THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 8 1857. 
for the world; a third, that to cut a root is evidence 
of a deranged intellect; and so on through all the 
ramifications of the Oak, the Apple, the Cabbage, 
and the Brussels Sprouts, and all that comes between 
them. And amongst them all, how is young Philoso¬ 
phy to steer, but to reason from analogy, and say, 
what is right of one class of plants can surely 
not be wrong for a similar class of plants on the 
opposite side of the walk—say along the kitchen 
garden? But the truth is, every plant we cultivate, 
either for use or ornament, requires the ground to be 
thoroughly .well dug, and occasionally to be trenched. 
The mixed border for flowers ought to be trenched 
more often than any border in the kitchen garden. 
And the end of the autumn is the best time for trench¬ 
ing it; as then no herbaceous plant will take hurt 
from being removed with a ball while the place for it 
is worked up ; the roots will soon take hold of the 
fresh soil, and strike down deeply, and that will save 
it from the bad effects of smoke, or drying winds, and 
hot weather. Patches of bulbs are improved much 
by such handling. Take them up, divide them, if 
that be necessary, and reset them as soon as the places 
are ready for them. 
Every herbaceous plant' which blooms before the 
end of May, may then be removed to another place, 
with a ball, as our Pceonies were; and their places 
can be filled up, for the rest of the summer, with 
pot or bedding plants, or Stocks, China Asters, or 
anything for a change : but all bulbs, except Tulips 
and Hyacinths, may remain ; and if they are marked 
with tallies, you might fill the whole border with pot 
plants, and avoid disturbing them. Spring is the best 
time to dig or trench a border, when the plants are to 
be divided; as then, every morsel with a root to it will 
grow away at once ; whereas, many plants, and parts 
of plants, which are divided in the autumn, will perish 
from damp or frost before the growing season comes 
round. 
The seedlings of new or superior kinds of Sweet 
Williams, Delphiniums, Columbines, and all other 
herbaceous plants, may, and should be, removed 
now to the borders where they are to flower; not, 
however, before the border is well worked, as afore¬ 
said. 
The next subject, for present use, is the beautiful 
fringes of Fuchsia gracilis, and the dense hedges of 
Fuchsia Riccartonia, you often read about, as being 
so fashionable in the fronts of evergreens in large 
gardens. But they are even more allowable in the 
smallest garden; and nothing looks better, or takes off 
more from the sameness of evergreens which come 
down to the grass, anywhere about the garden. The 
way to do them in the cheapest and most simple way, 
is to dig nine or ten inches in width all along, just 
under the outer branches of the Laurels, and all such : 
indeed, to trench this width eighteen or twenty inches 
deep, is the best plan ; then to cut down all the Fuchsia 
gracilis and Riccartonia about the place, and to cut 
the branches into ( six-inch lengths for cuttings, before 
the frost takes them; then to plant them six inches 
apart in the trenched strip of ground ; leaving only one 
inch of the cuttings above ground; then to cover that 
inch with some loose mulchings, sawdust, or sifted 
cinder ashes, which would do just as well as any thing 
from a muck pie, more for the sake of keeping the sur¬ 
face loose and porous, than against the frost. Hot 
one out of a hundred of such Fuchsia cuttings ever 
fail, if properly put in and dressed off in this mannei’; 
and ten to one if they do not make a better edge, in 
half the time, than little plants from pot cuttings. 
We made many hundreds of such small cuttings for 
the Experimental last July and August, which are 
now closely stored in shallow boxes for the winter, 
in doors, ready to be made hedges of at the end of j 
next April; but the frost having" not yet (2nd of De¬ 
cember) touched our Heliotropes, we had ample time, 
after storing the bedding plants, to look out for a 
double string to the bow ; and the Fuchsia hedges are 
now being planted exactly as above, in every respect, 
save the mulching, which will be of the Gocoa-nut 
stuff; but I have often proved the plants to be most ex- : 
cellent and expeditious. 
And now I will tell a story about roots making 
leaves, and leaves roots. Just about this time, 1831, 
or, say six and twenty years back, my head was so 
full of this doctrine from reading of it in books, that 
it was found necessary, on the part of a practical 
physiologist, to make me a little more practical also. 
He made me dig a hole, ten or twelve inches deep, 
and as much across, where the roots of Elms, Oaks, 
and some other trees, made a felt near the surface. 
“How my young man,” says he, “ voti know the 
leaves are all down now. “Yes, Sir. “ Well, then, 
they can make no more roots this season, at any rate.” 
“ Ho, Sir.” “ But the roots will be as active as they 
were six weeks back, nevertheless.” “Will they, 
Sir? But who knows that?” “I do, for one,” 
says he; “but I would rather convince you by the 
evidence of your senses, than argue the point with 
you. What do you say?” “Very well, Sir,” says j 
I; for what else could Isay? “How, fill that hole 
you have just made, with a fresh compost, such as 
you would pot plants with; and if we are spared, we 
shall open it at the turn of the new year. If you are 
right in your notion, every thing here will be as we 
leave it now ; but, if not, this hole, or the compost in 
it, will be as full of fresh roots as if all the leaves 
were yet on the trdes.” “ So be it, Sir: it is a cheap 
bargain anyhow.” On opening the hole, early in 
January, it was one mass of tangled roots. And you 
might try the experiment now, and let us know if the 
philosophy of the thing is the same now as it was six 
and twenty years since. 
But I have not done with the story yet. “ Are you aware 
of the reason why the leaves fall in the autumn ? ” says he. 
“ Not exactly, perhaps,” says I; “but I have read about it.” 
“Do you suppose they would fall if the weather were the 
same as last August ? ” “I suppose they must, as it is natural 
for them.” “That is a dangerous explanation,” says he. 
“ Nature explains the reasons of natural laws ; and we ought 
to fathom them. There must be a reason for the falling of a 
leaf. A leaf is fixed to the bark only ; and that by an in¬ 
tricate, yet a very simple contrivance, after the manner of 
a hinge: and every leaf, in one sense, is its own. It furnishes 
the material which makes the shoot increase; and when this 
increase comes to a certain size, it unhinges the leaf, and it 
must fall, be it summer or autumn. If we call this increasing 
a force, a fife, vitality, or any other name, it comes to the 
same thing. We can only know what it is by its effects; and 
the effects of life, &c., do not end with the fall of the leaves, 
as a man dies when the breath of life departs. Far front it: 
the effects go on for a considerable period, undiminislicd hi 
some plants for certain periods; and, in others, very much 
diminished soon after the separation. It is only the severity 
of cold which will arrest the force completely, in temperate 
latitudes, and extreme drought in the tropics. Now that 
you know the effect of vatality, at least in the production of 
those new roots, since the fall of the leaf, will you ever after¬ 
wards maintain that a host of little secondary leaves on your 
Jasper lone iB necessary to extend the roots after the old leaves 
are too dry to keep up the circulation, as you say ? ” “ No, 
Sir.” 
“ Well, next time we meet, the question to be discussed is 
this—Would the j Esperione carry a better or a worse crop 
next year from having more or less, or no lateral leaves, after 
the fruit is ripe?” “Very well, Sir j” for what else could I 
say? D. Beatox. 
