THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, March 12, 1861. 
349 
des Batailles, being to our mind quite different. It lias very much 
of the China habit, and the style of its flowers is also very much 
of that character, and as a pot plant it will be greatly prized. 
The letterpress, as usual, is clear and sensible, as one might 
expect from Mr. Moore. Might we suggest to Mr. Eiteh, 
whether in an artistic point of view it might not be better not 
to make the outline quite so heavy ?— e.g ., in the plate of Chry¬ 
santhemums, it takes away from the light and airy nature of 
the petals. We think the present an excellent number, and 
worthy of the reputation Mr. Reeve has acquired for his scientific 
publications. 
[N.B.—By-the-by, talking of Roses, in our remarks on Mr. Rivers’ book 
we gave an impression that the misnomer of “Yerder” for “ Verdier ” 
was Mr. Rivers’. We had no intention of doing so, for we were well 
aware Mr. Rivers knew Yerdier too well. It should have been laid to the 
•printer.} 
TREATMENT OE PLANTS WINTERED IN A 
CONSERVATORY. 
SOLANUM CAPSICASTBUM—TEA-SCENTED ROSES. 
My garden appliances are a small conservatory forming an 
■entrance to my house (about 25 feet long by 8 feet) ; a smaller 
stove for forcing, both heated by hot water j and a common 
garden-frame. 
I have succeeded in saving a considerable number of pots of 
autumn-struck cuttings of bedding plants , and old plants of 
Scarlet Geraniums, though somewhat at a sacrifice of neatness 
in the conservatory, and I want to get it cleared of them as 
early as possible. I have repotted them in separate pots, put 
them into the stove for a few days to establish them, and now 
want to know how soon I may trust them in the frame without 
heat, or further protection than a mat ? 
Solanum capsicastrum and Heaths done flowering. —How are 
these now to be treated ? Am I to cut both back and repot them ? 
and should the former be put into the frame to harden, or the 
■stove to make wood and flower, and set fruit for next winter ? 
Tea-scented Moses on their own roots. —When I returned 
home last summer, after being absent for some weeks, I found 
these mildewed (possibly in consequence of first being under¬ 
watered and then over-watered). I cut them back and repotted 
them in autumn. They started well in January, but the mildew 
has again appeared. After trying sulphur, Gishurst, and tepid- 
water syringing ineffectually, I shook off all the soil, although 
many had buds, and repotted in smaller pots, as the old pots 
were not full of roots, giving good drainage, and soil composed 
of very fibry peat, loam, and old rotten manure, with a little 
sand ; but the mildew still shows a tendency to return. Did I 
do right, and what else can I do ? My conservatory is very 
dry, so that I can syringe over-head all winter, and it has 
plenty of air and light. I have, therefore, little or no damping 
off at any time, and my Pelargoniums are most healthy.— An 
Amateur. 
[With no more help than coverings of mats, all the bedding 
plants in England, in Ireland, and in Scotland, or Scottish 
islands, that are established in their pots like your plants, may 
be safely trusted to cold frames from the first days of March in 
any year. Out with yours at once into the frame, clear their 
litter away, and have nothing but your best plants and all your 
flowers in the conservatory for the rest of the season. Give 
abundance of air to the frame whenever the weather is fine, but 
never trust in the spring to the softest south-west wind at night , 
but so act as if you were certain every night you went to bed 
there would be a change and a frost before morning, and you 
will never rue it. 
Solanum capsicastrum should now be pruned back as close as 
they do White and Red Currants, and then be turned in the 
pots as it is into the stove; and when the young growth is fairly 
forced into activity shake the soil all from the roots, pot afresh 
in rich, loamy compost, and return it into the stove and keep 
it till the end of May; then in the greenhouse for a month, 
and out in the open border from then to the 10th of September; 
then up and pot with a ball; shade, and shelter till a fit object 
for your front entrance conservatory for the winter, and so on 
for the next fifteen years, or longer. But Mr. Beaton, who has 
no stove or hotbed, or anything more than a cold frame and a 
hand-glass, keeps his capsicastrums as they are to the very end 
of May, and will not prune them at all for the next three or 
four years, but plant them out every year as they are, just after 
all the Dahlias are out, and take them up, just like you in 
September, and do as you are going to do after that. 
You have done the Tea Roses full justice under such un* 
toward circumstances, and now in a few more weeks you will sea 
no more of the mildew—they will grow out of it, but let it not get 
the advantage over them; in the meantime, dusting flowers of 
sulphur over them will keep the mildew down most certainly.] 
KIDDEAN SYSTEM OF HEATING. 
In The Cottage Gardener of the 29th January last, Mr. 
Beaton gave a description of this system of heating. I was so 
much pleased with it, that I immediately had it constructed 
in my greenhouse, and on the 1st day of February I had it in 
full operation, and am now happy to bear testimony to its being 
all that Mr. Beaton seems to anticipate. 
With a small fire for two or three hours in the day my green* 
house is sufficiently heated, with a bottom heat in my pit over the 
hot-air chamber of from 75° to 80°. Several practical gardeners 
have seen and admired it. Several dairymen have examined 
it, and most are of opinion that it is the best system yet dis- 
covered for heating cheese-rooms. Some have adopted it, and 
when sufficiently tested I shall communicate the result. 
Your correspondent “Eliza ” must not have had her hot-air 
chamber properly constructed, as she says “ by trying lighted 
tobacco paper at the cold-air opening the smoke is as often driven 
out as in.” My openings, one on each side of the furnace near 
the bottom, the size of half a brick, draw in the smoke from 
such a taper with considerable force. 
I have not adopted the opening from the ash-pit into the hot* 
air chamber, as I could see no advantage from it, but rather 
apprehend a disadvantage. I am of opinion it saves much fuel, 
and, on the whole, is the best system of heating yet discovered. 
Many thanks to Mr. Kidd. 
I have a house 60 feet long, 8 feet wide, front and roof of 
glass, 5 feet high in front, and 9 feet at back. Would Mr. Kidd 
or Mr. Beaton be so kind as to say if a furnace and hot-air 
chamber (erected inside in the centre), would heat it sufficiently 
to fruit Yines in pots ? Situation the south of Scotland, only a 
few feet above the sea level and close to it.— Amateur. 
[We are much obliged by the above communication. Our 
greatest desire is to hear from men of practice all that they can 
say or do for the Kiddean system, and everything they can 
think of and suggest against it. We are persuaded ourselves 
that it is cheaper by 75 per cent, than any other method now in 
use. But we are equally certain that it is a dangerous mode in 
the hands of people who have little practical understanding, 
because they will not always see the necessity of supplying the hot 
parched air with sufficient moisture to render it good for plants. 
You will have seen that the ash-pit ventilator was not Mr. 
Kidd’s way, but a lucky mistake. 
Tell the dairymen this is the best hit yet made to dry their 
cablocks. Tell the fishers to try it on their nets, lines, and 
canvass. Tell the people in the laundry this is “ how to do it,” 
at 80 per cent, cheaper than it is now done, in London, for the 
million, in the washhouses and dryhouses for the poor. And 
you may tell that the morning dew in summer is not more re¬ 
freshing to fruits and flowers than this system may be rendered. 
We would not advise to have it set up inside any place, and 
certainly not in the house you mention. Did you try sawdust 
to 'keep on the heat after the furnace was at the right pitch ? 
We have just heard of a man who is now using sawdust night and 
day for weeks last past, without an ounce of coals save on the 
first day, and his chamber is 130° the whole time, and he forces 
with it; but what, or his way of moistening, we could not 
learn.—D. B.] 
HOUSE SEWAGE. 
I have just completed the construction of three tanks for 
liquid manure, one for the stable, &c., one for the house slops 
from the sink, and another is formed by a division made (as 
a filter), in the well of the privy. The two latter tanks will 
communicate, and the last-mentioned one adjoins a wash¬ 
house in the garden, where I propose having all the washing 
for my large family carried on. I have, therefore, had a com¬ 
munication made between the two, that the soapsuds may run 
into and mix with the other sewage matter. In the orchard I 
| have one very wet spot, which I am now constructing a drain 
