48 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
A PTUI. 
more than a half decayed state, put on when I culti¬ 
vate the ground at different times of the year. The 
pruning I perform the first time by cutting off the old 
canes as soon as the principal crop is over, though 
I do not always wait for that, hut I cut the old canes 
off before they have quite done hearing, and all the 
weakest of the young ones, but two or three, to within 
from two to three inches of the ground ; and by thus 
treating them, I get a very fine crop of fruit, ol supe¬ 
rior flavour, and very large. Mine are the single 
bearing red variety.—E. P., a Mechanic. - 
Tuberose in Open Borders. —The Rev. C. B. 
Taylor, of Otley Rectory, near Ipswich, in a letter 
dated April 9th, says, “ We have had the tuberose in 
open borders, growing strongly on deep green stalks, 
of a moderate height, and the buds tinged with pink 
from their healthy strength.” 
Rhubarb Culture. —Thinking that the following 
method of growing a large quantity of rhubarb from 
a few roots may assist cottage gardeners to pay their 
rent, or be a source of profit to them, I take the 
liberty of sending it for insertion in your valuable 
work. In September choose a place in the garden 
that has a south or south-western aspect; for one 
root dig out a pit of four cubic feet, and in the 
same proportion for more roots; fill the pit with 
alternate layers of littery stable dung and turf, tread¬ 
ing them down as they are put in. Plant a root of 
Victoria rhubarb in the centre—let the plant grow 
the first season without pulling off' the leaves; the 
second season it will be a fine healthy plant, and the 
produce will be enormous. Two roots of the Victoria 
variety have produced at the first plucking more than 
!160tbs of stalk, without the leaves, and sold in the 
market for 17s. The yearly produce from two roots 
will be about twenty-four or twenty-five shillings. 
Cottagers residing near market towns, by growing 
rhubarb this way, may realise enough to pay their 
rent, on a very small space of ground. They have 
the means at command, for turf may be pared from 
the roadsides and ditches, and dung may be collected 
from the road in a very short time. As rhubarb 
obtains treble price when brought into the market 
early, one or two roots of a large and early variety 
should be planted. The Early Monarch possesses 
both these properties.—Jos. Ball, Longton Farms. 
SCRAPS. 
Couve Tronchuda and Chou de Milan. —Mr. 
McIntosh, of Dalkeith Palace Gardens, says, “ The 
culture of Cliou de Milan is nearly the same as that 
of Scotch kale or German borecole, viz., sow in the 
third week of March, and plant out the stronger 
plants in June, leaving the smaller to be planted out 
in July for a successional crop. They would, how¬ 
ever, like all kales, be the better to be transplanted 
from the seed into a nursery bed, and from the latter 
transferred to the place where they are to grow. Of 
the Couve Tronchuda, or Portugal kale or cabbage, 
there are a dwarfer and taller kind mentioned in seed 
lists. We have cultivated both, and found much less 
difference between them than there is between the 
tall and dwarf Scotch kale or curlies. At the mo¬ 
ment we do not recollect of having heard the Couve 
Tronchuda called Russian cabbage ; nevertheless, it 
may be so, and if so, it is a very improper name, as 
it is almost too tender to stand an ordinary English, 
much less a Russian winter. The taller Couve Tron¬ 
chuda was introduced into England in 1821, and the 
dwarfer kind in 1822. They should be sown at the 
same time as early cauliflower, upon a slight hotbed, 
and planted out in June.”— North British Agricul¬ 
turist. 
[In English, Chou de Milan is literally The Milan 
Callage. The Couve Tronchuda is the Portuguese 
name for our Billed Callage, or Kale. It is much 
grown in Portugal and Trance; the large, white, 
fleshy ribs of the leaves being excellent, when 
cooked as sea-kale.— Ed. C. G.] 
Onion Dressing. —Mr. Smith, gardener at Pitfour, 
Aberdeenshire, grows onions in the following mode : 
sowing the seeds upon the manure, and pressing it 
down with the back of the spade, then covering 
them with a little soil from the alleys. When about 
an inch above ground, give them once every three or 
four weeks a mixture of guano and charcoal dust, to 
the extent of a handful to each square yard, one- 
third being guano, choosing moist days for applying 
it. During the years 1845-46 and 47, Mr. Hendy 
says he saw this practised with unvarying success; 
and onions were exhibited at the Aberdeen and 
Peterhead Horticultural Society’s shows which mea¬ 
sured 14[- inches in circumference, grown in this 
way upon a black stiff' soil, all of common sorts.— 
Hid. 
Facts about Parsnips. —G. Beamish, Esq., of Dela- 
cour Villa, Cork, has contributed the following interest¬ 
ing communication to the Cork Constitution. In Feb¬ 
ruary, 1847, Mr. Richard Hartland, of Patrick-street, 
had some good, well-mixed farm-yard dung spread 
over two English acres of his farm, “ Ardmanning,” 
a deep lime-stone soil. He then had them spade 
trenched 18 to 20 inches deep, at a cost of 50s. per 
acre, throwing up to the surface from 2 to 0 inches 
of the yellow subsoil. He sowed Jersey parsnip seed 
in drills, 16 inches apart, about the 1st March, 1847, 
kept the ground clear of weeds, by surface hoeing 
during the summer, and his produce was about 20 
tons of roots to the English acre. Dpon these he fed 
every description of animals, and about the 1st 
March, 1848, he killed seven pigs fattened entirely 
upon them, cut up in small pieces, in the raw state, 
without any other kind of food, or any cooking what¬ 
soever. 
The butcher who killed them said he had never in 
his life met with healthier intestines; the fat was 
beautifully thick, clear and solid, the meat was firm, 
and peculiarly white; apiece of bacon which I cut 
up on my own dinner-table was pronounced by every 
one who partook of it, to have a delicious flavour, 
without tasting at all of the parsnip upon which it 
had been fed. 
Influenced by so favourable a result, about this 
time last year I spread good, short, well-rotted dung 
over a field of several acres, which I then trench- 
ploughed 12 inches deep, and pulverised with “ Kirk¬ 
wood’s” grubber. “ Lazy-beds” were then, formed by 
the plough, 6 feet from the centre of each furrow, 
from which the earth was dug and thrown up by the 
spade and shovel, to obtain artificial depth, the beds 
being 44 feet, and the furrows 18 inches wide, when 
completed. The seed having been steeped two or 
three days in well diluted liquid drainings from the 
dung-hill (about 7 lbs. to the English acre), two men 
placed opposite one another, in contiguous furrows, 
opened with light Irish spades, drills of about one 
inch deep, eight to eleven inches apart, across the 
beds, their spades meeting in the centre. A girl 
followed in each furrow: each girl, extending her 
hand at the same moment to within about five inches 
