204 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 
Asphalt (John Leivis). —You are mistaken. The recipe is that for 
making “A Smooth Bottom for a Pond,” at page 258 of our first 
volume. 
Rhubarb ( Subscriber ).—This putting forth seed stems has no¬ 
thing to do with your having pulled off either few or many of its 
leaves. To produce seed is every plant’s “being’s end and aim.” 
Cut down the flower-stems as soon as they appear. We cannot name 
rhubarb seedlings which we have never seen. If you consult our 
back numbers, you will find full directions for the culture of this 
vegetable. The roots must not be taken up at all and divided, that 
you require to produce for your own use. For propagation, the off¬ 
sets, each having a bud on its crown, may be removed as soon as the 
leaves are all dead in the autumn, but this ought not to be done be¬ 
fore the parent root is three years old. 
Strawberries not Setting (Ibid). —There are many causes, 
any one of which may have been the origin of this. The beds may 
be old ; the soil may be too poor; you may not have watered suffi¬ 
ciently, for “several times” is often worse than no watering at all. 
If you once begin watering strawberries, and thus encourage luxuri¬ 
ance and abundant transpiration, you must sustain that habit, or the 
plants will die off during continued dry weather. You will find how 
to destroy worms at page 82 of the present volume; and how to make 
a mushroom bed at page 70 of our first volume. 
Geranium Propagation (A Constant Header). —Please to look 
to page 147, where you will find directions for increasing them by 
cuttings. All varieties are propagated in the same manner. 
Err atum (An Enquirer). —At page 134, col. 1, line 22 from bot¬ 
tom, read ocellatns. The other to which you refer is merely the 
name assumed by a correspondent. 
Poultry ( Rusticus). —Your chickens moping about by themselves 
with drooping wings, and half closed eyes, are probably affected with 
the chip or cheep, a name applied on account of the weak plaintive 
cry resembling this monosyllable which they utter. Allowing them 
to go out from the coop before they are a month old is said to be the 
cause, so that they get worms, tire., not wholesome for them. Re¬ 
move them into a warm, dry, airy place. Thick gruel, one pint, mixed 
with a teaspoonful of castor oil, and half a teaspoonful of syrup of 
ginger, is said to be a good mixture for chickens thus diseased, giving 
4 o each a teaspoonful daily. Crushed fresh oat grits is the best food for 
them, and the water they have to drink should be warm. 
Pot Pourri (A Subscriber from the beginning) .—We shall be 
obliged by a good recipe for this. Your question about cut flowers 
is answered editorially. 
Picotees in Borders (L.). —You may move these, and divide 
their roots, either at the end of October or of March. 
Ribbon Grass (Ibid).— This, which is alsoknown as Ladies’ Laces, 
Painted Grass, and, according to your note, as Indian Grass, is the 
Arundo donax, var. versicolor. It is a native of the south of Europe, 
and requires no particular cultivation. It is benefitted by being cut 
down in November close to the ground, and a heap of coal ashes 
being placed over it to exclude the frost. 
Rhubarb (S. Derham). —This is always best sown where the plants 
are to remain to produce their leaves for use. Do not let them stand 
nearer to each other than four feet. Beds for rhubarb should always 
be trenched deep, and abundance of manure mixed with the soil. 
Soil for the growth of plants, valued only for their leaves, cannot be 
too rich. You may give liquid manure until the leaves begin to 
decay in the autumn. The “ idea in your neighbourhood” that all 
the leaves should be pulled off when full grown, is a gross error. Six 
or eight full grown leaves from each plant is the most that should be 
pulled in one season. Leaves have to prepare the sap for next year’s 
produce. The stools do not require any protection beyond a little 
earth over the crowns in winter. 
Tying down Pear Tree Shoots ( H . Sandford). —This is done 
to enable the young wood to ripen better, by their not overshadow¬ 
ing each other. 
Cropping Fruit Borders (Ibid)'—N o rule is more worthy of 
implicitobedience than—avoid all cropping of fruit borders. But where 
your borders are six yards wide you may crop the four yards furthest 
from the trees, but not with tall-growing plants that will overshadow 
these. The other two yards should be uncropped, and trodden upon 
as little as possible. 
Increase of Size (W. Magon). —We never had any intention of 
increasing either the length or breadth of our pages, but only their 
number. 
Coal Ashes (A Disciple). —These are a most excellent manure for 
heavy lands, for they improve its staple. They do not render pota¬ 
toes scabby. 
Fixing Ammonia (Ibid). —The bubbling ceasing soon after your 
adding sulphuric acid to your liquid-manure may have been because 
you put too little, the ammonia, if abundant, having speedily com¬ 
bined with the acid. However, if you followed Mr. Turner’s recipe 
as nearly as you could you were not far wrong, and it is not necessary 
to be very precise. It is better to have a little less rather than a little 
more acid than is required to neutralize the ammonia. 
Herbs for Drying (T. Hudson). —The best state in which aherb 
can be gathered for drying, to preserve for winter use, is just as their 
flowers are opening. We allude to mint, balm, thyme, sage, and 
other kitchen or medicinal herbs. At that period of growth they are 
found to contain more of the essential oil, on which their flavours 
depend, than at any other. 
Balsams (J. Wharfe). —You will find full directions for their 
culture at page 276 , of our first volume. 
Rose-buds turning Yellow (A Cheshire Rector). —This, pro¬ 
bably, arises from want of moisture at the root. Mulch the ground, 
and give a good soaking with water over this three times a-week 
until rain occurs. 
Blistered Nectarine Leaves (A Lady Subscriber). —We are 
quite persuaded that excess of root-moisture, or in other words, stag¬ 
nation of water at the roots, is one of the prime causes of the blister. 
We plant on platforms, and have not seen one blistered leaf for 
several years, although we have a wall of peaches 240ft. long. Let 
us advise you to take your tree carefully up in the first week of No¬ 
vember, and to replant it in the platform manner, W'hich you will find 
fully described in the earlier numbers of Tiie Cottage Gardener. 
Follow out that suggestion to the letter, and we will engage that suc¬ 
cess will attend your efforts. In the meantime follow up pinching 
or stopping, as formerly advised. 
Housing Bees (A Bee Master). —We were informed by E. A. W., 
who was replied to in page 169 , that his bees were confined to their 
hive by a perforated zinc slider, and the hive placed in an outhouse ; 
that upon examining them in February, half were found dead upon 
the floor board, and the stench arising from them intolerable, caused 
without doubt by humidity and suffocation ; and had they been 
placed in that situation without being confined to their hive, as many 
bees would in all probability have left it, and from it being placed in 
a new position would have been unable to find their way back to it, 
and so have perished. It is a practice we never recommend, nor do 
we recommend transferring bees from one hive to another, reasons for 
which see pages 279 and 311, vol. 1. 
Crabs and Plums (J. Dawson). —The cultivation of the three 
crabs you name (Siberian, Gigantic, and Tartarian) is very simple 
indeed, precisely the same as apples, excepting that they will not need 
the knife so closely. Onr cultivated plums arc all grafted on the 
Mussell or Brussels stocks. Your climate must surely be very bad 
for plums. Perhaps your soil is deep and stagnant. 
Mildewed Manx Codlin (Allendale Town). —Your soil is too 
dee]) (three feet) and too retentive for the apple, for you say it is a 
stiff loam on a clay subsoil. Mildew is generally caused by stagna¬ 
tion of water at tbe roots. We would plant another, according to our 
previous advice, on the platform modes. Sulphur will subdue the 
mildew, but we have no faith in anything unless the root is made 
right. 
Banksian Roses not Flowering (W. II.). —The late frosts 
destroyed the flower buds of these in many places this season. No 
roses flower more freely than the Banksian, after they have been 
three or four years planted, if they are treated properly. They differ 
from all other roses in flowering on the wood made last year; on 
that account they should not be pruned after the growing season is 
over, like other roses. Prune them when they are done flowering, 
or now, and all the strong shoots they make till the end of August 
must be stopped when they are a foot or eighteen inches long. The 
wood made in September will not ripen before winter, and should be 
cut out at once. Nothing farther is to be done to them till after they 
flower next season. 
Mandevilla Suaveolens (Thomas Griffin). —All the large nur¬ 
serymen grow or can procure this for you’: we must not mention 
names. It will do little good in a conservatory that is kept warmer 
than our ordinary summers, during the growing season. 
Orange-trees Casting tiieir Leaves (Ibid). —Your orange- 
trees which lost their healthy leaves were badly rooted, and you 
aggravated their case by a temperature 45° above what would have 
best suited their condition. Whoever heard of such a thing as 
orange-trees forced at a temperature of 130°, with no moisture in the 
air but what might rise from the earth in the pots! Orange-trees 
like yours, which were in a dark room, and had lost their" leaves, 
would do better if the new house had been kept at 80° or 85°, and 
the air kept moist to saturation. Those which cast their blossoms 
will not produce move this season. Oranges set for fruit better in a 
temperature of from 70° to 75°, with abundance of air, and should be 
looked over once a day to clear off the remains of dying petals and 
stamens. Some orange-trees will not fruit easily in conservatories, 
unless they are artificially dusted with pollen. If you mean to fruit 
a collection of orange-trees, your conservatory must be kept, from 
March to September, considerably warmer than an ordinary one, 
and the Mandevilla will be of no use in it .tlpomaea Learii, Stephunotis 
floribunda, and the Scarlet passion-flower, are the sort of climbers to 
grow in a real orange house; but oranges will stand any thing, from 
30° to 100°, if they are well rooted. 
Hybridizing the Iris (J. Battersby).— The anthers of the iris 
are attached to the bottom of the sepals, not “upon the seed- 
vessels,” and the styles are petaloid, or in the form of a petal, and 
the stigma, or part to dust the pollen on, is immediately before the 
point of the anther, and standing over it like an arched roof;—but 
Mr. Beaton will describe the whole process next week. 
Water Insect (H. I .). —The specimens you sent are the young 
of the Notonecta or Boat fly. They swim on their backs, mostly on 
the surface during hot stiii weather, and by a single stroke of their 
paddles they descend out of sight. They feed upon smaller water 
insects, but might, at a pinch, feed upon the very small fry of fish. 
White Lily (A Subscriber). —The bud you have sent is an in¬ 
stance of morphology; not only the whole of the stamens and the 
pistil, but some oi the leaves beneath, are transformed to petals. 
This summer many flowers have been similarly sportive, and the 
cause may be traced to the ungenial seasons of last year not permit¬ 
ting the necessary secretions being perfected for the natural develop¬ 
ment of the parts this year. Such deformities are not likely to recur 
next summer. 
Grub (Township of East Dean). —No grub reached us with your 
note. 
WaterCress Culture (Felix),- —You will find all your questions 
answered at pp. 25 and 138 of our first volume. 
London: Printed by Harry Wooldridge, 147, Strand, in the 
Parish of Saint Mary-le-Strand ; and Winchester High-street, in 
the Parish of St. Mary Kalendar; and Published by William 
Somerville Ohr, at the Office, 147, Strand, in the Parish of 
Saint Mary-le-Strand, London.—July 19 th, 1849. 
