2 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 2. 1860. 
or lack of knowledge of them, were registered in such a 
way as needs some more favourable points to be ex¬ 
plained, and this means a recapitulation of subjects 
already referred to. 
The old Gnaphaliummargaritaceum, atHampton Court, 
a 3 it was called in all the Courts in former times, has 
been altered by the late Dr. Brown to Antennaria ; and 
the specimen of it in the botanical arrangement at Kew is 
tallied Antennaria margaritacea, good and true in botany, 
but twice too long among beds : therefore, if you have no 
objection, I should like to mention it in future as the 
white Everlasting, for it is a true Everlasting, and the 
whitest of all the bedding plants. It is fit only for where 
good trainers are allowed, as at Hampton Court, Hew, 
and the Crystal Palace. 
Well, about the Variegated Mint at Hew: not one 
of the Geraniums can come up to it when managed 
as they do it there ; but there has been a profound secret 
in their way of doing it, and I had really to assume the 
Garibaldi before I could get to fathom the mystery. 
It is of no use telling a bull-and-mouth story about such 
things to an old gardener like me. We may not always 
be able to get up the whole truth, but we take in nought 
but the bare truth—and here it is as plain, from Hew 
itself, as they could make it. “ They never plant an old 
root of it, or make any of it from cuttings,” as I said 
already, and that was all I could get out of them until I 
pointed out plainly the way we should go. Any time in 
October or November, after the housing in completed, 
they take up every morsel of the Mint, put it into 
barrows, carry it to the blocking system there, and then 
a careful man takes it in handfuls, one left-handful at a 
time, regulates the roots so that they be all at one length 
from his little finger, or just two inches out from his 
handful; then he puts them, the roots, or root ends of the 
handful, upon the block, and with one stroke cuts them 
all clean OS’, just leaving two inches of the bottom of all 
the old shoots full of fibry little young roots. Then he 
turns the handful, and grasping the two-inch rooted 
bottoms within his fist, he cuts off all the young, and all 
hut three inches of the old ivood, throwing that handful 
aside to an assistant, and goes on so to the end of the 
job. Any gardener with half an eye can now see into 
this mystery, which is founded on the soundest philosophy. 
The strength of Nature is cut off, in these roots, just 
before the winter’s rest comes on, and three inches only 
of the hardest parts of the old shoots are retained, and 
get no winter rest at all, but are set to work immediately. 
Thus, the assistant divides them into single slips or parts, 
and they are planted out on a border in fresh soil, just as 
they put things in by the heels in nurseries; this sets 
them a-growing immediately—say at the roots, and the 
eyes on the bits of hard stems get full of sap, by-and-by, 
and in the spring they “ break ” so slowly as to make it 
a “regular break.” In this condition the “breaks” 
are planted out any time in the spring when the ground 
is ready. March or April, or any week in each will do, 
and from the day the shoots are planted, the young wood 
is not allowed to rise above the height of the edging, or 
whatever the purpose may be. There are no underground 
suckers to make coarse growth, or green, or pure white 
shoots, as one sees where the thing was not understood, 
and that was in nine hundred and ninety places out of 
every thousand. 
And, after all, who knows but the white Everlasting 
will submit to the self-same treatment, and be as easy to 
do as they do the Variegated Mint at Hew ? and who 
knows, also, if Mrs. Barley, my next-door neighbour, 
will give me her big plant of the white Everlasting, but 
your humble servant may be the first to prove the thing 
one way or the other ? 
The very same side of philosophy is at the bottom of 
the shoots of all their plants at Hew of Calceolaria 
amplexicaulis; and they flower it just six weeks earlier 
than the average of most places that I know of, and I 
never had the shine so much taken out of me as it was 
done there, after I spoke of the supposed two kinds of 
amplexicaulis—the one early and the other late. 
There is only one kind of amplexicaulis, and one way 
of doing it, so as to be up to the mark by Midsummer 
day. The secret is in two branches here. The first branch 
of the subject is not to allow the young plants to stand 
still, as we say—that is, not to let them rest entirely from 
growth for a single day after they are rooted ; and that 
involves another consideration:—if you have sufficient 
winter room to allow you and amplexicaulis to be on the 
move the whole time, good and well. The earlier in 
October you strike your amplexicaulis, the stronger your 
plants will be next May, and the more they bloom ; but 
if you are pinched for room in winter, as most people are, 
the wisest thing is not to root the cuttings to the latest 
period at which they will strike, and that runs on to 
Christmas some seasons. By being so late with them 
there is less risk in their taking to rest, for that is their 
bane, and the reason why it is so is at the bottom of the 
shoots. It is the nature of this kind of Calceolaria ta 
begin growing at the collar after every rest, no matter 
when the rest happens ; then the art is to keep it from 
resting, and so cause it to grow on from the tops only, 
because the original tops will bloom so much sooner than 
the tops of the bottom shoots of a second start or growth. 
The second branch of the subject is easily shown, and 
more easy of understanding to such as have seen the 
folly of training down Moss and other Boses after the 
manner of Verbenas, but previous to their introduction. 
Laying down Boses is the same to them in principle and 
effect as the resting period; the next growth springs 
from the bottom of the laid shoots, and the strength is 
thus taken away from the flowering branches, and the 
succulent and forced growth from below will not bloom 
nearly as fine next year. The same principle and the 
same effect are at work when you train down the shoots 
of Calceolaria amplexicaulis ; the tops of them after 
being trained down grow just as slowly as the tops of a 
trained-down Moss Bose, and the growth from the 
bottom of the shoots begins the moment you train, and, 
of course, will be a longer time in coming to blooming 
length. For these reasons, which are founded on natural 
laws, the people of Hew never train their amplexicaulis 
till it is first in full bloom, and seldom then. The con¬ 
sequence is, they bloom it six weeks earlier than those 
who train it down, and some weeks before those make 
quick plants of it from cuttings and then rest them till 
the natural impulse comes on in spring. And they tell 
you—at least they told me and more of it—to take one- 
half of a batch of cuttings and do the one-half this way, 
the other half that way, and the result will be as here 
set forth. Now, when you come to see the difference of 
the natural habits of this amplexicaulis from that of all 
other bedding sorts, you will see the force of the argu¬ 
ment against training it down, and against resting it 
entirely at any period before planting-out time. Thus 
the application of practical knowledge in aid of natural 
laws, is the same foundation of successful gardening ; and 
thus, also, three kinds of plants belonging to one genus 
may require three different modes of treatment to make 
the best of things—a thing that all the philosophy under 
heaven could never ascertain by reasoning from analogy. 
A young gardener should never rest satisfied with his 
success in any one thing until he can see the natural 
reason for it, and the natural reason for anything he does 
is the highest point to which science can reach in respect 
to it. 
The next thing is the boy who would not say his letter 
A for fear they should compel him to say B also, and all 
the rest of them. Now, if you believe me, the same 
natural law which prompted that boy exerts a wonderful 
influence over some old men. For instance : here is your 
humble servant, who never knows anything about any 
Ferns, and yet_ grows to this day Lady Ferns, Maiden- 
