340 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 
Red Cabbage. —This makes the best pickle when 
it has endured a little frost. About the middle of 
November is a good time to pickle the general stock. 
Onions. —Let these be examined at times, more 
especially if not roped, and in a damp place. In¬ 
deed, they have no business in the latter situation. 
Onions will endure much heat, but not much damp. 
They will even succeed well in a warm kitchen until 
past Christmas, when they should be removed to a 
dry room without fire. Onion seedling beds sown 
in August must be thoroughly weeded. 
Trenching and Ridging. —Having now, we be¬ 
lieve, run over the chief of the cottage garden or 
allotment crops, we may conclude our monthly la¬ 
bours by a little advice touching the general economy 
of the allotment. In the first place, let us again 
urge the vast importance of deep digging and ridging 
all spare plots, rows, or beds, be they where they 
will. The frost, even by its mechanical action on 
the soil, is most highly beneficial to the soil; it is 
worth many ploughing^ and hoeings, accomplished, 
as such are, very frequently under a damp atmosphere, 
or improper state of the soil. Besides this, the che¬ 
mical action of frost is of no mean importance : by 
the free admission of the atmosphere many crude 
and sour materials are decomposed, and rendered 
soluble by the returning warmth and moisture of 
spring; besides which, it is well known that the des¬ 
truction of insects or their larvae by frost is very 
considerable. 
Cleaning up. —One general cleaning up or gather¬ 
ing should take place, if not already done. All 
refuse vegetable tops, weeds, &c., for which no other 
use can be found, should be scraped together in a 
convenient spot and burnt, or rather charred, for 
there is not so great a waste of material in the latter. 
Every hedge which has been neglected should be 
clipped, or dubbed, and the neighbouring ditch 
trimmed in order to get together much material, and 
to leave the plot systematic and neat for the winter. 
This is the way to get a good character, and a good 
character is power; this is the way for a man to in¬ 
crease his comforts and raise his condition; we may 
also add that it is the way to rear the cottager’s 
children in habits of forethought and systematic good 
order, and to make them at once their “country’s 
pride,” and a blessing to their own families when 
their rustic sires shall be gathered to then- fathers. 
Those who live near commons, or wastes, where 
gorse, fern, and other rampant vegetable matter 
exists, would do well to chop off or pare a large 
quantity of these materials to add to the heap for 
charring. A cart load or two of charred remains, 
kept dry through the winter, will be found of im¬ 
mense service to introduce with the root crops next 
March. A very moderate amount of manure will 
suffice where plenty of charred material can be 
obtained; and the chimney soot should at all times 
be carefully added to the heap, and blended with it. 
The cottager will do well to bear in mind the main 
principles of preserving all his store roots; for the 
same apply to all, slightly variable in degree; they 
are as follow:— 
Maxims. —First, prevent sweating; second, keep 
out wet; third, keep out frost; fourth, prevent the 
root growing. To prevent sweating, openings may 
be left at the top of a pile of roots, or when the pile 
is half built a little clean dry straw in bundles may 
be introduced. To keep out wet, thatching or care¬ 
ful covering may be adopted. To keep out frost, use 
extra covering in severe weather; and to prevent 
the roots sprouting, cut always as close into the 
crown as suggested for the carrots, and keep them 
as cool as possible. We have known carrots keep 
nearly two years thus treated; some roots, however, 
are more impatient of cutting to the quick. 
THE BEE-KEEPER’S CALENDAR.— October. 
By J. 11. Payne, Esq., Author of “ The Bee-Keeper's 
Guide," &c. 
Autumnal Unions. —It is now high time that these 
operations should all have been performed, or that 
arrangements are made for their speedy accomplish¬ 
ment. The advantages are very great if the union 
be effected in a neat manner. A gentleman writing 
to me on September 9th, says :— 
“ It must be remembered that strong stocks are 
not to be deprived of their honey and united to 
others, but weak ones only, and with them the opera¬ 
tion is effected with the least trouble imaginable. 
Strong stocks should be left till next season, and then 
timely supplied with room above, and their honey 
taken in that manner. A friend of mine travelling 
last week upon the coast of East Suffolk (where fire 
and brimstone, I am sorry to say, is much too fre¬ 
quently in use with bee-keepers), observed in a very 
neat little cottage garden two unusi lally strong stocks 
of bees, which induced him to halt for a few minutes 
and ask a few questions. The occupier of the place 
he found to be a jobbing gardener, who in the spring 
last year, 1848, obtained a swarm of bees which were 
put into a set of boxes of rather large dimensions. 
In the autumn of the same year one of his employers 
happened to be burning his bees, as it is there 
termed; this good man begged the burned, or rather 
stupified bees of his employer, carried them home 
with him in a flower-pot, and united them to his own. 
This double population a,greed remarkably well, and 
in the early spring burst out to work with vigour, 
quite unparalleled thereabouts; sent out a very early 
swarm of unusual strength, and both swarm and 
burnt stock have collected a most extraordinary 
quantity of honey.” 
Taylor’s Amateur’s Hive. —Since writing my last 
paper I have had an opportunity of examining one 
of my hives of this kind in the presence of the in¬ 
ventor, and very much indeed to his gratification. 
My first step was to push in the zinc slides, thereby 
cutting off the communication between the upper 
and lower box; then raising the upper box about a 
quarter of an inch upon three blocks, upon which 
the bees immediately left it and went into the lower 
box by the usual entrance. This had all the appear¬ 
ance of a $warm returning to its parent hive. When 
about three-fourths of the bees had left the upper 
hive, I brought it into the middle of my garden, and 
proceeded to unscrew the glass top, upon removing 
which most of the remaining bees made their escape. 
I then with the knife loosened the first comb from 
the sides of the box, and lifted it out, observing that 
there had been no brood in it. This comb I placed 
upon a dish beside me; after taking out the second 
I put it where I had taken the first from, and so on 
until I had taken them all out and examined them. 
To our satisfaction not a bee had been hatched in 
any of the cells ; they were all worked evenly upon 
the bars, and not joined anywhere one to another. 
After placing the combs in their proper places the 
box was then returned, the sliders withdrawn, and 
in a very few minutes things were as if there had 
been no disturbance. This operation (which was 
done very leisurely) occupied about half an hour, from 
II o’clock till half-past. During the whole time not 
