sugar 
caused the feeder to become very foul, I have since used white, and they 
have used nearly 11 quarts (three pounds of loaf-sugar, one and a half 
pound of honey, one quart of water, boiled two minutes, this makes 
rather more than two quarts). I have given them about one pint a day. 
The heat of this hive I observe is 12° hotter than three of my other hives. 
Ought they to be fed longer ? (Not if they weigh twenty-two pounds with¬ 
out the hire). I intend working them on Mr. Taylor’s plan (p 23 and 37) 
next summer, with his shade, but now I have it on, I am at a loss to know | 
how a super can be removed, as it is to stand outside the inner rim. (No } 
the super , be it small hive or glass, must stand inside the rim; the upper 
hive is intended only as a cover to the super.) I ought, perhaps, to re¬ 
mark that the weather has, on the whole, been favourable, and they have 
had the advantage of a good bed of mignonette. When should these 
plants, recommended for bees, be set or sown:—crocus, hepatica, helle- 
borus niger, tussilago petasites, salvia nemorosa, origanum humile, 
anacampseros populifolia. ( Any time this autumn). 
Name of Rose (W. W. J?.).—We think your rose must be Renoncule 
pourpre, more frequently called Mrs. Wood. If so, it is a Hybrid moss, 
red, shaded with purple, large, and double. Answer to your other query i 
next week. 
Hair-dye (J. W. C., Manchester).— Can any of our readers furnish us | 
with one ? For our part, we have ceased to notice these splashings by j 
time as he passes us ; but, if we did, we should try the French Pomatum, i 
called Pommade de la jeunnesse. It is made by mixing thoroughly a | 
small quantity of pearl white (sub-nitrate of bismuth), with any common j 
pomatum, and brushing a little daily into the hair. It is said to make j 
the hair dark, and certainly would do no harm. Dr. Willich, who was I 
opposed to all cosmetical applications to the hair, says, that the hair will j 
assume a darker colour by having it cut close, and passing a leaden 
comb through it every morning and evening. 
Sheep-skin Mats (A Grateful Subscriber). —Take a spoonful of 
alum, and two of saltpetre, pulverize and mix well together ; after sprin¬ 
kling the powder on the flesh side of the skin, lay the two flesh sides 
together (leaving the wool outside), and fold up as tight as you can and 
hang in a dry place. In two or three days (as soon as it is dry) take it 
down and scrape it with a blunt knife till clean and supple: this com¬ 
pletes the process. Other skins which you desire to cure with the fur or 
hair on may be treated in the same way. To dye them buff colour, 
wash the wool thoroughly with soap and water; rinse out all the soap, 
and then let them soak for some days, until the dye is imparted, in a cool 
liquor, made by boiling one pound of logwood chips and madder in each 
gallon of water. 
London: Printed by Harry Wooldridge, Winchester High-street, 
in the Parish of Saint Mary Kalendar; and Published by William | 
Somerville Orr, at the Office, No. 2, Amen Corner, in the Parish of j 
Christ Church, City of London.—September 19th, 1850. 
