346 
TEE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Maech 12, 1861. 
the cut and horizontal roots. What has been done will not affect j 
the fruit of this year, what little there will be of it, but will 
so curtail growth, that I expect a mass of fruit-buds for 1862. 
'When finished we shall mulch the trees with a little dung, to 
enrich the fibres left and encourage surface-rooting. The trees 
are rather large for lifting altogether, though if that could have 
been done in October it might have been quite as well. 
Pruned part of the Peach trees out of doors, intending to 
cover them with glass if possible; thinned out the young shoots 
in the Peach-house, preferring to do that gently and by degrees. 
Supplied the evaporating-pans with soot and other manure water 
to give off slight ammoniacal fumes in the house. Moved some 
of the boxes of Peas that were sown the other week out under 
the protection of a cold pit, the Beans not yet being forward 
enough. Watered Potatoes in pots, and Potatoes and Radishes 
in beds. The boxes of Peas -will stand a few days between the 
Potatoes in the last bed, planted out in the earth-pit. Put some 
more Asparagus into a frame over a dung-bed. Gathered from 
and gave a thinning to old Kidney Bean plants, and used immure 
water to those in pots coming into bloom and swelling. Changed 
the manure water for Strawberries swelling nearly every time they 
were watered. Planted out the Cucumbers in the bed that had 
the addition of more leaves and dung added to it, two nice plants 
in a light. Planted also five lights in a pit heated by hot water, 
using two strong plants in a light, the roots being confined to 
about 2 feet in width and 1 foot in depth. These have not been 
stopped, it being intended to allow the main stem to grow from 
3 feet to 4 feet before stopping, trained to a trellis 14 inches 
from the glass ; but side-shoots are coming now, and these will 
be stopped at the first joint to produce short-bearing scoots. 
Melon plants shifted into larger pots, as no room can be scared 
for them as yet. Temperature for Cucumbers from 60° to 65° 
at night, and from 65° to 70° diming the day; but in bright 
sunshine from 70° to 85°, and no shading. Plants in frame 
stopped to cause runners to cover the ground. 
The weather being comparatively dull, cuttings have required 
no shading to speak of; the little sun has just been enough to 
give them a little hardness and strength, and scarcely a cutting 
of any kind has failed. There is now hardly a thing to make a 
cutting of among bedding plants. An ardent amateur wrote to 
say, he would send a man for a good basket of cuttings, as he 
had got a bed all ready, and wanted to know when would be the 
most suitable time, and I was obliged to answer July or August. 
A basket of cuttings just now, when every foot of glass must 
tell, is worth pretty well their weight in gold. Vines in pits 
tied up to give them all the room, and other things taken out, 
as the shade is getting too thick. Vines in house tied out, a , 
few bent where not breaking equally. Fuchsias below them, 
growing nicely after being shifted, and getting a skiff from the 
syringe in a sunny day, which suits better than giving too much j 
at the roots. These in a week or two, as the Vine foliage gets ' 
dense, will be moved to the next house when the buds are 
moving, and which is now supplied with Scarlet Geraniums, &c., 
the Pelargoniums, chiefly of the florist kinds, being moved into 
the late vinery, where they will be kept cooler and have abund- | 
ance of air. They might have stayed a week or two longer, but 
for the syringing of the Vines, the clay and sulphur from which 
might disfigure their foliage; as the syringing of the Vines is 
most useful in a sunny day, the drops of water that might light 
on the Pelargoniums would be as so many burning-glasses in 
producing spot and other evil3. The greatest security against 
this annoyance is to have all the foliage dry before the sun ; 
touches it. Scarlets do not mind it a bit. Gave plenty of cool 
water to Cinerarias, Calceolarias, &c.; and tepid water to 
Azaleas, &c., coming into bloom. Getting very crowded, com¬ 
menced preparations for transplanting to preparatory-beds, to be 
protected, Calceolarias and Scarlet Geraniums.—R. F. 
PROTECTING SEEDLINGS PROM SLUGS. 
VITALITY OF KITCHEN-GAEDEN SEEDS. 
Amongst the various substances used for keeping slugs and 
snails off patches of annuals and seed-beds I have never seen 
mentioned the awns of Barley, which may be had in any quantity 
when the grain is threshed and dressed. No snail or slug will 
crawl over ground where these awns or beards have been scat¬ 
tered. They contain nothing injurious to the most delicate 
germinating-point, and are not washed away by heavy raio like 
soot and lime. 
Turning over the contents of some drawers lately I found 
sundry packets of vegetable seeds, the surplus remaining after 
last year’s sowings. It occurred to me that a table would be 
very useful, showing how long each sort of the most generally 
cultivated kitchen-garden seeds retains its vitality, so as to be 
available for use after seasons like the past one, when hardly any 
crop arrived at full vigorous maturity.—A Dibble. 
[Such tables have been frequently published, and numerous 
notes on the subject appeared not long since in one of our papers 
on the “Science of Gardening.” The question to be solved is 
not how old a seed must be before it ceases to be able to germi¬ 
nate, but to produce a productive plant. We shall always 
readily publish information on the subject; and it would be 
well if those who have leisure would sow separately an equal 
number of seeds of different ages of any kitchen-garden plant, 
cultivate the plants exactly alike, and report which are most 
productive.— Eds. C. G.] 
BEDDING PLANTS. 
WALTONIAN CASE—MAGNOLIA FtTSCATA — GEOTHEEMAL. 
CULTURE — POTTING SEEDLINGS AND CUTTINGS. 
One of my friends again lost almost all liis plants of 
Tropceolum elegans this winter, after having a large stock 
of early-struck plants last autumn. Some he kept in a 
conservatory, some in a common greenhouse, and some 
in a cold frame, and all on trial, and he tells me all are 
“as bad as ever.” But I went to see the Waltonian 
Case at work with Mr. Walton himself, the inventor of 
it; and he had lots upon lots of Tropseolum elegans, all 
as safe as the hardiest natives, on a shelf across the 
coldest end of his greenhouse over the doorway, and 
quite close to the glass end of the house, where they 
stood all the winter, I believe. They were all singly in 
60-sized pots, in light rich stuff, and looking remarkably 
well. Although they call it a greenhouse, this house is 
used and is managed, like a conservatory almost all the 
year round, and is now in full bloom with Azaleas, 
Citisuses, Cyclamens, Cinerarias, and other spring flowers 
and forced bulbs. 
The Nemophila insignis they do remarkably well. Every 
spring I see lots of it as hanging plants on one of the 
front high shelves ; and on a shelf on the back wall in 
the centre of the house, and just over the Waltonian 
Case, stood pots of the trailing Cycinotis repanda, other¬ 
wise called Tradescantia zebrina , looking very well. 
Now, these are two good index plants for an old gar¬ 
dener like me to tell how that house was treated and 
aired all this trying winter—the Nemophila on the 
front shelf just under the slope of the roof, and the 
Cyanotis up high on the back wall. The former a very 
hardy, and a very succulent trailing annual, and very 
easy to kill in our climate with too much of anything— 
too much heat, too much cold, too much wet, or too 
much dryness, and, above all, by too much philosophy, 
self-conceit, or carelessness ; the other, the repand or 
ribbon-marked-leaved Cyanotis, alias Tradescantia, is a 
plant that needs more heat than a greenhouse all the 
winter, much less water than most plants of like sub¬ 
stance in “ sic a place,” and a most enduring customer 
to ill luck or usage, but the very handle of an index to 
the tell-tales of well or woe for the last four months. 
The ribbon-bands on the leaves change their hue on the 
least change from better to worse, or from good to better 
and best, and keep the change for months. 
Well, the secret of the keeping of the Tropseolum 
elegans in winter is not yet in the hands or heads of half 
of those who use it in summer; but here it is—a dry 
roomy house, kept at nearly a conservatory heat all the 
winter—that is, at 45° maximum, and 40° minimum, or 
as near the two as may he done, and as much air at all 
times as the state of the weather permits, and the elegans 
not subject to draught, for where they stood no draught 
could touch them. To be under these conditions, and 
to be in very small pots, and kept half dry just like 
