September 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
335 
little trouble. That being settled, I shall now tell how ] 
I used to begin my first letters thirty years ago, and i 
I find there is little improvement since. 
“ Dear Sir,—I write you these few lines to let you [ 
know that I am in good health at present, hoping and j 
wishing this will find you the same. You must not 
think that I have neglected you, although I have not j 
written to you for a long time, for which I sincerely : 
ask your pardon, &c. &c.” 
At tliis rate the first two pages of my letters were 
filled; the next page would hardly hold all the news 
of the parish, and there being no envelopes in those 
days the top and bottom of the fourth page could 
hardly hold the main subject of the letter, which 
might only be to ask the loan of a book; but as it 
was then considered unfriendly to send clean paper 
something must be said to fill it up. All this is not 
a whit improved since among the labouring classes, 
at least those of them who write letters to The Cot¬ 
tage Gardener ; and, for this reason, that they do 
not know better. Therefore, if I can explain to them 
the true spirit of letter-writing, it will save them a 
great deal of time and trouble. If the cottager could 
see many letters which we receive from educated 
persons he would be astonished how these include so 
many questions in so few words ; but I shall give a 
specimen or two, and I would earnestly entreat our 
cottage readers to try and write in the same way. 
This is the usual way:—“ Sir, will you be so kind as 
to answer the following questions, and oblige one of 
your subscribers, D. 13." Then the questions follow, 
and each is numbered thus:—“ 1. How would you 
suggest to winter a lot of cuttings ? I have neither a 
greenhouse nor pit. 2. Is it more safe to pot large 
fuchsias and scarlet geraniums than to put their 
roots in sand when I remove them from the frost, 
and should I cut off any of their roots or tops ? if so, 
how much? 3. Would it be safe to put in cuttings 
of these roots or tops so late? 4. Would summer 
roses root from cuttings put in now ? 5. What are 
the best evergreen climbers for a poor, sandy, soil on 
a dry bottom? 6. What is the best way of killing 
the thrips?” Now, here are six full questions which 
no one can misunderstand; they take up very little 
space, and can be read in one minute. Again, it is 
considered very selfish to ask an editor to answer in 
the very next number; all editors wish to oblige 
their subscribers, but how can they if their space for 
answers is filled up before your letter reached them; 
or suppose an editor does not trust his own judgment 
or memory sufficiently to answer you: he knows his 
position is too responsible to reply at a venture, and 
he sends your letter to another, and, perhaps, that 
one will have to send it to a third party in order to 
be quite sure of a correct answer. All this takes up 
much time, and is very expensive to the proprietors; 
but they put up with it patiently in order to render 
The Cottage Gardener a first-rate authority on 
practical gardening; for, after all, that is the only 
sure way of getting a great number of people to buy 
it, and without a very large sale they could not carry 
it on. It has attained such a sale, and the know¬ 
ledge of the good it is doing, added to the kind feel¬ 
ing with which its readers have received our instruc¬ 
tions, have given me a zest to go on with it for 
another year, but in another department, and all 
that I can promise is to write in still plainer words 
if I can; and whoever takes my place in “ The Win¬ 
dow and Greenhouse department,” I hope he will 
write much plainer than I have done, for that is the 
main point, but a very difficult one to keep close up 
to. I feel that I ought to apologise for thus taking 
up so much room, and I promise to make up for it 
soon; but having gone through those rough stages 
myself, I am certain my plain and well-meant advice 
will be useful and well received by my poor brethren; 
and I know personally that some of them wish to ask 
advice at our hands, but do not know how to set 
about it. 
Transmitting Fruit-trees to the Colonies. —In 
addition to what I have said about seeds for emi¬ 
grants, I am asked to give advice about preparing 
and packing fruit-trees for long voyages. All the 
experience that I have had on this subject is not 
much, but 1 have sent grafts of fruit-trees to India, 
round the Cape, and some of them answered as well 
as these things generally do. On the other hand, I 
have had a great deal to do with unpacking plants 
of all sorts from different parts of the world, and I 
have always found those packed in very dry saw¬ 
dust preserved the best. When the French block¬ 
aded the Mexican ports, about a dozen years since, 
there where some cases of plants detained at Vera 
Cruz nine months, which I afterwards unpacked in 
London, and many of the woody plants were still 
alive; and I had given directions to a botanical col¬ 
lector to pack cases of plants at Cumanaand Caraccas, 
on the Spanish main in South America, both in In¬ 
dian moss (Tillandria usneoides) and dry saw-dust, 
and those in the saw-dust generally arrived in better 
condition, although at that time we all thought 
“ the pastle,” as they call the Indian moss, was the 
best material to pack in. Therefore, if I were pack¬ 
ing fruit-trees for a long journey, I would certainly 
ram them very close in saw-dust previously dried on 
a kiln, if possible, for, if the least damp or fresh, it 
would be liable to ferment and spoil the whole on 
arriving within the tropics. If any one of our read¬ 
ers has had experience in sending out such things 
in a different way, which proved successful, he could 
not confer a greater favour on us than to communi¬ 
cate the particulars. Meantime, I would strongly 
advise that fruit-trees destined for voyaging to places 
far off, be close pruned at the end of September, and 
not removed from the soil for a month afterwards. 
During that time, a considerable quantity of the 
rising sap would accumulate in the wood, and swell 
out the buds; the edges of the wounds would also 
heal over in some degree. This is all that our art 
can do in the way of preparation, and it should 
never be omitted. We might also learn a good les¬ 
son at home, if we were to prune fruit-trees, standard 
roses, &c., early in October, and not transplant them 
till six weeks afterwards, and I am very confident 
the worst point, at present, in all our operations is 
to take up a woody plant, prune it, and then plant 
it immediately. Ten years lienee, none but the most 
ignorant will think of such a thing. It is like turn¬ 
ing with an empty pitcher from the well, with this 
difference, that a tree whose cells or cavities are 
brimful of sap is as easily carried as one nearly as 
empty as the said pitcher. Let us not send empty 
pitchers to Australia, at any rate, now that we know 
how best to fill them. It is almost beyond the mark 
to say that the parts where the graft or bud was in¬ 
serted should be sound and healed over, that the 
trees should not be widely spreading, but as upright 
as possible, for the sake of packing close, and that 
dwarf ones take up much less room. Tall standards, 
three or four years old Rom the graft, however, would 
carry as well as, and, perhaps, better than, dwarf 
ones. Besides, they would have this recommendation 
on reaching their destination, that they would be 
ready to plant at once in the new orchard. Before 
