412 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, September 29, 1857. 
However reluctant you may be to disturb the waning 
beauty of the flower garden, if you intend to preserve some 
of your Tom Thumb or other Geraniums , the sooner they are 
now taken up the better. Avoid the use of the knife, unless 
to cut back long straggling branches. When potted to be 
placed under glass, carefully watered, syringed once a day, 
and shaded from sun for a short time until they have made 
fresh roots, when air may be admitted freely until the 
approach of frost, when they should be stowed away in their 
winter quarters. Early advantage should be taken of the 
present very favourable weather, and while the ground is in 
such fine working condition, to get in the spring-flowering 
hardy bulbs, such as Tulips— to be planted in beds six inches 
apart every way— Hyacinths, Narcissuses, Snoivdrops, Cro¬ 
cuses, Fritillarias , Jonquils, Crown Imperials, Dog's-tooth Vio¬ 
lets, Ac.; also Primroses, Polyanthuses , Iberises, &c., to impart 
a cheerful appearance during the winter months, and to 
produce in beds, or masses in the borders, a gay effect in 
spring. 
Advantage should also be taken of favourable weather at 
this season of the year for performing any new ground work, 
or any improvements that may be intended. Towards the 
end of the month ornamental shrubs, whether evergreen or 
deciduous, may be removed without the smallest doubt of 
success if the ground is properly prepared and drained if 
in want of it. 
Auriculas, Carnations, Picotees, Pansies, &c., that are grow¬ 
ing in pots to be removed to their winter quarters—a cold, 
dry frame; but very little water to be given during the 
winter, and all the air possible in favourable weather. Such 
plants will bear a low degree of temperature without injury; 
but being in pots, where the roots are more exposed to 
injuries from frost, they require protection in the most 
severe part of the winter. Dahlias, as soon as their beauty 
is partly destroyed by frost, to be taken up early in the 
morning when the weather is fine, to be left exposed to the 
open air until towards evening, when the heads or stems 
should be cut off about eight or ten inches from the crown, 
to be placed in a situation to be thoroughly dried before they 
are placed in their winter quarters. 
If the fine autumn weather, so favourable for ripening the 
wood of plants out of doors, has induced you to postpone 
housing your greenhouse plants, no time should now be lost 
to get them staged in their winter quarters; and if the 
favourable weather continues some short time longer, free 
circulation of air should be admitted by drawing off the 
lights, and by exposing the plants to the beneficial influence 
of dewy nights, but to watch carefully every evening for 
that peculiarly murky atmosphere denoting the near approach 
of a frost that is frequently very sharp the first night, and 
most destructive to plants, although not always clearly per¬ 
ceptible, unless to the experienced eye. The plants that 
may only appear slightly damaged now will get worse and 
worse as the dull days of winter increase, until at last they 
are consigned to the rot-heap. 
A system of arrangement in staging the plants should be 
adopted, that the hard-wooded plants may enjoy a fair share 
of light and air, but not exposed to cold currents ; all luxu¬ 
riant branches to be stopped to maintain a symmetrical and 
regular balance of growth ; such plants to be syringed every 
fine morning, and air to be given both night and day while 
the weather continues favourable. The Cinerarias, Chinese 
Primroses, and Mignonette, &c., to be placed near the glass ; 
Camellias and Pelargoniums in the most favourable situation 
for light, air, and warmth; and Hydrangeas and Fuchsias, 
Ac., in any out-of-the-way place for the present. "When 
plants require water it should be given before noon, that all 
superfluous dampness may be dried up by evening. 
The winter stock of bedding-out plants that are well esta¬ 
blished in store pots should now be arranged and placed in 
their winter quarters as near to the glass as possible, where 
they will have sunlight and air to impart to them a dwarf 
and robust habit. Mildew , wherever it appears, to be kept 
down by the application of sulphur, and the green fly by 
tobacco smoke. As a great portion of the success in plant 
growing depends upon the proper preparation of the compost, 
it is now advisable to collect or to procure the principal soils 
and manures, viz., good turfy loam, to be stacked in the 
compost-yard cone-shaped to throw off heavy rains; also 
leaves for leaf mould. The heaps of peat and sand to be 
kept under cover. Animal manures—sheep, cow, and horse 
dung, Ac.—to be preserved under cover, and are generally 
kept for twelve months before they are fit for use. 
William Keane. 
WARDER’S METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING. 
In an article at page 382 Mr. Wighton accuses Mr. 
Robson and my old favourite, Dr. Warder, of making erro¬ 
neous statements regarding bee produce. Mr. Robson, 
doubtless, is able to defend himself, being a living actuality; 
but the doctor, being dead and resolved into the elements, 
needs an attorney. 
So far from Dr. Warder making “false statements,” 
having “ strange notions,” or using “ collateral boxes,” I 
maintain against all comers that he was by far the most 
truthful, trustworthy, and intelligent of all the older writers 
on the subject. So far from advocating that most unsatis¬ 
factory system termed the collateral, it is never mentioned 
throughout his work. 
I am in the habit of making a short abstract of the 
contents of all my old bee books; and I have some whose 
titles even have not appeared in Cotton’s or any other list. 
In order to show what Warder’s method really was I will 
transcribe the abstract from the fly-leaf of my copy. 
“ Warder’s method consists in keeping six colonies in a 
house ; his boxes are octagonal, eighteen inches in diameter 
externally, and seventeen inches internally, two sides being 
formed of glass in a frame ; the top is flat, and has a hole 
five inches square, capable of being closed by a slider ; the 
height of the box is nine inches. One of the sides has a 
piece of tinned plate pierced with holes and covered by a 
slider to act as a ventilator when required in very hot 
weather. The door is four inches long, and able to be 
closed to any extent by a slide. These boxes are first 
stocked by placing straw hives in the bee-house, and raising 
them when populous on to the boxes. When the first box 
is filled a second is placed under it, and the straw hive 
removed, the bees being driven out into an empty hive, 
and then shaken out to fly home. The second year the 
upper box is removed in a similar manner. Swarms when 
required are insured in spring by limiting the colony to one 
box in the previous September. The mode of joining casts 
together and the advantage of one strong stock over two 
weak ones are very correctly described. The fact of the 
drones being males is correctly stated (a discovery usually 
attributed to Huber), and the age of the bee to be at longest 
but a year.” 
Such is a brief abstract of this most admirable old book, 
a work which contains by far a greater fund of good sense 
and practical information than many of the trashy com¬ 
pilations of the present day, written* by men who have no | 
practical knowledge of the subject, and who would as soon I 
think of facing alone a regiment of revolted Sepoys as j 
turning a hive of bees up and cutting out a piece of comb. 
It will be seen that many subsequent discoveries were 
detailed in this work. Ventilation is described, and its use 
advocated to prevent the falling of comb in very hot 
weather, and not with the absurd crotchet of preventing 
brood in certain parts of the hive. Driving, which bee 
masters, such as Golding and others, employ at the present 
day (leaving sulphur, stinks, and stupefaction to bee keepers 
who are not bee masters), is correctly described; the true 
age of the workers ; the sex of the drones; the advantage of 
joing weak stocks, and of putting three or four casts 
together; the mode of feeding inside the hives—all modern 
discoveries are most admirably described by one who had 
evidently practised what he wrote about. With very slight 
alterations Warder’s method is almost identical with the 
most profitable system of the present day. 
As to the profit derived from bee-keeping I find there is no 
difficulty in getting a market for any quantity of good virgin 
honey in the comb, such as is obtained from the top boxes 
of Stewarton hives, or from my own cheaply-made bar 
hives, at 2s. per pound (its wholesale price in Glasgow was 
recently 2s. 3d. per pound, and all at Stewarton has been 
sold). It must be a very bad system which would not yield 
in a good season, such as the present, 20 lbs. from a strong 
stock; and how many hives at that rate would be required 
