73 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Novembee 6, 1860. 
in which the double Calystegia pubescens was a great 
weed, and as much as the rake could tear up of the root ? 
of the weed were in the harrow, and when the barrel wa 
filled the bits of roots of the Calystegia must have been 
buried three feet at the least. The barrel was set on two 
bricks to make a hollow under it, so as to keep the root < 
from below from getting into the barrel by the drainage 
holes, and to keep the roots inside the barrel from getting 
out into a cold subsoil already occupied with roots. 
That was in the beginning of May, 1846; and in July or 
August, 1847, the Calystegia began to show itself very 
weak on the top of the barrel, and climbed up about 
three feet that season. In 1848 it grew seven or eight ! 
feet high, and bloomed single for the first time, and for { 
the next three years the plant continued to gain more ’ 
and more strength; from which I inferred at first that 
burying the roots so deep as three feet had almost 
exhausted all their strength, and that by the time the 
growth reached the surface all the force of the roots was 
well nigh gone, and that was the cause of the flowers ! 
coming single instead of double. But, supposing that to 
be the right view of the case, a repetition of it with the 
roots of a different kind of plant would not, probably, 
give the same result, for another law of vegetable ex¬ 
tension was all the while in active force. 
When the soil in the barrel was examined, the roots or 
underground growth of the Calystegia was far stronger and 
more healthy looking than I had ever seen; and so far 
down in the barrel as I could reach, they were one complete 
sheet of coil round the sides of the barrel, without wishing 
to occupy more of the soil, so to speak. The way I 
can account for the extension is this : The first move of 
growth from the broken roots at the bottom of the barrel 
was horizontally till it reached the side of the barrel at 
the very bottom, where the air from the drainage holes 
was most active, then the growth coiled round the barrel, 
and by the time the first circuit was made it was the 
natural time for the point of growth to get out to light 
and air, and so as to be able to keep on the balance of 
growth between the leaves and the roots ; but the balance 
of growth was all on one side—on the side of the roots, 
during the next fifteen or eighteen circuits of growth 
round the side of the barrel, and all that time not a fibre 
of new roots was made on the coils till they were just at 
the surface ; then, though the growth of the coil was so 
strong the shoots made from it were as weak as possible. 
The length of under-surface growth of that coil must 
have been hard upon forty feet inside the barrel. All 
that growth was made in eighteen months without the 
aid of a leaf or that of fibres ramifying in the soil; but 
I shall leave you to decide whether that was a great 
addition of strength or a great source of weakness to the 
plant. You have the simple facts just as they occurred, 
and the result for the next three years. Just turn them 
over in your mind and see if you, also, may not be 
able to make some plant double by some kind of operation, 
or a double one single at one bound by doing contrary 
to what you had done to double the flower. But while 
you are thinking it over, I shall tell a greater wonder to 
some of my country cousins, not clansmen. 
On the 27th of October I went to see Earey’s method 
of breaking horses for the first time at the Crystal Palace, 
being a good deal in that line myself between forty and 
fifty years back ; and, if you believe me, he did it exactly 
as colts ought to be done—hurt not a hair of their body ; , 
let them stand on their legs, and on their hind ones if 
they have more than one pair, but bring down their noses 
to the grindstone. Look at them, and they will soon see 
how simple and powerless they stand, and you will have 
no more bother with them. Sam Slick himself could not 
have done it more after Natur’. 
However, what I was going to tell was about the pro¬ 
pagation at the Crystal Palace, and about the beds. On 
the 1st of November not a bed, or border, or vase was 
touched there for housing, except two kinds of variegated 
Geraniums, and they were from beds of Verbena Empress 
Eugenie, so that no gap was left behind. Ignescens 
superha Geranium was the finest bed I have seen this 
season, or ever seen of that class of Geraniums. You 
could not put the point of the umbrella into one large 
bed of it without displacing flowers, and there was not 
one faded amongst them. It is the best Geranium for 
“ making up ” when one is not tied to some arrangement 
where any colour will do just as well, or any height of 
plant. But to understand making up, take two match 
beds of Delphinium formosum, or even one bed. Well, 
do what you please with it, but it will be over by such 
a time in July or August, and it is as bad as any stroke 
in gardening to leave it one more day in those beds : but 
out with it, and in with something else in full bloom, so 
as not to lose a day, and yet not miss the charming blue 
so long as it lasts. The something else is the making-up 
plant, and none are better than Ignescens superba. 
The Ageratums were then splendid in their way. Cal¬ 
ceolaria amplexicaulis as good as you have ever seen it at 
Kew; and Calceolaria integrifolia one sheet of yellow, and 
better than ever I saw it. This, the original kind, is 
the best of them all for bedding. Earfugium grande 
6 feet across, and as large and glossy and variegated in 
the leaves as was ever seen at shows in pots. The old 
purple Nosegay, or Mrs. Vernon, must be planted there 
next year with the Earfugium, as Punch is not Punch 
enough to Judy with so strong a customer. The Crystal 
Palace Dahlia is the brightest of them all. Nemophila 
edgings just going off. All kinds of Heliotropes safe 
from frost. Corymbosum, the favourite one for bedding, 
for its less free growth, and more branchy for bloom. 
Country people think there is frost in July when they 
see beds of the dark Heliotropes as if they had been just 
pinched that morning. The Japan Lilies were still in 
full feather, and the Scarlet Geraniums were the most 
done-up things in the garden. Every leaf and vestige of 
Tom Thumb are out of their books entirely ; but what I 
wanted to know was if a ninth competition appeared for 
the merits of the Crystal Palace Scarlet Geranium. But 
no more than eight have yet put in their claims for it. 
The propagator told me he put in from 17,000 to 18,000 
cuttings of that one Scarlet, and that all the old plants of 
it that could be would be saved. 
Thousands of cuttings of the Variegated Alyssum were 
just put in, and plunged in sawdust in a greenhouse heat, 
and the end of October they find is their best time for 
them; and the Calceolarias and hundx-eds of the Liliput 
Dahlias were just rooted in bottom heat from October 
cuttings. All the Geraniums they like to be rooted be¬ 
fore September is out, and the variegated kinds were 
being potted into 60-sized pots. D. Beaton. 
WINTERING CUPHEAS, LOBELIAS, AND 
DAHLIAS. 
Cotti/d I keep Cupheas and Lobelias that have been in the 
beds all the summer if I take them up, and put them in a cold 
frame all the winter—in pots I mean P And are ashes good for 
packing up Dahlias ? 
[Dahlias, if taken up sound, are as easily kept as Potatoes. If 
the roots are thoroughly matured, dry ashes or dry earth is 
excellent for packing them in. Avoid sawdust, it is apt to heat. 
We knew fifty pounds worth killed by it. 
The Cupheas will keep easily. You should cut in the Lobelias 
so as to leave the young shoots only from 2 inches to 3 inches in 
length. Give all the air possible. Damp will be your opponent 
in their case.] 
The King op the Pumpkins. —What the market 
people call the “promenade of the king of Pumpkins”—that is, 
the parading of the largest Pumpkin of the season, took place in 
Paris on Oct. 16. “The king” this year weighs 315£ lbs., and 
measures 10 feet 2 inches in circumference- at the widest part. 
It was put up to auction, and knocked down for 128f. 
