July 
Whether water only, or wetted sand, be employed, 
when a fresh supply of moisture is required, the flow¬ 
ers will he stimulated and refreshed by adding to the 
water two or three drops of spirit of hartshorn, or of 
camphorated spirit, or a few grains of common salt. 
The greatest enemy to the endurance of a bouquet 
is the extreme dryness of the air of our sitting-rooms. 
The flowers will retain their beauty treble the time 
if a bell-glass be turned over them, so as to check the 
excessive evaporation from their leaves and petals. 
A very elegant mode of effecting this is afforded by 
a small table, having for its top a marble slab slightly 
hollowed in the middle to contain a little water, in 
which the edge of the bell-glass rests, as shewn in 
the annexed sketch. 
The unnatural light to which flowers are exposed 
during festal nights is but slightly detrimental to 
them; it is the dryness of the air that is most fatal 
to their vigour, and this dryness is increased in pro¬ 
portion to the number of the lights and the heat they 
emit. The vitiated air, or, in other words, the large 
quantity of carbonic acid and carlniretted hydrogen 
gases produced by the combustion of the wax or gas, 
and the breathing of the visitors in well-lighted and 
crowded assemblies, is also very injurious to the 
healthy growth of plants. Consequently, on such 
occasions, bouquets are more than ordinarily in need 
of glass shades, excluding as these do the air, and 
retaining as they do the moisture. 
When another instance like the following can be 
quoted within the first year of our existence of the 
benefits derivable from a more general diffusion of 
horticultural knowledge, who can hesitate from en¬ 
couraging local societies to offer cottagers’ prizes, 
and adopting other measures to promote the same 
good object? 
“ I believe I should be doing myself a great in¬ 
jury (injustice?) were I to neglect writing to you 
at the present time. Let me first state that I never 
had a yard of ground capable of cultivation, never 
dug a yard, nor yet planted or sowed any kind of 
seed or plants previous to the publication of your 
excellent work, The Cottage Gardened. I am a 
shoemaker by trade, and was greatly afflicted by the 
sedentariness of my employment, added to which 
was a habit of drinking intoxicating drinks to excess; 
and at the time I first saw the placards announcing 
your publication, I was in a state of great nervous 
debility. So much was my whole frame enervated, 
that my arms hung almost paralyzed by my side, 
and even I had to take my right hand to lift my left 
hand as high as my breast. Such was my state 
then; thank God, it is not so now. I became a 
subscriber, and have since succeeded in getting an 
allotment of 400 yards. This brings mo to the 
point. The ground was sub-let to me by a tenant 
who held three lots. I took to your advice literally 
in every department of cropping, except potatoes, 
which I manured. The ground had had several 
potato crops taken thereof previous without manure, 
so 1 was afraid of not getting a crop without manure. 
195 
' I dug my manure ten inches deep for parsnips, car¬ 
rots, and onions, and was laughed at by several ex¬ 
perienced gardeners. I sowed all in drills, which was 
not approved of by the same people. I pleaded my 
want of experience as an excuse, and consequently 
received a great deal of very friendly advice, which I 
promised to attend to next year, but I had pinned 
my faith to your sleeve this year, and could not re¬ 
tract. Next year I expect more will do the same, 
for my crops, so far, look far better than any of my 
advisers.” 
THE FRUIT-GARDEN. 
The Vine Out-doors. —It will be remembered that, 
in The Cottage Gardener for June the 7th, we 
had proceeded with the subject of vines out of doors 
up to the period of stopping beyond the young bunch. 
It is now high time to show how the rest of the 
season’s culture should be carried out. Soon after 
this stopping, the portion of the young shoot both 
below and above the bunch will begin to put forth 
what we described in a former Number as “ axillary 
shoots.” Indeed, if the vine be strong, almost every 
leaf will produce one of these. On examining the 
socket whence this axillary shoot proceeds, there 
may be discovered, betimes, a second bud, which is 
the bud from which the blossom of the next year 
should proceed. It has always occurred to us that 
this is a wonderful provision expressly afforded to 
meet those, contingencies which are sure almost to 
occur, and, like the duplicate bud or germ, which 
most of our ordinary garden beans contain, undoubt¬ 
edly placed there by the ordinance of our gracious 
Creator himself, whose power and goodness are 
equally evinced in the lowest as well as the highest 
orders of creation. It will be readily seen that 
without this provision the vine would speedily attain 
a stature and character in our vineyards somewhat 
inimical to a compact course of culture; for, as the 
buds (if solitary) broke and grew, the lower portions 
of the stems would speedily become naked and 
barren, and the whole would end in a straggling and 
festooning character. 
To return to summer practice. These axillary 
shoots must lie pinched back, when a few inches 
long, to a single leaf, suffering, however, the leading 
shoot to ramble longer before stopping. If there bo 
much space of open walling over head, the leading 
shoot may bo suffered to ramble until it has produced 
as many points as will be considered necessary to 
prune back to in the ensuing spring. This accom¬ 
plished, it, too, may be “stopped;” but in all sub¬ 
sequent stoppings we would always allow the termi¬ 
nal point to ramble more than the side ones; the 
latter, indeed, must, through the whole course of 
culture, be stopped as frequently as they begin to 
darken the principal leaves. These stopped axillary 
shoots will, therefore, have to remain as mere 
stumps, with a single leaf, through the summer, 
unless any of them be found to intercept the 
light too much from the main leaves, in which 
case thore is no harm in cutting the axillary stump 
clear away : indeed, some cultivators trim them 
away specially about the period of the fruit com¬ 
pleting its first swelling. We, however, prefer less 
severe mutilations, and should consider it bettor 
practice to leave as many of thorn as do not intercept 
the light until the period at which the berry begins 
to ripen, when, from the decline of solar light and 
heat, it becomes necessary, in our climate, to strip 
them away. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
