THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 16, 1860. 
35 
generally near the surface ; and besides, a larger surface is exposed 
by tliis form to the beneficial effects of the moist air of the interior. 
These wide pots may be ordered at the manufactory, and will 
cost no more than the ordinary-shaped pots. When these pots aro 
ordered, I would recommend the grower to order also about a 
dozen large, upright pots, without holes at the bottom. These 
are to be kept filled with water, and placed at regular distances 
close to and touching the pipes. So placed, the cultivator will 
find them exceedingly handy in syringing, saving the trouble of 
carrying and shifting the common garden pot filled with water 
for the same purpose. T. Appleby. 
{To be continued.) 
SAYING CUCUMBER PLANTS THROUGH THE 
WINTER—CHOICE OE SORTS. 
Ip I made a hotbed of tan—say the beginning of November, 
could I save Cucumber plants (cuttings rooted), through the 
I winter without the aid of fire heat, ready to force in the vinery 
about January ? Would sufficient heat rise from the bed to keep 
out frost P 
Could you give me the average length of the following Cucum¬ 
bers :—Cuthill’s Black Spine, Weedon’s Symmetry, Southgate, 
Manchester Prize, Ipswich Standard, Mill^Jewess, NapoleonllL, 
Phenomenon, Empress Eugenie ? Which three sorts do you 
consider the best—that is, the most prolific and handsome ? I 
have tried this year about nine different sorts ; but, according to 
my idea, they are all too long in the neck. The Star of the 
West has proved the best with me, but it is long in the neck.— 
O. II. 
[411 your Cucumbers average, under ordinary cultivation, 
sixteen to eighteen inches, but several of them may be grown to 
the length of twenty-four to twenty-eight inches. Of those you 
enumerate, we would recommend you Mills’ Jewess, Manchester 
Prize, and Weedon’s Symmetry. 
The long necks depend more on the culture than the kinds. 
When grown in a bed the necks are shorter than when suspended 
from a trellis. We have kept Cucumbers over the winter in such 
a pit, by merely occupying a part of it with Cucumbers in pots, 
and having the other end empty of plants, so that by turning it 
we could increase the atmospheric heat at pleasure. When the 
place the Cucumbers were in got rather cold, they were moved 
to the other end, and a fresh supply of tan put in where they 
stood, and the old turned on the top of it, Unless your pit is 
very deep, you will scarcely succeed in a cold winter without 
some such plan as the above, or the power of placing fermenting 
material round the sides of the pit. With the latter means all 
things are possible when care and trouble are taken. Our old 
Cucumber growers had no other means.] 
EFFECT of the LATE SEASON on VEGETATION 
AT SULHAMSTEAD. 
The very unpropitious and almost sunless season we have 
just experienced will, I fear, prevent much of our abundant 
crops from ripening and being of any very great benefit to us, 
which it would have been under more favourable circumstances. 
The earth being so overcharged with water, keeps the soil to ! 
such a low temperature about the roots of the trees, that much 
of the fruit becomes diseased, cracks, and falls off 
Fruit. —Apricots have been a fair crop, of good size, but defi¬ 
cient in aroma. Peaches and Nectarines, small, almost tasteless. 
Apples, heavy crops, medium size. Pears, abundant both on 
walls and standards, but are very much diseased; fruit cracks 
and falls. Strawberries, almost a failure. Raspberries, fruit 
large and abundant; flavour flat. Cherries, crop good, bad 
flavour. Currants (Red and White), heavy crop, very acid. 
Black Currants, medium crop, fruit sour. Gooseberries, total 
failure. Figs, plentiful but do not ripen well. 
Vegetables.— Winter Broccoli and Cabbage, mostly cut down 
by frost. Cauliflowers and Cabbages (spring sown), very good. 
Peas, good ; late sown flower well, but do not fill up. Onions, 
plentiful and good. Dwarf Kidney Beans, very indifferent. Scarlet 
Runners, strong; abundant crop. Broad Beans, well filled ; grow 
very tall. Carrots, crop good; very much split. Parsnips, good. 
Early Celery, fine and good ; late grows slowly. Potatoes (early), 
almost worthless ; later kinds about half a crop ; disease worse 
and more rapid than has been known here for some years. The 
Lapstone Kidney has withstood the disease best, out of twelve 
sorts only a few being diseased. The next best, a variety of 
Kidney called SussexSeedling, a very good sort, and good cropper; 
but boils, “the present season,” a little close, but not waxy. 
Flower Garden. —Scarlet Geraniums have been very indif¬ 
ferent ; Collins’ Scarlet being the best in the plain-leaf class. 
Cottage Maid the best in the Horseshoe variety. Compactum, 
straggling, bad flowerer. Cerise Unique made good foliage, but 
no flower. Queen of Smnrner, diseased. Tom Thumb’s Bride, 
very poor. Geraniums Variegated.—Flower of the Day did 
well, flowered better than I have ever seen it. Mangles’ has not 
done well, but was weak when planted out. Brilliant, scarcely 
variegated at all; very poor in flower. Lobelias have flowered 
tolerably well. Petunias, worthless. Calceolarias, very good. 
Verbenas, indifferent; the best have been Purple King, Geanfc 
des Batailles, Joan of Arc, Victor y, and Imperatrice Elizabeth, a 
dwarf. Dahlias have not done well, except Crystal Palace Scarlet 
and White Zclinda, they have flowered well. Alyssum variegatum, 
very good. Salvia variegata, good ; S. patens, poor. Vegetable 
Marrows and Gourds have grown vigorously and fruited well. 
Cucumbers, a failure.— George Kerr, Gardener, Sulhamstead 
House, near Reading. 
GROWING YINES IN POTS. 
I SEE in your number for September 25 “ A Reader of The 
Cottage Gardener” asking how to grow Vines in pots. Mr. 
Fish gives him very good advice ; but then the thing lies here— 
Has that man got-top and bottom heat as Mr. Fish speaks so 
much of? If he has, all very good ; but he may be like me and 
many others, who have to grow them without bottom heat at all; 
or he may have all bottom heat and no top heat. I have a small 
house that I grow them very successfully in : I will describe it as 
well as I can. The house is span-roofed, 11 feet wide, 21 feet 
long, 4 feet of brickwork—that is, up to the roof, and rises to 8 
feet in the centre up the middle of the house. 1 have a walk 
3 feet wide, brick wall 3 feet high; then, betwixt the inside wall 
and the outside, I have two rows of four-inch pipes on the 
ground. Over these I put flags about four inches wide, leaving 
two inches betwixt every two. Then I get some good turf sods, 
turn them upside down, and fill up with good chopped sods as 
high as the inner wall. I have two wood pipes about a foot 
wide, which go through the soil to the pipes, which give me a 
little top heat and also to pour water down on to the pipes to 
raise moisture. I have also pans on the pipe to hold water. 
Now, in this house I generally fruit about two dozen pot Vines 
the second year from the eye; and I have some very good crops 
—betwixt fifty and sixty good bunches; and I generally cut ripe 
fruit in eighteen months from the time I put in the eyes, but the 
Muscat of Alexandria I cannot get to do well along with the 
others. 
Before I start my Vines I strike all my bedding-out plants ini 
this house, about 2000 in number. So you see I must make 
good use of my small house, besides growing Ferns under the 
Vines all summer and winter.— Bolton-le-Moors. 
[Mr. Fish is obliged for the above letter and the information 
promised. In the article referred to there are several misprints. 
In the fifth paragraph from the top of first column, page 386, 
the second and third periods should be one, with a comma instead 
of a period after “ small.” The word south in second line from 
bottom of column should be followed by fence. The two last 
periods in page 287 should read thus—“ All that we have said 
of preparing plants will apply also in his case; only there will 
be no necessity,” &c. These misprints are generally more the 
fault of the writer than the printer; and the only excuse for the 
former is the rapidity with which the article must be frequently 
written—otherwise the article contains what the writer believes, 
from experience and observation, to be the best mode for pro¬ 
curing early crops from Vines in pots, and these Vines perfecting 
their fruit early the second season after inserting the eye. There 
is no difficulty in growing the Vines the first season in a common 
hotbed—less, in fact, than growing Cucumbers and Melons, with 
the exception of the shifting : nay, such a Cucumber-bed is what 
we generally used for starting the cuttings in. Such a hotbed 
would be as* good as anything for starting the Vines into growth 
the second season ; but if early fruit was desired, the trouble in 
keeping up a dry heat by linings would bo excessive. To obtain 
a crop seventeen or eighteen months from the eye, bottom heat 
in the first stages we consider of great importance. A friend of 
