80 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 
equally throughout, and also to arrest or correct 
any sourness that may take place in the rotten 
dung that will he used in the compost. I must 
also state that it is not safe for amateurs of no 
great experience to use moss over the drainage, 
as I often recommend for other plants, because in win¬ 
ter the moss will hold the moisture too long for their 
very succulent roots, although they will require but 
very little water all winter, and they must not he put 
up for drying like ordinary scarlets. The whole pro¬ 
cess all the year round will he much after the model 
of growing the best fancy geraniums; therefore, it is 
not advisable to cut them down early in the autumn, 
for fear of the new shoots growing too long before the 
winter; let us say the middle of September, and the 
young growth regulated as above by the second week 
in October, then they are ready for potting. It will 
save room, and answer your purpose just as well, to 
look in the first vol., page 150, and see how Aunt 
Harriet potted her geraniums, and also how she used 
to winter them. The same plan will do for these 
plants, only, if you have a dry cold pit, they would be 
better there, plunged in dry coal ashes, and near 
to the glass, than in the best window or greenhouse; 
and with that treatment, three times would be enough 
to water them from the end of October to the middle 
of February. When they are to be watered, take 
them out as I mentioned the other day for heaths. 
If you have many of them, or even half a dozen, a 
couple of them might be taken to a warm room in 
February, in order to get them into bloom early; and 
when they begin to grow freely, they must be potted 
at once in the pots they are to flower in. Use the 
very best loam you can find, and add one-third very 
rotten dung in a dry powdery state, with a good 
handful of the old lime mortar; and, at this spring 
potting, put a good layer of moss over the drainage. 
Water with plain lukewarm water till the flower-buds 
appear and the shoots are stopped, and then with 
weak liquid manure as often as they require water, 
until the blooming season is half over. Let us then 
hear how you have succeeded, and how you approve 
of this new plan. Six weeks after the first two were set 
in motion, take in another lot, and put them through 
the same process. After that the remaining ones 
may be left in the pit to come on of their own accord, 
but never attempt to pot them till you see they are in 
active growth. I think, if I have made all this clear 
enough to be well understood, it will give a great im¬ 
pulse to tliis branch of gardening; and I am not 
aware that a syllable has been hitherto published on 
the subject, but if I shall hear or read of any improve¬ 
ment on the plan, I shall not fail to mention it. 
D. Beaton. 
THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 
Brocoli. —Prick out the young plants as soon as 
they can be handled, or else hoe and thin them out 
in the seed bed, so that, either way, good sturdy 
plants may be secured for planting out permanently 
by the time that the pea ground and other summer 
crops are cleared away. The same practice is neces¬ 
sary also with regard to borecoles and coleworts, all of 
which will be greatly benefitted by timely thinning 
and pricking out. 
Cauliflowers. —Continue to sow small quantities 
of seed either in seed beds or in drills, where, after 
being duly thinned, they are to remain for a standing 
crop. It will be found an advantage, during the en¬ 
suing summer months, to sow or plant in partially 
shaded situations, liberally supplying those well es¬ 
tablished with liquid manure, to which a moderate 
quantity of soot and salt should be added. 
Celery Plants should also now be pricked out 
upon well pulverized soil, but taking great care at 
the time not to prick too deeply into the soil, but to 
keep the collar and seed leaf of the plant above the 
surface. Strict attention is necessary upon this 
point, lest the celery should be heart-smothered, an 
accident to which it is particularly liable. Surface 
stirring, and the application of a little weak tepid 
liquid manure, will be foimd very greatly to encou¬ 
rage the growth of celery. A few of the early pre¬ 
pared plants may now be put out for early autumn 
use, but it is not advisable to take more than will be 
absolutely needed, or to plant to any extent this 
month, on account of the tendency which celery has 
to start, and become pipey, previously to being 
blanched. 
Curled Endive and Lettuce should now be sown 
in succession; the latter, as previously directed, 
thinly sown in drills, to be thinned for standing, 
which, for summer purposes, is by far the best plan. 
Routine Work. —Sow, in succession, beans, peas, 
kidney beans, and runners ; and duly thin the small 
sprew shoots from the crowns of sea-kale, leaving 
only the strongest, the growth of which must he en¬ 
couraged by the application of liquid manure, with 
some salt dissolved in it. Jerusalem artichokes must 
have the earth well stirred about them as soon as 
they appear above ground. Potatoes now above 
ground should be kept well hoed and surface-stirred; 
and those that have been cut down by the frost and 
are putting forth many shoots, should have the 
weakest of these hoed out, leaving only one or two of 
the strongest to each plant. One or two shoots, ac¬ 
cording to their strength, is our maxim; for if many 
weak ones are allowed to remain, nothing but a mass 
of small tubers will be produced. Although disease 
is still to be discovered about the shoots of the 
potatoes, yet it is at present very limited in extent to 
what it lias been in former years at the same season. 
James Barnes. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
MY FLOWERS. 
(No. 28 .) 
There is something in the very name of May that 
is delightful to English feelings. Although it is not 
now so soft and warm a month as it used to be in 
our childish days, yet we always expect it with 
anxiety, and welcome it gladly, for it seems to us to 
be the very time so beautifully described by the 
royal penman : “ For lo, the winter is past, the rain 
is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, 
the time of the singing of birds is come, and the 
voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” We have, 
it is true, much cold and wet in the Mays of late 
years; but let any one take a woodland walk on a 
bright and genial morning, and see if Solomon’s 
exquisite description does not suit even our northern 
climate well. Gardens, and fields, and woods, and 
wilds, are all alike bursting into summer beauty. 
The hedges in every lane are covered with woodbine 
and wild roses; the very bramble sprays are beau¬ 
tiful as they droop over the path, with their delicate 
