THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Jakttart 1, 1861. 
189 
vatory, and also some snow; but tlie roof being steep they 
would not stick, unless where the netting put on previously was 
a little puckered. This morning glass against walls down to 10°, 
8°, and 9°, and on ground near zero; temperature in ends of 
conservatory 30°, or 2° below freezing. Plants had been removed 
from ends. Cinerarias, &c., a little stiff, being kept shaded and 
sprinkled with cold water over the leaves, have recovered and 
show.no sign of harm. After breakfast, there being no appear¬ 
ance of a cloud, threw four trusses of straw and a little hay over 
the whole of the back of the roof and ends of roof, which we 
hope will keep us safe to-night. Have looked out for a charcoal- 
stand if it should be necessary. Getting a little cloudy, and 
barometer falling. R. E. 
THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The Queen having granted her permission that the Horti¬ 
cultural Society of London shall in future be styled the Royal 
Horticultural Society, it will henceforth be designated under 
that title, and the Fellows will adopt the abbreviation F.R.H.S. 
WINTERING BEDDING PLANTS. 
From the first appearance of The Cottage Gardener 
to this day we have all of us insisted on keeping bedding 
and other frame half-hardy plants as cool as possible 
during hard winters, aud exposed the fallacy of making 
use of sun heat to help to keep frost out of cold pits, as 
is done in summer afternoons by shutting up long before 
the sun is off the glass. It is one of the best points of 
our gardening in England that we can thus force plants 
with the help of Nature ; and it is the greatest harm to 
our calling that we, or some of us, do not better under¬ 
stand the difference, the vast difference, between the 
sleeping beauty and the maid-of-all-works in gardening. 
From the first impulse of the spring to the safety- 
point of housing bedding plants in the autumn, Nature is 
the maid-of-all-works; and the more she is aided the 
more work is done, or the sooner the work is ended, and 
she may go earlier to bed ; and no matter to which or to 
whom you compare Nature at her work, she ought to be 
considered the sleeping beauty, and to be treated as 
such after going to rest for the day or for the season. 
But as Nature under pot culture never sleeps, her rest is 
induced by a very different process to that of the sleeping 
beauties under bed-curtains. Cold sheets, cold toes, cold 
rooms, cold draughts, so chill and benumb the blood of 
mortals that they can hardly go to sleep the fore part of 
the night, or if they do they do not enjoy it. But all 
these degrees and ways of cold seem absolutely necessary 
to set plants to rest, and to rest them comfortably for a 
season. Those, therefore, who do not rest their bedding 
plants on that principle do it on a principle which is 
altogether wrong, and contrary to Nature. And the 
reason of hearing so much of harm in cold pits by frost 
and damp weather is just the want of Nature’s rest for 
plants, and Nature’s rest for plants is simply cold all 
the world over. 
In all parts of the world the night is colder than the 
day, and there is a daily—or, if you like it better, a nightly 
rest for plants. There are also a warmer and a colder 
season everywhere, and it is in the cold season that all 
the more useful and more beautiful plants take their 
yearly rest. It is difficult, however, to cause Nature to 
rest in bedding plants during a muggy, moist autumn, 
such as the last we have gone through. There was no 
real rest till the frost came on a week before Christmas, 
and in many of the cold pits all over the country plants 
were in a very bad condition then to go suddenly to rest; 
and those who made and may make use of bright sun¬ 
shine in hard frosty weather to help to keep off the frost 
will be most severely punished in the long run if this 
winter holds on hard a long time. 
Some people will lose plants from the sheer want of means 
of saving them from frost after all their good treatment; 
but the great bulk of the loss of this winter will be from 
the soft state of the plants just before the frost, from the 
damp state of the bottom and sides of pits and frames, 
and the quantity of wet soil in the pots. Now, the effect 
of an hour or two’s sun on all this damp at this season of 
the year is to raise a strong degree of vapour, which, 
being confined and covered up in the afternoon, would 
be sufficient to begin forcing a Peach-house with; or say 
the very worst possible effect on softwooded plants. The 
moment the sun touches the glass of a cold pit in frosty 
weather air should be on top and bottom, if ever so little, 
and the sun should be entirely off the glass before the air 
is shut off, no matter how cold the day may be. It is 
far better for soft plants to leave the glass wholly covered 
for days together in sunny weather during a hard frost 
than to raise that vapour inside a frame, aud not allow it 
or rather force it off instantly. With the exception of 
real practitioners it is difficult to make people believe all 
this, for the mass of mankind do not and cannot see the 
immediate risk or any danger at present, nor signs of any 
such misfortune as is implied in these strict rules. Not 
one in a thousand could see the harm of the October frost 
of 1859 on the Peach trees and other border out-of-door 
plants at that period, and yet more harm was then done 
than has been recorded for any period in our gardening 
history. But real practice has more effect on the public 
mind than the actual preaching up of a theory, be it ever 
so sound : therefore, just hear that I practise what I 
preach about sleeping beauties and about my own beau¬ 
ties at rest. 
I have over three thousand beautiful new seedlings in 
one cold pit without any artificial heat, and every one of 
them is as susceptible of frost as any cold-frame plants 
can be, and some of them a great deal more so. The pit 
is seventeen lights long in one division, the back is nine- 
inch brickwork, the two ends mounds of earth against 
one-inch deal, and the whole length of the front is only 
of that njaterial—or say, the front and ends of pitch-pine 
deal one inch thick; but there is a dry lining in front six 
inches through. The glass has a good slope, and is 
covered with four folds of mats, and as much stuff over 
them as keeps off any frost. 
Now, after the miles of cold pits which I have reported 
on in the nurseries round London, and in the propagating- 
grounds of the Crystal Palace, where all kinds and 
degrees of greenhouse plants, and any young seedlings 
are kept every winter with, in most of the nurseries, only 
one thickness of mat over the glass, and over that, fern, 
straw, or stubble, it seems as rich as a Christmas pudding 
to talk of four mats over my glass before aught else is 
added; but all my plants are pets, and more also; for 
most of them are for experiments, which if I lost at my 
time of life, would be far different from a loss of trade or 
trade plants, or common plants for ordinary flower-bed 
arrangements. Hence the depth of my feelings for them 
and the depth of mats over them; hence, also, the bare 
truth pitched on the side of practice, to make it square 
with my story about resting plants on a scientific basis. 
Besides, the said pit is exposed to the full view of the 
public every day in the year, and several hundreds see it 
with interest and stare at my doings every week the year 
round. During the slight early frost in October, I closed 
this pit for two nights only, and then expecting a run of 
mild weather, I fixed as a rule that abundance of air 
should be left on every night, and that the lights should 
be off or all but off the whole day if it did not rain, till 
the glass fell to 30°. That rule applied down to the 
week before Christmas ; then the first frost was 10° of cold, 
or the thermometer was down to 22° on the scale, and 
some of the leaves got stiff with the frost after having 
two mats thick over the glass, but nothing to hurt ; and 
I opened the lights wide while the sun was out, and in 
the afternoon I allowed the glass to get a little frosted 
before I put ou the mats, which were also frozen a little. 
The second change I had 14° of frost, the “ glass ” 
