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THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 
with the beautiful lilies and many other line things, 
that were lost after being landed safely at Antwerp. 
It so happened that Dr. Siebold’s cases arrived when 
the French were besieging the citadel at Antwerp, I 
believe in 1831; and the place where the cases were 
put was soon filled with cavalry horses, which 
knocked everything about in such a way that it was 
a wonder that a single leaf was saved; and our ori¬ 
ginal camellia Donklsieri was in this melee. Mr. 
Donklaer, after whom it is called, told me the story: 
he was then gardener at Lovain. The name is sel¬ 
dom spelt right in our lists, but this is the way Mr. 
D. always signed bis name. 
Palmer's Perfection. —A large deep red one, and, I 
perhaps, the very best of our English seedlings. The j 
form is regularly imbricated, and the shape can ! 
never be excelled. It was raised by Mr. Palmer, 
whose celebrity in the cultivation of these plants is 
well known to all who have taken an interest in the 
progress of improvement in this family. 
Marchioness of Exeter. —This is one of very recent 
origin, said to be very line ; but the only two plants 
of it that I have yet seen in flower were very young, 
and the flowers were not quite first-rate; but I was 
assured by a good judge that it might safely be 
classed amongst the first light red or rose coloured 
ones. 
Brochii and Saccoi nova are two beautiful Italian 
seedlings; the former, an imbricated light pink- 
coloured one, dashed with white stripes, and some¬ 
times with blotches of white; and Saccoi nova red, 
with a violet tinge, and as regularly imbricated as 
any on the list. I believe they were both raised by 
Dr. Sacco, of Milan, who is said to have been the 
first successful grower of them in Italy, and the first 
who recommended the use of the rotten wood of the 
Spanish chesnut to be mixed with their compost. 
There is a large class of the Waratah, or anemone- 
flowered breed, many of which are beautifully mottled, 
like picotees, but they are going out of fashion of 
late years, since the imbricated class became better 
known. But we have more than enough of them 
to-day, although the list might easily be doubled. 
Sou,.—Within the last few years there have been 
large quantities of young camellias sent over to 
London from the continent for public sales, and 
causing a wide spread of erroneous opinion as to the 
proper compost for them. The foreign ones being 
invariably potted in peat only ; but tlie continental 
peat is as different from ours as chalk is from cheese; 
and our peat, if used alone, is almost poison for 
them in pots, although they will do in peat beds out 
of doors. All young camellias with us, until they 
are seven or eight years old, will grow better in three [ 
parts good mellow loam, and one part sand and J 
rough peat, than in any other mixture. After that 
age, pure loam and sand will keep them in better 
health than anything else; and at that age, if the 
loam is rich, and of the right sort, they will not 
require fresh potting but every second or third year, 
but only to have a little fresh soil put on the top. 
Watering. —As long as they are of a manageable j 
size no plants are better fitted for cool rooms, but 
dry heat is very injurious to them; I have seen a 
whole crop of their flower-buds drop off on being 
introduced into a warm dry staircase. Their leaves 
give no indication of want of water by drooping like 
many other plants, and it is always more safe to 
keep them rather moist at the roots than run the 
risk of getting too dry. In an ordinary greenhouse 
their roots keep growing all winter, and, therefore, 
they will require to be kept regularly watered all the 
year round; and, as I said before, if the pots are well 
drained, you can hardly water them too much when 
growing, but no manure-water should ever be given 
them till after the flower-buds are formed, and none 
at all if they are not in good health. 
Pruning. —They will bear priming as well as 
apple-trees, and just as they are beginning to grow 
is the proper time to prune them; but as long as 
they keep well clothed with leaves, and grow regular 
without straggling shoots, there is no occasion to 
prune them at all. Next week I shall give a digest 
of their treatment in rooms, pits, and greenhouses; 
also the treatment for sickly ones. D. Beaton. 
THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 
The continuance for so long a period of the late 
unseasonable and veiy cold weather will cause, we 
fear, great loss and disappointment in many of our 
late gardening operations. The quantity of snow 
that fell on the 17tli, 18th, and 19th of April, the 
wind at intervals blowing almost a hurricane, and 
the many severe frosts since the beginning of that 
month, will probably not only retard and weaken 
vegetation, but perhaps also destroy those young 
seedlings which were about making, or bad already 
made, their appearance above the surface of the 
earth. It will be necessary, therefore, to examine 
immediately our beds of carrots, onions, and parsnips, 
as well as our lately sown cauliflowers, coleworts, 
borecoles, brocolis, and, indeed, all the brassica family; 
many of which, we fear, will be found with shanked 
stems, and these will be easily detected after the oc- 
ciurence of a few hot days. If discovered to be in a 
bad state, successional sowings of these crops should 
be made without loss of time; and it may be the 
means of saving many of the crops from total des¬ 
truction if dry dust be scattered among those that 
are already above the ground. 
Dwarf Jeidney beans and scarlet runners, having 
been already planted, will be found, we fear, to have 
suffered much, or, at all events, to be so much weak¬ 
ened, that a reserve should at once be sown in some 
sheltered corner for transplantation. It was consi¬ 
dered safe by our ancestors to sow or plant kidney 
beans as soon as two swallows were seen together; 
but this year (in Devonshire) will prove an excep¬ 
tion to the old adage. The swallows, in that part of 
England, generally make their first appearance from 
about the (ith to the 10th of April; and this year, 
notwithstanding the subsequent severity 'of the wea¬ 
ther, so destructive of kidney beans, I observed, on 
the 7th instant, no less than three pairs of swallows 
skimming over the surface of the lake. On the same 
day the notes of several other varieties of our small 
birds of passage, such as the red-start, the white- 
throat, and the nettle-creeper or black-head, &c., 
were to be heard in and about the warm shrubberies. 
Yeai's ago, when living in the more eastern counties 
of Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, and Essex, the 17th of 
April was there about the usual time of these wel¬ 
come visitors making their first appearance ; so that 
it seems that they visit this locality, on an average, 
ten days earlier. The nightingale, I am sorry to say, 
does not visit us here. 
The soil is now so saturated and cold, that it will 
take some days of sunshine to warm it; consequently, 
