268 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 5, 1861. 
would have been worse than Polmaise failures ; for tlie 
winter set in by tbe middle of January, the coals were 
frozen on the Severn and in the Gloucester Canal for six 
weeks, and the Forest of Dean, the next source for the 
supply of coals, was twenty miles off and in deep snow. 
Were it not, therefore, for the sacrilege on the cider 
orchard, all would have been lost on my hands. 
One large stove-conservatory for fruiting tropical fruits 
I had to thatch on one side, just as Mr. Fish had to do 
this winter ; but in the following spring I flowered more 
climbers, which are hard to bloom, than I ever saw done 
by any one else. Thunbergia coccinea, which was frozen 
to the back wall of a damp greenhouse, lost all the leaves 
and was in one blaze of bloom for March and April, just 
like so many Scarlet [Runners. That plant I have not seen 
in bloom from that day to this. [Bignonia Chirere—then 
thought to be a stove plant, from having first flowered in 
a stove at Dropmore the previous-year—was part glued 
to the roof of that great conservatory by the frost, and 
lost many of its leaves ; but in the August and September 
following it bloomed more freely than any plant of the 
kind has since done in a greenhouse. Bignonia venusta, 
which is yet said to need bottom heat to bloom it well (a 
grievous mistake, however), was trained against the up¬ 
rights of the front sashes, within two inches of the glass 
right and left of it, had most of its leaves singed on the 
edges from the top to the bottom of the front glass, a height 
of fifteen feet, but it flowered more profusely that spring 
than I ever saw or heard of before or since; and I sent 
one shoot of it with seventy-four bloom-bunches, with 
from twenty to fifty flowers in a bunch, to Colonel 
Drummond, then at TJnderdown, near Ledbury, and now 
at the Boyce, near Dymock, who can tell the tale to this 
day. No wonder, therefore, that I should so appreciate 
the sound sense and reasoning from this garden of Eng¬ 
land, as they in Hereford like to call their county ; and 
had it not been for the badness of the last summer, we 
should see more of the Bougainvilleas in bloom next 
summer than we ever yet have seen with us, and that 
owing more to the forced and complete resting by means 
of the frost of this winter, than by all the summer bottom 
heat which heated imaginations had ever dreamed of in 
their philosophy. Indeed, the most astounding unphilo- 
sophical page in ali our books is that which teaches the 
use of bottom heat for exciting climbers which are diffi¬ 
cult to bloom in our climate, for want of sun in summer, 
and in the absence of entire rest during the winter. I 
have done more on the other tact than most men, and 
my whole expei’ience goes against the doctrine of bottom 
heat to any exotic climber which is not a free bloomer. 
What bottom heat has done that way is a very rare 
exception indeed, and may not do the same again for a 
thousand years. D. Beaton. 
PRESERVING SOWN-SEEDS FEOM BIRDS. 
Your correspondent, Sir. J. Wighton, at page 227 in your 
last volume, called the attention of tlie readers of The Cottage 
Gardener to a plan which I have adopted with success for 
some years past, and never knew it fail either on a large or small 
scale, and I can vouch for the truth of it when I say that 3 d. 
will go further towards securing the end in view than paying a 
boy to look out, or netting, or sticks and feathers, or such like 
plans ; and we know how many good practical gardeners cry 
out with The Cottage Gardener, “ The birds took all my 
seed, and I could not keep them off.” 
As we shall have many anxious to commence sowing as early 
as they can on their sunny borders such things as seeds of 
Radishes, early Cauliflower, Cabbage, early Turnips, &c., now 
we have a change in the w r eatlier, let me again call their atten¬ 
tion to the simple recipe to prevent the attacks of finches and 
sparrows. First damp, not wet or soak, all the seeds which 
are likely to be attacked by birds or mice, take some red 
lead thoroughly dried. Put some in a saucer, plate, or dish 
with your damp seed; shake it about till every seed is covered; 
sow, rake in, and no bird or mouse will touch one. I have 
tried beds side by side, one with and one without, and the 
canny birds could tell the difference as was seen when the plants 
appeared.— Tour formerly Pilsly Nursery Correspondent. 
THE NEW REGIME oe the ROYAL HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY AS IT AFFECTS FLORISTS. 
If there he one person more than another for whom the true 
botanical species of the genus homo has a contempt, the florist is 
that person : he is a charlatan, a mere pretender, an intruder in a 
demesne which is not his, a poacher on preserves from which he 
has been frequently warned off. There is our dear and well- 
beloved Tomkins, the most ardent and enthusiastic of botanists, 
and in whose dreams of the future the occupying of a pro¬ 
fessorial chair forms a part. Well, he has discovered—yes! 
discovered in some out-of-the-way-place a plant “new to 
science,” as the plirase runs—a nasty little weedy thing, without 
colour, perfume, or anything that any one but a botanist can 
discover to recommend it. How proud he is! He brings it 
before learned societies, writes monographs of it for botanical 
journals, and the Callopygia liypothetica of Tomkins is quoted 
far and wide. 
In the zenith of his glory, our little friend Snooks ventures to 
bring before him a flower redolent of the sweetest perfume, most 
perfect in shape, and brilliant, or delicate (as the case may he), 
in its markings. It has cost Snooks much skill, labour, and time 
to produce it; but the look of contempt with which Tomkins 
regards it is quite refreshing. “ Call that made-up thing a 
flower! Why, my dear fellow, do you not give up such rubbish, 
get a collecting-box, study Lindley’s botany, and have an herb¬ 
arium? ” Snooks who is timid and retiring, is very much dis¬ 
concerted, and begins to think that after all Tomkins is right. 
In something of this spirit florists used to he treated by the 
Royal Horticultural Society. We at a distance, who knew not 
the wheels within wheels that regulated its movements, could not 
account for it; but we were told that florists’ flowers did not 
deserve the fuss that was made about them, that the Society 
aimed at the encouragement of horticulture, and not of such 
trifles as florists’ flowers. 
Well, “ tempora mutantur,” and we can imagine the ghosts of 
former members of Council gazing with mute astonishment at 
the programme of the coming Exhibition at Kensington Gore, 
as reported in the last part of the “ Proceedings ” of the Society. 
Nay, it is questionable whether there are not some connected 
with it, who are still in the flesh, who do not look upon it as a 
sad decadence and a pandering to a vitiated taste. Florists will 
hail it with thankfulness, for it indicates a change in the right 
direction. They know well enough, that, for one person who 
will stand to admire a group of new or rare plants twenty will 
stand over a box of Rose blooms, and, therefore, they believe 
that if the Society is to prosper, the more that it takes them into 
consideration the more is it likely to he popular. A good deal 
of this is to be attributed, doubtless, to the change that hag 
come over the spirit of the dream of the Council in general, 
but, perhaps, more to the fact that they have, to use a modem 
phrase, in Mr. Eyles “ got the right man in the right place.” 
His experience at the Crystal Palace Shows has taught him that 
we florists in no slight degree add to the beauty, the attractive- 
1 ness, and, consequently, the financial success of an exhibition ; 
and, hence, a grand Rose Show in July, another of Dahlias and 
other autumnal flowers (all florists’ flowers), and a Chrysan¬ 
themum Show in November. The prizes are on a most liberal 
scale, and the regulations for insuring honesty in showing, and 
neatness in appearance, are all that could he desired. 
Witness, for instance, those with regard to the Exhibition of 
Roses. The definition of a truss is just that for which 1 have 
always contended, and which I hope will be adopted at the next 
National Rose Show—viz., “ That it is to oonsist of one shoot 
cut from the wood of the current year’s growth ; any disbudding 
I from, or addition to, the original truss, will disqualify.” Fixing, 
too, the size of boxes, and even of labels, is a step in the right 
direction, and proves that the Exhibition Committee knows 
what it is about; and one cannot but think that liberality and 
wisdom, such as are manifested in the schedule, will bear most 
! advantageously on the interests both of growers for sale and on 
amateurs ; and when one sees this as supplemented by the Floral 
i Committee, which gives honorary awards to the best new' varieties 
of seedlings, I think the public, if it watch all these things 
! regularly, will be sufficiently protected from being imposed upon 
