THE COTTAGE GAKDENEB AND COUNTEY 
which seemed to be an effort to describe the nature of the 
garden:— 
“ Some few stems of bamboo-plants 
A cottage growing round ; 
A few flowers here—some old trees there, 
And a mow * of garden ground.” 
—( Fortune's Residence among the Chinese .) 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Soda ash (A Young Novice). —This is the refuse obtainable at soap 
manufactures. It is useful on heavy as well as light soil. Professor 
Way states that it is composed of the ingredients and in the proportions 
as follows:—Common salt, 19-94 ; carbonate of soda, 38.59 ; sulphate of 
soda, 14.31 ; caustic soda, 16.60; carbonate of lime, 10.26; per-oxide of 
iron, 2.74; silica, 1.52; loss and sand, 2.04. — ( Johnson's Farmer's 
Almanac.) 
Tomtits ( Theophilus). —We know of no mode of getting rid of 
these bud destroyers than by the gun, or tomtit traps baited with a 
piece of suet. 
Blanchefleur Geranium. —Messrs. Cutbush and Son, Highgate 
Nurseries, have the whole stock of this Geranium, and not Mr. Parker. 
They will send it out early next spring. 
Pear Tree (J. S., Hooton). —As soon as your central leader gets 
above the windows you may pinch it, thus causing the production of 
many branches where the greatest amount of room exists. 
Bee Trap (An Apiarian of a Year). —If you will purchase No. 99 of 
Tiie Cottage Gardener you will obtain, at p. 323, a drawing and 
additional explanation of this. If you need further directions after 
seeing that, write to the inventor. It, Antram, Esq., Slapton, near 
Dartmouth. 
Seed of Berberis Darwinii ( Carrig Cathol). —Your seed of this 
beautiful evergreen, ripened in Wales, should be sown in light soil 
immediately in the open ground. The seedlings will appear next 
spring. Sow in drills in the open ground beneath a south wall, bury¬ 
ing the berries barely half an inch deep. If the winter prove very 
severe spread a little litter or place a reed panel over the seed-bed. 
We should thoroughly dry the berries before sending them to Australia, 
put them into little canvass bags, and get some friend to hang them up 
in his cabin during the voyage. Heating and moisture, which are 
insured by putting large bulks of seeds in close packages or in the hold 
of a ship, cause the seeds to sprout and destroy them. Have you 
noticed that the ripe berries, when shrivelled, taste like the currants of 
the grocers ? 
Pear-tree Leaves Diseased (W. M.). —We do not think your 
leaves are suffering from insects, but from some fungus. We should 
dust over them a mixture of lime and sulphur, three parts of the first 
to one of the second. Are your trees growing where the air is stagnant, 
or the soil heavy and ill-drained? 
Papaver croceum ( Upwards and Onwards). —Many thanks. It is 
an old favourite, and the first Poppywort of the season, but not a Poppy 
of the botanists, who call it Mecunopsis Cambrica. 
Preserving Fruit (A Constant Subscriber). —What kind of fruit ? 
Do you mean preserving in sugar ? 
Spir-ea prunifolia alba plena, &c. (M. F.).—Spircea prunifolia 
comes very easily from young cuttings in the spring, not now, if they are 
managed exactly like cuttings of Fuchsias; and propagators find no 
difficulty in striking cuttings of the Darwin Berberry in the same way. 
Use very young wood and smart bottom heat under a bellglass, and w'hy 
you should not be as lucky as them depends on your own cleverness. 
Make cuttings of your Beauty of Billard Rose just at the moment the 
cuttings are ready to be made. Summer cuttings of all Roses were 
ready when the plants were going out of their first bloom, the little 
spurs which carried the bloom being the best wood for cuttings in June 
and July, and, until younger shoots of the same size, and length, and 
strength are above half ripe or turning hard down at the heel, slip 
them off as you would a Wallflower slip, smooth the heel, cut all the 
leaves off except the two topmost, and cut the middle or top one of each 
of these leaflets ; let the cuttings be four inches long, and put them one 
inch and a half deep in the pot, but pots are bad things for Rose cuttings 
in such hands as wrote your letter. The Oleander cuttings are very 
ticklish ; they will root very freely if they are exactly of the proper age, 
and they will look green for months and months, and not make the 
smallest progress if they are too old or too young. The right age for 
such cuttings can only be learned by practice ; but try the young smaller 
shoots when three inches long, and take a slight heel with them. Now 
is not a bad time if you can keep them under a glass. 
Names of Plants (G . C. B.) —Your singular shrub is the Arbutus 
andrachne, or Oriental Strawberry tree. This tree is but seldom seen 
in gardens, but there is a fine old plant in the Close at Winchester, in 
the garden belonging to Canon Carus, planted, no doubt, by his prede¬ 
cessor, Mr. Poulter, who was a botanist. This tree varies very much in 
the shape of its leaves in different specimens, and even on the same tree, 
not only in the margins being entirely or slightly serrated, but in 
approaching more or less to a round, oval, or lanceolate form. The 
most remarkable circumstance in this species is, that in the spring it 
sheds the old red bark, and the young bark is at first green, then turns 
whitish, and afterwards to different shades of brown, and finally, on the 
approach of winter, to a deep red. Young plants of it require a little 
protection, and old plants sometimes suffer in severe winters. This is 
one reason why they are so seldom seen in gardens, or only with 
* A mow is about the sixth part of an acre. 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, August 4, 1857. 287 
collectors of rare plants. (J. W., St. Ann).— The double yellow flower 
is the double yellow Rocket, or the Herb of St. Barbara, Barbarea 
vulgaris plena, which should be replanted every year in the spring. 
The light hoary plant is the Cineraria maritima, which Mr. Beaton has 
spoken of so many times. The pea-blossom flower is the Galega 
officinalis, the Officinal Galangale, a very ornamental plant. (An Old 
Subscriber, Hastings). —The botanical name of your curious plant is 
Medicago scutellata, but commonly called the Snail plant, or Snail- 
podded Medick. It is an annual, and native of the south of Europe. It 
is propagated by seeds, which ripen freely, and should be sown early in 
April in the open borders. (Margaret). —Your plant is Dictarunus 
fraxinella, a hardy herbaceous plant. It should remain for years with 
its roots undisturbed. The seed-vessels retain their scent when dry, and 
are preserved in pot pourri, &c. 
Castor-oil Plant (N. D., Cowans). —The Castor-oil plant, or Palma 
Christi, or Ricinus communis, forms a very interesting object in the 
flower borders during the summer months, and will ripen its seeds 
freely in the south of England. It should be treated as a tender annual; 
that is, sown in pots and placed in the hotbed about the end or last 
week in March ; and, when up and large enough to handle well, the 
seedlings should be potted off singly in four-inch or six-inch pots, as it 
is a freely-growing plant, and be put into the hotbed again, and well 
watered to settle the earth to the roots. As it is such a free grower the 
plants may require another shift into larger pots before the end of May, 
when they should be hardened off, and then planted out in the open 
borders, where they will grow to a large size if they have sufficient 
room and the garden soil is pretty good. In most cases the whole 
plant is of a beautiful glaucous-green hue, rising from three to five 
feet high, and producing very large palmated leaves. The seeds are sold 
by all respectable seedsmen. 
Sowing Flower Seeds (R. H. C.).—' The Pansies we should sow 
in the spring months. Sown in pans and forwarded in a gentle hotbed 
about the middle of March they will flower during the summer and 
autumn months ; and sown in May they will furnish good strong plants 
for planting out to flower the following spring in beds. It is too late 
now to sow for filling the beds this autumn. Virginian Stock, Nemo- 
philas, or any other kind of hardy annuals, may be sown from the 
10th to the l6th of August in some by-place in the open ground, to 
stand the winter for transplanting into the flower-beds, or the two 
mentioned would be better if sown where they are to flower about that 
time, although anything can be transplanted with certain success 
where there is a will to do it. October and November will be the best 
time to plant the Hepaticas, Scillas, Doronicum Austriucurn, and 
Dog's-tooth Violets. They are all to be had from the respectable 
nurseries, and they can be potted for a time if your beds are not ready 
for them when they come to hand; and when planted, or afterwards, the 
eye should be upon them now and then to see that all goes on well. 
Your Fern is Lastrcea filix-mas. 
Winter Lettuce (J. G. M.). —You can obtain the Brown Cilicia 
from any of the principal seedsmen in London. We grow, except under 
glass, none but the Brown Dutch. Under glass we grow the Bath Cos. 
Mossy Lawn (K. T. E.). — Moss is no security against a lawn 
burning in summer. A lawn we know is now quite brown, although so 
mossy as to be as soft to the feet as a Persian carpet. We were on 
another lawn recently without moss, and it jarred the whole frame at 
each footfall. We will give a list of Roses next week. 
Rose Leaves Grub eaten (D.). —Your Roses have been under the 
operation of one of the most industrious of the mining caterpillars, a 
very small greenish white kind, which can easily be found under the 
leaves every morning as long as any are about. We have destroyed 
them by the dozen by one stroke of the forefinger of the right hand, 
while we held the leaf upside down with the left hand, and that is the 
simplest and the safest way to get rid of them. Although we never spare 
these marauders, we admire their work exceedingly: four of them will 
skeletonise as much surface of leaves as one lady could do in three 
months. The best remedy against a brood of them next year is to have 
the stems well scraped after the plants are pruned, and then to paint 
them all over and down to the roots with clay paint, coloured grey with 
fresh soot and hot lime. Every Rose tree or bush would be the better 
for such a coat of paint every year of its life, and two or three coats in 
succession are not too much for infested plants. This simple paint, 
which a schoolboy could make and sell for twopence per gallon, is worth 
all the quackery that ever w r as thought of for keeping down insects, and 
for covering all kinds of in-door grafting. 
THE MULTR Y ©HROWCLE. 
POULTRY SHOWS. 
August 8 th, 10 th, 11 th, and 12 th. Crystal Palace. Sec., W. 
Houghton. 
August 26 th. Bradford. Secs., M. Brooksbank and H. Beldon 
Esqs., 12 , Queensgate Street, Bradford. Entries close August 18th. 
Aug. 29th. Calder Vale. Sec., W. Irvine, Esq., Holmefield, Halifax, 
Entries close August 15th. 
September 2nd. Dewsbury. Sec., Harrison Brooke, Esq. 
September 4th. Sowerby Bridge. Sec., F. Dyson, Esq. Entries 
close August 26th. 
September 7 th, 8 th, 9 th, 10 th. Gloucester. Sec., Mr. H. Churchill, 
King’s Head Hotel. 
October 1st and 2nd. Worcester. Sec., Mr. G. Griffiths, 7> St. 
Swithin Street, Worcester. Entries close Sept. 19 th. 
October 7th. South West Middlesex Agricultural Society. 
At Gunnersbury Farm, Ealing. Sec., J. Gotelee, Hounslow. 
November 30th, and December 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Birmingham. 
Sec., John Morgan. Entries close the 2nd of November. 
December 16 th and 17 th. Nottinghamshire. Entries close No¬ 
vember 18th. Hon. Sec,, Mr. R. Hawksley, jun., Southwell. 
