August 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
281 
Soil .— It flourishes in equal proportions of loam 
and peat, with a dash of silver sand. The soil must 
be rough, and the pots well drained. A few pieces 
of charcoal would be useful for both purposes. 
Culture .—If kept a second year in the same pots, 
the plants will bloom profusely, if, after examining 
their drainage, they are top-dressed with equal pro¬ 
portions of such soil and dried cow dung. A plant 
thus managed exhibited a profuse mass of bloom in 
the verandah from the end of April to the end of Oc¬ 
tober last year. It was then removed, and as the 
aphis bad begun to nibble it a little it was not pre¬ 
served any longer. Having flowered so freely, 1 re¬ 
solved upon saving a few more large plants that had 
been cuttings in 1847, but unfortunately in resolving 
to harden them well they were placed on the floor of 
a vinery, and got more cold than was agreeable to 
them. I find that, even in attempting to keep them 
in a dormant state, the temperature should not be 
below 4Q°, and after the month of January they should 
have a little more, and all the light you can give them. 
I And, also, that many tender plants if inured to it 
gradually will stand much more cold before the day 
begins to lengthen than they will do afterwards. This 
fact is of importance to be known to those with limited 
means, who yet may have a forcing-house of some 
sort, which they set in motion at the beginning of 
the year - , as there many tender plants many get a, lii't 
for a couple of months. The Torenias I have now 
in bloom occupy mid completely conceal trellises 
between three and four feet square; others are trained 
on circular trellises, others as bushes, three feet in 
height and three feet through. A young larch or 
spruce tree, peeled in the spring, with all the twigs 
peeled and retained, makes a nice support for all such 
plants to ramble over. Grown in baskets, and sus¬ 
pended so that the long shoots hang gracefully down, 
studded with blossom, is also a very interesting me¬ 
thod of treating them. 
All these plants have stood in the glass-protected 
verandah for nearly three months, beautifully in 
bloom, but not equal to the old plant formerly alluded 
to. If the autumn prove mild, they will remain to 
the middle or end of October, and then, if I could 
afford them room and heat, they would make flue 
objects all the winter; and, fresh potted or top-dressed 
in spring, would be ready for another summer’s cam¬ 
paign. All of them wore cuttings at this time last 
year, potted into sixty-sized (three-inch) pots in Sep¬ 
tember, removed with many other things to the shelf 
of a pine stove at the end of October, kept in a tem¬ 
perature of from 55° to (>0 U , stopped to make them 
bushy, shifted into a size larger pot in the end of 
February, moved into 12-incli pots in March, watered 
carefully so as not to deluge the unappropriated soil 
until the roots began to work their way into it, then 
removed under the shade of vines that had shortly 
before shown fruit, trained, and from thence taken to 
the verandah in the end of May. 
Propagating .—1 am putting in a few cuttings just 
now; they are easily struck either with or without 
bottom heat, but will root quicker and more surely 
if placed in a cold close pit for a week, and then 
plunged in a little bottom heat. But why take off 
cuttings now, instead of preserving an old plant, and 
waiting until spring? Simply because, without en¬ 
tering upon the physiological bearings of the ques¬ 
tion, autumn-struck cuttings generally bloom more 
profusely than those propagated in spring. Without 
making the torenia a peg on which to hang general 
deductions, several things must be attended to for 
obtaining large plants in such a short time. 
1st. The plants were grown very fast under the 
partial shade of the vines; the flowering principle 
was brought into operation when exposed to more 
light. It shoidd always be screened from \ ery bright 
sunshine. 
2nd. The one-shift system, or nearly so, must be 
resorted to, and rough and lumpy soil be used. Those 
who shift their plants frequently, and use line soil, 
must have patience in waiting longer for a large spe¬ 
cimen. 
3rd. Watering must be given with judgment. If 
you cannot water them yourself, and must depend 
upon an assistant, who gives everything in turn its 
regular pouring from the water-pot, then you had 
better content yourself with frequent shifting. Liquid 
manure may be given sparingly the first season, 
liberally the second. 
4th. The difference of treatment, as respects stimu¬ 
lants in the first and second year, is based upon the 
principle, that if applied the first year there would 
be line growth but little flowering. After the com¬ 
parative standstill treatment of winter, there would 
be a great tendency to blooming the second year, and, 
therefore, to maintain for a long period that bloom¬ 
ing process, growth by stimulation must be continued. 
R. Fish. 
THE KITCHEN-GARDEN. 
Asparagus. —As long as the asparagus continues 
to make growth, assist the beds by the application 
of liquid from tire cesspool, sewers, farm-yard, or pig¬ 
gery, or of liquid manure brewed from the excrements 
of animals, guano, salt, or soot. When the weather 
is showery, thin sprinklings of salt may still be ap¬ 
plied amongst the growing asparagus with much 
benefit. The beds should at all times be kept free 
from weeds, and the surface of the earth well loosened 
by the hand scarifier. We are always sorry to 
observe any neglect on these points; for when weeds 
are thus allowed to luxuriate and run to seed, they 
rob the asparagus to a serious extent, and this, added 
to the injurious practice of maintaining the cutting 
season too long, weakens the plants very materially; 
the roots canker and die away, and the beds become 
thin of plants from exhaustion, at a time when they 
should be in a state of the greatest luxuriance for 
producing an abundant return of strong shoots for 
the following season. 
Cabbage. —Continue to prick out abundance of 
plants, so that there may be a choice of good strong 
ones when the season arrives for planting the full 
and general crops of this vegetable. We plant the 
whole of our cabbage, and indeed all our vegetable, 
crops on sloping banks; and as it is possible that 
many of our cottage readers may not have had the 
opportunity of reading oiu* description of these gar¬ 
den banks, we will here describe our system. 
Sloring Banks. —It is as easy to trench the soil 
into sloping banks as to flat trench it; and aS there 
is a great variety in the depth of different soils, so 
there must also be variety in the commencement 
of the sloping bank system ; and no established ride 
can be laid down to suit all gardens. As we have 
before stated, never cast up in trenching too much of 
the subsod on the surface at one tune, but fork it up 
to a considerable depth at each trenching, letting it 
remain as loose and rough as possible at the bottom, 
so that, by the fertilizing influence of the air and 
the rain, the freshly forked earth may be prepared 
for mixing up with the surface soil at succcssional 
trenchings. By this means the most shallow, tena- 
