244 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 
have equal-sized petals, and many the contrary, so 
that the regularity of the petals as a generic dis¬ 
tinction is obliged to ho contravened by a string of 
exceptions. If we turn to the hard-beaked style 
when ripe, on which the fanciful names have been 
founded, we are in no better plight. Pelargonium 
means stork’s bill, from pclargos , a stork ; geranium 
is derived from geranos, a crane, that is, crane’s bill; 
and erodium from erodios, a heron, or heron’s bill. 
Now, a good practical birdsman (ornithologist) no 
doubt could distinguish the hills or beaks of these 
birds from each other at a glance, for they say that 
if Professor Owen were shown even a tooth or a nail 
of a didledum-dee he could tell what sort of a crea¬ 
ture it was; hut if you take a handful of the beaks 
of all the sections of geraniums, and shake them in 
a box, there is not a man in existence that will know 
them from each other at sight, and not one in a 
thousand with a magnifier and dissecting apparatus 
could tell their differences. Therefore, although I 
acquiesce in the name pelargonium, I protest against 
its validity; and I maintain that those who prefer 
the old name, geranium—and I am one of them—have 
the law of priority, and the best part of the laws of 
botanical nomenclature, on their side. 
D. Beaton. 
HOTHOUSE DEPARTMENT, 
The greatness and wisdom of a designer are ren¬ 
dered most conspicuous when contrasted with the 
simplicity of the means by which striking results are 
accomplished. True grandeur and real simplicity are 
ever found in juxtaposition and harmony. Mag¬ 
nificent means and striking, dazzling, machinery for 
accomplishing a mere common result are evidences 
of poverty of intellect and weakness of perception. 
There is much sterling truth in the old adage, “ A 
good workman never stood still for want of a tool” 
because, for many purposes, he would mako for 
himself one on the spot, and perform the operation 
several times over while a thoughtless workman was 
hunting a neighbourhood to procure a suitable in¬ 
strument. In gardening, these principles are con¬ 
stantly being developed. The most striking results 
are not always obtained where the means are the 
most commanding. True, the man who progresses 
under difficulties will be the most apt to excel when 
these obstructions are removed, provided the same 
diligence and unwearied application were manifested 
in the one case as in the other; and such are the men 
that, in a great many instances, now occupy the high 
places of the field. We say provided, because here 
is the point; for though many succeed best when all 
is favourable, in the case of many more there is a 
danger of taking tilings too easily when few obstacles 
exist—when the necessity for anxious watchfulness 
is diminished. Many men will at once, and almost 
without an effort, rise to the requisite position during 
the roughening gale that can scarcely he roused to 
action in calm weather aud smooth sailing. Hence, 
I have sometimes witnessed better cucumbers, bal¬ 
sams, cockscombs, &c., produced by mechanics under 
a covering composed of slips of glass, oiled paper, 
and transparent calico, than when, owing to the im¬ 
provement in their circumstances and the cheap¬ 
ness of glass, they had provided themselves with a 
neat commodious frame or pit. I have, at times, 
seen better grapes in a house that acted the part of 
an omnium gatherum —plants being constantly kept 
in it for decoration—than when that house was given 
up to vines alone. I have seen a flower-garden with 
its grouped beds as well filled when the manager was 
obliged to stow away his plants in different houses 
as best he could as when he had juts and conveni¬ 
ences expressly for the purpose. I know a worthy 
old gardener who makes a point of cutting cucumbers 
every month in the year, and was considered quite a 
don in his younger days, who candidly informed me 
he did not think he was more successful after all the 
improvements than he used to be with his dung hot¬ 
bed. Now, in all these cases, the seeming discrepancy 
is owing partly to the want of the wonted attention, 
and partly to the practice oflooking at and admiring 
superior structures, imagining that they will do more 
for us than they possibly can, without a continuance 
of our care ami energy. 
Among all the advances made in gardening none 
are more conspicuous than those having reference to 
plant houses, and those structures for the growing 
of the tender and the forcing of the hardier fruits, 
so as to bring them into use at desirable periods. 
In everything connected with these, simplicity and 
adaptation to the end in view, rather than mere 
external effect, should be attended to. This growing 
taste for flowers, fruit, and vegetables, out of season, 
is generally associated with great advancement in 
cultivation and refinement; hut it should never be 
forgotten that such refinements may dwindle down 
into a mere matter of fashion, and as such possess 
but few humanising tendencies. 
When the love of flowers became a passion under 
the latter consuls and the earlier emperors of Rome, 
luxury was predominant, vice was rampant, and 
the manly virtues of the early stern republicans 
gone. No chastened love of the beautiful in flowers 
could ever have entered the mind of the bloody 
Nero, hut a mere desire of display, when for one 
supper the floral decorations cost thirty thousand 
pounds. Let us hope that in our case the refine¬ 
ment which the study of vegetation produces may 
never dwindle down into sentimental luxuriousness 
and weak effeminacy, but he upheld and rendered 
still more lustrous because blended with the pure in 
feeling and the christianly-moral in action. 
Hotbeds. —It is not our intention to give a history 
of the forcing of vegetation under the various phases 
which it presents, hut we will at different times 
advert to the various methods of doing so, and the 
principles to be attended to in order to secure eco¬ 
nomy and success. As the first that generally en¬ 
gages the attention of the cottager and the amateur, 
and because success or failure therein generally acts 
as a stimulant or as a damper to farther progress, we 
shall to-day say a few words upon the common hot¬ 
bed. It was long the only means for accelerating 
vegetation with any thing like certainty : walls, 
sloping banks, watering with warm w;xter, removing 
into common sheds and houses at night, had all 
previously been used; cucumbers were grown in bas¬ 
kets and boxes, planted in earth over dung, much 
the same as in the time of Tiberius, being covered 
then at night with plates of talc instead of glass. 
Every improvement seems simple when once deve¬ 
loped. Luxuries at the period referred to were at 
their height; but, though the Romans heated their 
dwellings by flues and pipes, there is no evidence to 
show that they ever thought of such means for the 
growth of plants. Besides the growing of cucum¬ 
bers and melons, such hotbeds, whether made in a 
pit or with a wooden box set over them, are extremely 
useful for striking the cuttings of tender plants, 
forwarding them when struck, and also for growing 
tender annuals, for the decoration of the stove and 
