334 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 
and keep them in sand till the spring. The berries ] 
of the arbutus, or strawberry-tree, have the seeds ad¬ 
hesive to their outside like the strawberry, conse¬ 
quently they will require separating from the pulp. 
Crush the berry of each gently; soak them in water, 
stirring and rubbing them with the hand; drain off 
the water and the dissolved pulp, and place the seeds j 
upon paper or canvass to dry, and store for sowing at ; 
the proper season. The arbutus had better be sown j 
in pans under glass in frames, as the seedlings 
do not come up freely in the open air. Seeds of 
the rarer kinds of conifer® had better be raised in ! 
a similar manner, such as Araucaria excelsa, Cedriis | 
deodara, C. Libani, and most other foreign species. 
Evergreen oaks and magnolias require sowing in the 
open air in beds, and the autumn following the seed¬ 
lings to be taken up and potted for placing in frames 
or sheltered borders through the winter. We might 
dwell upon' this subject for several pages, but we 
think we have said enough to enable our readers to 
raise this ornamental division of shrubs in any quan¬ 
tity they may think fit. T. Appleby. 
GREENHOUSE AND WINDOW 
GARDENING. 
Dutch Bulbs. — About the end of August the 
nurserymen tell us by their advertisements that they 
“ have just received their Dutch bulbs,” and, as a 
matter of course, they are ready to execute our orders. 
For many years I have been endeavouring to procure 
a few early hyacinths about the beginning of Septem¬ 
ber, so that I might prepare them to flower early in 
December, but to no purpose. Whether the Dutch 
growers or the English sellers are to blame for this I 
cannot say, but one thing is certain, and that is, if 
you want hyacinths to pot by the first of September, 
you must either take your own old bulbs or go to Hol¬ 
land for a set of fresh ones. The Dutch, who understand 
these roots much better than we do, pot all the hya¬ 
cinths, which they bloom before Christmas, during the 
month of August, beginning about the second week 
of the month. A full account of their practice was 
given by one of themselves some years since in Lou- i 
don’s Gardeners Magazine, so that there can be no 
question at all on the subject. But in England we 
may whistle for them till after the middle of Septem¬ 
ber. It is true we are set down as rich people, who 
can well afford to destroy a few paltry roots annually, 
but that is not the worst of the story. Many gar¬ 
deners, and their employers too, would not care a fig 
for the destruction of a few hyacinths, provided they 
could get them into agood early bloom the first season, 
say by the first of December. However, as agitation 
is now at a discount—and long be it so—I suppose j 
it is of little use to grumble; we shall be all right 
some day or other. Last year I put some hyacinths 
in fresh moss, rather late in November, to try how J 
much earlier they would flower than others put into 1 
soil at the same time and under exactly the same j 
treatment. Those in the moss were in flower ten days 
before the others, but this might be owing to the sorts, 
for they were from a mixed sample without names; 
but, after allowing the benefit of this doubt in their 
favour, I still think that any of the sorts will come 
sooner in fresh green moss, and I know they are much 
easier managed in moss than any other way; and I 
ought to know something about them, for, not to go 
farther back than last season, I flowered 600 hyacinths 
in pots, and nearly as many without pots, but as they 
were all in the flower-garden, I must not anticipate 
my own removal hence by saying more about them 
till I am fairly ousted from my present snug berth, 
from which, as the truth must soon be known, I am 
about to be turned out, to write about flower-garden¬ 
ing in the next volume, when all the flowers are nearly 
gone! However, I am now writing in my old depart¬ 
ment, and it is high time to pot all the forcing bulbs 
for the earliest crop, but any time between this and 
the middle of November will suffice to get in those 
for late spring use. I think I could give fair lists of 
the earliest and best kinds, yet I prefer trusting to 
the nurserymen for them, as they buy them from dif¬ 
ferent growers, and every grower knows his own sorts 
best. They can always command aliighish price for 
very fine sorts and for new ones, but their mixed kinds 
without names are as cheap as possible, and most of 
them are very good if well treated, but, like many 
other plants, the cultivation makes an essential dif¬ 
ference. Ample directions were given in the first 
volume about the potting and after-management of 
these hulbs, to which I refer the reader. Crocuses 
are the worst things to force, because, if they are 
excited too freely, they give nothing but a bunch of 
leaves. They do best if they are in the borders when 
taken up about the end of November or later, as by 
that time their flower-buds are well up, and if they 
are removed in lumps of earth, and the interstices 
just filled up when set in the pots, they take no hurt. 
There is a beautiful little iris which flowers naturally 
early in the spring, and is easily forced; it is called the 
Persian iris. The common double and single daffo¬ 
dil from the fields flower two months earlier with a 
gentle heat, but they should all be potted in October 
in some light sandy mould, if you prefer that to moss. 
One seldom sees the snowdrop forced, but it will an¬ 
swer just as well as the crocus ; and so will the snow¬ 
flake, and, indeed, all the hardy bulbs which flower 
with us in the spring. Although I use the common 
expression “ forcing,” there need be no real forcing at 
all; and if I say assist them by a gentle heat, that 
does not convey the meaning much better. If our 
September weather, on the average of seasons, were 
to continue through the winter, it is very likely these 
spring bulbs would flower with us in February; and, 
by imitating the mild September weather in-doors, we 
call it forcing. 
Wintering Cuttings. —One of the most pressing 
questions put to us at present is, “ How am I to keep 
my cuttings of such and such plants over the winter, 
having neither greenhouse nor pit?” This is the pith 
of many letters closely written over four pages of post 
paper. Now, the labour we undergo to read this mass 
of useless scribbling is about one hundred and twenty- 
five times more than that necessary to give the an¬ 
swers when we can make out what the meanings of the 
queries are. I am quite sure, however, from the tone 
of all the letters which I have seen, that all this ex¬ 
traordinary trouble is given from an entire ignorance 
of its existence, and editors are always so good-na¬ 
tured that you hardly hear a complaint from them; 
but it is different with a labouring man like me, and 
a cottager too — and a beautiful and comfortable 
cottage, I am thankful, mine is—and, moreover, my 
motto being that I had “ undertaken to instruct the 
uninitiated,” I shall just try and instruct cottagers how 
to write letters. We never care about the style of 
hand-writing, if it is only plain enough, and the spell¬ 
ing gives no trouble; we like phonetic, or spelling 
according to the sound of the word, as well as any 
other; errors in grammar are also got over with 
