314 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Febbfaby 26, 1861. 
&c. Unless I struck the cuttings thick in autumn I could 
not find room for what I want. If I left the plants so thick 
until planting time, they would draw and smother each other; 
and even if struck rather thinly, I find they do not do so 
well if left in their cutting-pots or boxes, as they do when trans¬ 
ferred to intermediate-beds before planting out finally. Though 
with all this there is a considerable amount of potting, yet I 
should never get through the quantity required, if nine-tenths 
of my bedding plants were not struck and ultimately p’anted 
out without even seeing a pot. 
I mentioned lately the cleaning a low flat house, now used 
for Eigs, and filling it nearly with Geraniums. That is next 
door to a similar division appropriated to Ferns, Orchids, and 
a few stove plants ; and the Fig-house was made into a potting- 
shed by moving a small potting-board into it, and the house 
itself made comfortable with a little fire heat. Lumpy fibry 
loam, fibry heath soil, with some charcoal and silver sand were 
mixed together after being well aerated and wanned. A portion 
of the soil outside the balls was carefully got rid of, and most 
of the plants were put back into similar-sized pots tlia" had 
been thoroughly cleaned, warmed, and well drained before using. 
Hanging Stanhopeas, &c., had lumpy peat, chopped old moss, 
and nodules of dried cowdung stuffed into the openings, and a 
soaking of water given to set them going. 
Some of the fine-foliaged Begonias when shifting them had 
a good proportion of loam and. some dried cowdung used in 
the compost, and some leaves a little brown or blotched were 
cut clean off, and then cut up into strips half an inch wid > and 
3 inches long, and then inserted as cuttings round the sides of 
small pots, on sandy loam, with sand on the surface, rather 
more drained than for cutting-pots in general, and then plunged 
in a sweet bottom heat beside the Cucumbers. These, under 
such circumstances, want no bell or other glasses, and if 18 inches 
to 24 inches from the glass they will need no shading. 
Took off more Verbena cuttings, and owing to scarcity of poi s put 
them in semicircular drain-tiles, some 9 inches long and 2 inches 
across, or more according to size, a thin piece of clay placed in 
each end, forms the vessel. A hole in the clay at the bottom 
of each end, made with a stick or the little finger, lets the water 
pass; rough riddlings are placed in the bottom of the tile, and 
then suitable soil as for a pot for cuttings. We shall plunge 
these in a slight bottom heat from leaves. We like spring- 
struck plants best, in the case of Verbenas. When the. e are 
struck and growing, the whole tile will be a mass of root-', and 
then we generally turn them out pretty much as they are into 
temporary beds. A slight stroke on one end of the tile brings 
all out in a piece, like a cheese out of a mould, just as out of a 
pot, and, in this respect, I prefer these rough tiles to square 
pans made on purpose. It is amazing how some things seem 
to cling to the clay ends. These ends are frequently used again 
and again during the season, as the tiles when emptied were 
used again and again. When extra economical, we have col¬ 
lected a number of these clay ends at the close of the propagat¬ 
ing season, placed them under cover, and covered them with 
moss, and then next season when placed in a tub of water for 
half an hour or so, they were soft enough to place in the open 
ends of the tiles again. Such drain-tiles, if new, should be 
soaked before using ; if old, be thoroughly washed before using 
them. ; i > 
Removed some of the earliest pots of Potatoes from Peach- 
house to a cooler place, where the frost will not be much more 
than excluded, average at night 40°; in order that the growth j 
upward may be arrested, and the tubers may form and swell } 
faster, the heat will rise in sunny days. Put some eight-inch j 
pots in their place, planted with five Tom Thumb Pea*, in¬ 
tending to gather from these pots. Sowed also in 60-pots, to 
be repotted to see which does best, having always faith in early 
Peas transplanted. Sowed, also, boxes of Mazagan Beans, and 
Sangster’s No. 1 Pea, on the 16tli, to be transplanted after 
being hardened off. This is quite early enough, as such plants 
should not be too much stunted before taking them out to the 
open air. From such sowings under glass, turned out in 
the middle or end of March, we have frequently gathered a 
fortnight and three weeks earlier than from those sown early 
in November, after all the trouble of protecting them in w'nter, 
and slug hunting almost every mild morning. We have given 
up autumn or early-winter sowing many years.—R. F. 
Errata.—P age 282, col. 1, third line, second paragraph, fro a top, 
injured ” shouldbe “ syringed.” Page 282, col. 2, second line fro a top, 
the word “ bulb ” should be “ hulk.” _ 
YOUNG VINES CROPPED AND NOW 
UNPRUITFUL. 
Will you give me your opinion respecting some young Vines 
I have here ? They were heavily cropped the first and second 
years after planting, and they came under my charge in the third 
year, when they made very strong wood, but produced very little 
fruit this, the fourth year, although the wood was thoroughly 
ripened. They are breaking very weakly, and showing no fruit. 
I am well aware that cropping them in their young growth is 
the cause of no fruit now. What would you advise me to do; 
replant the house, or let them remain to gather strength ? I am 
of opinion they will never recover.—T. W i F. 
[We are a little in doubt, as the Vines made such strong 
wood last year. Are you sure that the weakness now may not 
be owing to the roots being injured by frost, or a part of the stem 
being unprotected out of doors ? We’are quite of your opinion 
as to the effect of early fruiting ; but the strength of last year’s 
wood would seem to imply either that the Vines had recovered, 
or the roots had got too deep. In the latter case, raising the roots 
would be the best remedy. If from frost or exhaustion, it might 
be as well to replant. But try how the Vines get on ; for if the 
border is all right, you might plant young ones in June, and 
keep both for a season.] 
PLANTING GLADIOLUS AND OTHER BULBS. 
STAUNT0NIA LATIFOLIA HABDY—BEDDING LOBELIAS, 
TBOP-EOLDMS, &C.—WALTONIAN CASE — BOSES FBOSTED. 
The last experiment I made was on the 18th inst., and 
Gladiolus was the subject of it. Last autumn I had a 
lot of fine “ roots ” of “the best bedding” Gladioluses from 
one of the finest gardens in England; but as I cannot 
find the name which was sent me with the bulbs in any 
of the London catalogues nor in Mr. Standish’s lists of 
Gladioli, it would be worse than useless for me to mention 
the name here, for I should soon have a hornet’s nest 
about my ears for any name that is not in common. 
Without knowing the kind of Gladiolus myself, and not 
wishing to bother my good friend about the sort, lest I 
should never have another root out of his stock or a leaf 
out of his book, I resolved to keep the bulbs in a very 
cool room at the top of the house, in an open basket, till 
the middle of April, and then plant them in the open 
ground at once. But as I was looking for some seeds to 
sow, I had to turn the basket of Gladiolus bulbs aside, 
and on examining them I found every one of them just 
beginning to make roots ; and I said to myself, “ They 
must be of the breed of Gladiolus racemosus, and I must 
put them to work just two months sooner than I intended,” 
and so I did. 
I put them in the open ground in “ knots,” five bulbs 
in each patch, and all the patches in a straight row, 
ribbon-fashion-like, which is the best fashion in our day 
to plant out all sorts and manner of hardy bulbs, from 
the Snowdrop to the Gladiolus and Japan Lilies. Keep 
every kind at the exact distance from the walk or side of 
the border or bed, and you need never be wrong in filling 
your flower-beds just as full of spring and early-summer 
bulbs as you would like them to be with bedders. I 
planted them three inches deep with some cocoa-nut stuff 
under them, and over them, and all round them, and an 
inch or rather more of the stuff all over the border for 
mulching. This is better, I find, than sand for planting 
bulbs with. 
Now, come what will, these bulbs of this first-rate 
bedding Gladiolus will not be taken up or disturbed as 
long as they and I shall live, but I shall keep the frost 
from them : and I do not recommend the plan for general 
adoption—I merely want to prove if a hardier race of 
Gladioluses thau that which Dr. Herbert had out in 
Yorkshire for twenty years and more will do as well as 
his did, and will improve by age in the absence of dis¬ 
turbances, just like patches of the common Narcissus. 
The bulbs cost me nothing, and I can plant the same 
border just as if they were not there ; or, rather, just like 
