375 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Makch 23, 1858. 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
Day 
of 
Mth 
Day 
of 
Week. 
MARCH 23—29, 1858. 
Weather near Lon 
Barometer. J Thermo. 
DON IN 1 
Wind. 
857. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
R.andS. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
afterSun 
Day ol 
Year. 
23 
Tu 
Chorozema angustifolia. 
29.682—29.554 
48—27 
S.W. 
57 af 5 
15 af 6 
3 a 37 
8 
6 
44 
82 
24 
W 
Cantua depenclens. 
29.619—29.518 
50—38 
S.E. 
— 
56 
5 
17 
6 
4 13 
9 
6 
26 
83 
25 
Tir 
Lady Day. 
29.656—29.405 
55—21 
S.W. 
.02 
54 
5 
19 
6 
4 37 
10 
6 
7 
84 
26 
F 
Cantua bicolor. 
29.870—29.636 
56—31 
S.W. 
— 
51 
5 
20 
6 
4 54 
11 
5 
49 
85 
27 
S 
Cuphea platycentra. 
29.986—29.973 
55—36 
N.W. 
—■ 
49 
5 
22 
6 
5 8 
12 
5 
30 
86 
28 
Sun 
Palm Sunday. 
29.974—29.915 
55—41 
E. 
.01 
47 
5 
24 
6 
5 20 
13 
5 
11 
87 
29 
M 
Cuphea eximia. 
29.816—29.537 
54—48 
S. 
.18 
45 
5 
25 
6 
rises 
© 
4 
53 
88 
Meteorology op the Week. —At Chiswick, from observations during the last thirty-one years, the average highest and lowest 
temperatures of these days are 51.4° and 32.8°, respectively. The greatest heat, 75°, occurred on the 26th, in 1830 ; and the lowest cold, 
14°, on the 25th, in 1850. During the period 141 days were fine, and on 76 rain fell. 
SPRING PROPAGATION. 
Cuttings. —Tlie first week of March was the hardest 
week for gardening we had this winter, and during that 
week, Mr. Kidd’s mode of striking cuttings by tens of 
thousands, and millions upon millions, has been put 
to the test, tried and proved at once, not in the Expe¬ 
rimental, it is true, but by the head foreman in the 
propagating department of that most honourable 
establishment, in the window of his own kitchen, and 
fireside at home ; while the curator of the Experi¬ 
mental, and your humble servant, were both shivering 
with cold and fidgets, and not knowing that anything 
of the kind was being attempted under our very noses, 
till the cuttings were all rooted. Rut there they are, 
and one week—a long anxious week though it was— 
did the business for them, or for most of them. 
Mr. Kidd said, that any light room in a house which 
was kept above 50° would, do for this propagation, and, 
of course, if it was 60°, it was all the better for the 
cuttings. He also said that a bed-room would do ; but 
when people write about bed-rooms, one likes to know 
if the waiters are married or not. Rachelors, like 
Mr. Kidd, may strike cuttings in their bed-rooms, but 
for ordinary people, the kitchen and the drawing-room 
are the two best rooms in a house for this work. 
Flower-pot saucers will do very well for a kitchen 
window, and if they are quite clean, and well soaked 
in warm water, and then half filled with sand, and half 
with warm water, what could be more comfortable for 
cuttings, or better looking in the way of crockery ; 
unless one ventures on a china saucer, or a glass 
tumbler, all of which will do for this way, just as well 
as the best garden pot that ever was made. A little 
tin jug, or a square tin box, not bigger than a snuff¬ 
box, would do to try the curiosity of the thing, if it 
were kept out of the way of the children. 
As for the drawing-rooms, there is no fear about 
them. All sorts, and all sizes of glass, of all colours ; 
china ware of all shades of colour, and degrees of fine¬ 
ness, and everything that is likely to “take” and to 
pay, will be applied to drawing-room propagation as 
soon as it is as common as table-talk, and crinolined 
petticoats. So we need not trouble our heads on that 
score. But, who is to make the cuttings in the draw¬ 
ing-room, and who is to put them in, or who is to look 
after them, till the rooted plants are ready to be shifted 
into pots and boxes ? are questions which we shall hear 
answered “ by our own correspondents,” as differently 
as are the different degrees of “ position ” among them. 
For the more difficult kinds to manage on Mr. 
Kidd’s system, and these kinds must first be proved 
difficult by the system itself—the Waltonian case is 
next genteel, and the easiest mode, and for the widest 
practice, the hotbed, with all its faults and incon¬ 
veniences, is the best—it has never yet been excelled, 
and very probably will never be in the nursing stages 
of nine-tenths of all the pot plants in cultivation. But, 
the application of this new mode of striking cuttings 
may be as easily and as surely carried on in the hot¬ 
bed, or hot-water propagating case, or in the nursery 
ways, or, indeed, in any way that cuttings were ever 
rooted before—as in the kitchen window—and the 
after-treatment of the rooted plants need not differ in 
the smallest degree from the way, or ways, in which 
they used to be done. 
Let cuttings of bedding plants be once rooted, then 
prick them off in a very light rich compost, and they 
will be just as easy of management as if they were 
rooted under a transparent new bellglass in bottom 
heat, and perhaps ten times more so. Then what fun 
for boys and girls to pull out a cutting, here and there, 
to see if they are rooted, and be able to put them in 
again, and no harm come of it; also, what a comfort to 
find that one can pot off eight cuttings out of a dozen, 
as soon as they are well rooted, and not disturb or 
harm the other four, which, by reason of their firmness, 
have not hardly made a root yet. Rose cuttings, and 
cuttings of Geraniums, together with Myrtle, Oleander, 
and Orange cuttings, must be tried in the same way, 
for no one can yet say how far we may venture on the 
new scent. 
Any one, having a Cucumber bed at work, may now 
set the head to work also in a new direction, and be 
able to teach the best of us in something which we 
were not sure about, or knew anything of before ; I 
slioidcl not think that the new plan would bring dead 
cuttings alive, but anything short of that can hardly be 
doubted. I recollect one very good precaution, which 
was advertised, when the new composition for causing 
the hair to come on bald heads was discovered—the 
advice was, not to use it with bare hands, lest they 
should become as hairy as the hand of Esau; and, it 
may be as well to give a hint on this method, to the 
effect, that in order not to have too many plants, or ten 
times more than one has room for, it would be just as 
well to put in some cuttings in the old way, and con¬ 
tinue to do so, until the capability and whole strength 
of the new move were thoroughly understood: too 
much of a good thing is as bad as too little, and it 
would be vexatious to be obliged to throw away many 
plants the moment they were struck, on finding that 
there were too many struck already; besides, last 
winter was most favourable for keeping old plants. 
I never passed a winter so safe as this ; and at the Ex¬ 
perimental they are even better off than I am, nothing 
of any account having damped off, or frosted. 
Seed Propagation. —Such as are not up to the 
ways of managing very young seedlings in heat should 
not begin early. The end of March is not at all too 
late for most seeds in heat; and even a very handy 
practitioner, who would not lose ten seedlings out of 
a thousand, if he had glass room for them, may get 
sadly hampered with early seedlings, for want of room, 
and thus be tempted to turn many things out of 
doors too soon, at the end of April. To cut according 
to the cloth was never more imperative than in the 
month of March for the flower garden; and the 
No. 495. Vol. XIX 
