314 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 
to run round tlie garden with a basket of fresh slaked 
lime to kill them, and the next morning we again 
go round with a spade and bucket, collecting all we 
can find, and turning them to account by adding them 
to the manure heap, for the land at some future time. 
Celery. —Continue to earth up gradually and care¬ 
fully when the plants are quite dry, drawing up the 
outer leaves quite straight, and pressing the earth 
gently round them, to protect, as we have before ad¬ 
vised, the heart of the celery from being smothered 
with earth. 
Endive. —Attend to the directions given last week 
under the head “ celery and salads.” 
Cucumbers and Melons. —Those who have late 
cucumbers and melons in a healthy state should assist 
them a little by topping up and renewing the linings; 
or, if heated by tanks or hot water pipes, apply a 
little more heat; slight coverings at night with mats, 
&c., will also very materially assist them. Cucum¬ 
bers of the best varieties for winter culture should 
now he sown. A plant or two of the Sion House or 
Kenyon varieties may be grown in any small house 
where heat is maintained for the pine apple, or stove, 
or orchideous plants; or in a cutting house ; and if 
either trained up a rafter, or the end, or hack wall of 
the house, a good succession of fruit may be obtained. 
These varieties also may be successfully cultivated 
through’the winter in pits or frames, if trained on a 
trellis and near the glass. 
Radishes of various kinds should now he sown on 
warm borders. 
Mushroom Beds. —Collect materials for making 
the principal hearing mushroom beds as has been pre¬ 
viously directed, and those beds which have been for 
some time in bearing should be slightly sprinkled 
with liquid manure, applied in a tepid state, and 
brewed from the dung of the cow, sheep, horse, or 
deer, without the addition of either soot or lime. 
James Barnes. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
MY FLOWERS. 
(No, 43.) 
Thts is the time for making cuttings or taking slips 
of the chrysanthemum. These are very elegant plants 
indeed; the flowers, when fine, are beautiful both as 
to colour and shape; they are so feathery and grace¬ 
ful in their attitude, and soft and delicate in tint, that 
they are well worth some little care, and if possible, 
should he placed in our windows, as they are finer 
and last longer in bloom than when in the open 
ground. By taking cuttings or slips now, we shall 
obtain flowers earlier next season than by doing so 
in the spring, but then we must plant them in pots 
that they may be protected during the winter. The 
best sorts, of course, should be selected, and the cut¬ 
tings taken from young shoots, five or six inches in 
length, and planted in good sized pots that will hold 
several of them as they need not to be planted sepa¬ 
rately. This should be done early in the month. The 
chrysanthemum is an invaluable autumn flower, both 
in the room and the border ; it lasts so long, and is 
so lovely, and has also a pleasant perfume. The 
small red variety was the first introduced into this 
country, but it is now quite thrown into shade by the 
many finer and handsomer sorts we cultivate. Jt is 
often seen in cottage gardens, but seldom in those of 
the rich. Its native land is China, where it is highly 
valued and extolled, and so it is in Japan ; but it was 
only brought to England in the year 1795, although 
it is said to have been known here at a much earlier 
period, and then to have disappeared. There are 
more than fifty varieties cultivated in its own land; 
we have also a large variety of them of rich and 
various colours. The best annual chrysanthemum 
is said to be that called “ tricolor,’ which has white, 
yellow, and purple flowers, and they look gay and bril¬ 
liant when clustering together in the border. There is 
something very interesting to us in a Chinese flower: 
it comes from a land that must ever be pleasant to 
the heart of woman, as so closely connected wfith her 
special enjoyment, tea. In the poorest cottages that 
grateful beverage is clung to when little else can be 
obtained; and I think most of “my sisters” will 
agree with me in confessing that it is one of the last 
luxuries we should be willing to give up. A flower 
of China speaks to us of strange things ; of an em¬ 
pire dark and idolatrous, yet so firm and resolute in 
its policy that for centuries it has been sitting soli¬ 
tary among the nations of the earth, unloved and 
almost unregarded. But for its own peculiar tree, 
China would be a place unknown, and unchanged 
amid the changes of this restless world. Now, how¬ 
ever, it has pleased God to “lift up” its doors, “that 
tire king of glory may come in.” Even in that land, 
shut in by mountains and seas, and laws, the Gospel 
has at last been preached; and we may, as we watch 
the opening buds of our delicate chrysanthemum, 
rejoice to think that their dark, impenetrable country 
now hears the “ voice of the charmer,” and sees the 
“ true light that lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world.” Noiv the Gospel is “ preached in all the 
world as a witness to all nations,” are we preparing 
for “ the end" which “ shall then come?” 
The fern certainly cannot be called a flower, but 
it is a very beautiful production of the soil, and is 
in peculiar luxuriance this summer. I have seen 
very delicate specimens in windows; I have read 
of the beauty of the choice ferneries that many gar¬ 
deners possess; but I turn to nature’s fernery, and 
nothing can exceed that. There are spots in the 
woodlands where the tall, quiet trees stand closely 
together, yet admitting air and sunshine for the growth 
of woodland plants ; and there waves the fern in free 
and graceful luxuriance, in such rich masses that it 
seems almost as a moving sea of deep, dark verdure, 
and charms the eye with its elegant, feathery foliage. 
In some of the wild, picturesque, park-like spots, 
through which pathways often run, we meet with 
scenes that rival anything a garden can display— 
scenes of unspeakable beauty. Let all who possess 
highly cultivated gardens cherish and enjoy them; 
their various collections show the endless operations 
of God’s creative power, ever wonderful and ever new; 
but let those who possess them not be satisfied with 
the exquisite things that spread themselves around ; 
let them turn from the lovely fields and lanes, to the 
thickets and copses, to the beautiful dells that no one 
notices, where they will find such “ ferneries,” such 
little bright sunny glades, such groupings of wild 
shrubs, and such soft velvetty turf, that they may re¬ 
turn to their homes enchanted with their own wild 
gardens, where weeds do not worry them, or blights 
and frosts disappoint their highest expectations. I 
confess that, although I have become a scribbler on 
flowers, I never did visit a show garden in my life 
without weariness and distaste. I always wanted to 
go home, or to get out into the park among the trees 
and brambles, and I am by no means sure that I do 
not prefer a picturesque “ cottage garden,” with all 
its tangled hedges and unpretending prettinesses, to 
