THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Maeoh 23, 1858. 
more haste the less speed was never better exempli¬ 
fied 'to my own knowledge, than when my best friends 
were on their hobbyhorse, full mounted, after the 
March lamb; but it may be somewhat difficult this 
spring, as March came in like a lion. Still, 1 would 
advise to begin with sowing such seeds as Cobuas 
_they can never be too early. Tigridias, again, are 
quite safe to sow any time in March, or a month 
sooner another year ; the seedlings come like Harley, 
and they will Rower next September in the mixed 
border. A dozen of them in a ball, set in patches, 
would then bloom till the Irost stopped them. Then, 
if these balls were taken up entire, and planted care¬ 
fully in a box, six inches in depth, filling in the spaces 
between the balls with damp, light, sandy soil, and 
lettino- the leaves take their chance, the bulbs would 
keep fresh all the winter, and be ready to be shaken 
out this time next year, and be potted m threes, m the 
smallest pots that would just hold them. They would 
be ready for the flower-borders early in May, and 
bloom from Midsummer till the October fiost. Every 
year after, each ball should be lifted, and managed as 
! for the seedling. That is the only secret in keeping 
Tigridias, the most gorgeous flower that will bloom 
j out of doors with us in the autumn, not excepting^ the 
! Japan Lilies, the nearest to liken them to. Hut liom 
an idea that the Tigridia bulbs can be kept dry in 
winter, as Hyacinths are kept in summer, we seldom 
see the Tigridia now-a-days, as they were wont to be 
planted in my younger days. There is not a man 
out of a thousand who can keep, or half keep, these 
“roots” during the winter, unless they are well 
packed in earth, which is never quite dry during the 
winter ; that is, roots cultivated in this country, lkey 
ripen better abroad; and there, or in many foreign 
places, they keep as well as common Lilies. This is 
just the month to begin to learn about them, and this 
plan of having them from one’s own sowing is most 
certainly the surest. 
Hut I ought to pull my own nose for omitting to say 
that this is not, properly speaking, the best time to 
sow Cobaias; it is only the best time, because we 
never manage Cobseas right in this country for the 
flower garden. Look at the Cobscas at the Crystal 
Palace just now; they will be in bloom before Mid- 
j summer, and we ought to have them quite as early 
| out of doors, though we never see a bloom on them 
till September; and, very often, not a bloom at all. 
The middle of May is the proper time to sow these 
climbers, for out of doors ; then to keep them in pots 
all the summer, and to plant them out when they are 
twelve months old. They are famous plants to keep 
over the winter, if the frost is just kept from them, 
j and the roots are not allowed to shrivel up, and die, for 
lack of moisture. 
Humea elegans. —The Humea is a true biennial; 
no matter how soon it is sown in the spring, it will 
not bloom the first year. The smallest garden ought 
to have a pair of Humeas in bloom every year. They 
assume the shape of fountains, and cannot come amiss 
near a house, or far off in the distance. They sell 
year-old plants of them now at the nurseries, and there 
is a great demand for them; but some gardeners prefer 
to get them up, and rear them at home, and make 
huge specimens of them; but that is mere fancy, 
they do not look the better for being very large. 
There is a sad vulgarity encouraged by the Horti¬ 
cultural Shows, which has got hold of vast numbers 
of the public, and will be very difficult to eradi¬ 
cate, with reference to large plants. A Humea clothed 
to within a foot or eighteen inches of the pot, at the 
time of planting out, will rise to from five to six 
feet high, and be five feet in diameter in the widest 
part, before the middle of July, and looks better and 
more Humea-like than if it were ten feet high, and 
actually smelling of a London Show. 
From the middle to the end of March is the best 
time for most people to-sow seeds of Humea; but a 
month later is a better time for those who are much 
pinched for room. The way to grow a Humea the j 
first year, so as to flower the next, as here indicated, 
is to treat it exactly like a greenhouse Geranium till j 
the end of June, or the middle of July, and after that 
to manage it like a full-grown plant of the Tom Thumb 
scarlet Geranium. If you keep that in view, and give 
no heed to those who coxcomify the treatment of all 
out-of-the-way plants, you are sure to have Humeas 
like a Hriton. 
In my wanderings I meet with all degrees of practical 
knowledge, and 1 find it much harder to convince 
about the simplicity of a thing, than all the rest put 
together. There has been so much tomfoolery writ¬ 
ten about composts, about fiddle-faddling with this 
and that plant, or seed, or bulb, or cutting, that the 
■wonder is, how people have taken such a liking for 
gardening at all. There is nothing in the world so 
easy, than to learn how to manage ordinary plants for 
flower gardening. 
Every seedling for the flower garden will grow very 
well in one kind of soil; no compost is at all necessary, 
unless you happen to have old leaf mould on the place, 
and some of it sifted is very good for seedlings, and 
for most plants. Where the moles were at work last 
winter, and the mole hills have been frosted, there is 
no compost better for seedlings than that mole hill, 
with as much sand as will make it a light, free, open 
medium for roots. Where Onions, or Cauliflower, or 
Celery, or any good crop of vegetables came off last 
season, the surface of that soil, after being frosted, 
and beat up with the back of a spade when quite dry, 
will make as good a compost for seedlings, young- 
rooted cuttings, and all small plants for flower-beds, j 
as all the fiddling in the world can produce ; a little 
sand with it is all that is necessary, and a very little 
sand will be needed for the second shift, in nine cases 
out of ten. Then, with such a free, clean compost, 
all our seeds may be sown with the greatest confidence. 
And seed-pots ought, “by rights,” to be plunged in 
something; that is another of the grand secrets; the 
something may be anything, because the meaning for 
it is to keep the outside of the pots from getting too 
dry, and from being hot and cold alternately, all of 
which will make water necessary ; whilst we all know 
that the less water seeds and seedlings receive, the 
more healthy the plants will be. 
The next best way, where the seed pots cannot be 
plunged up to the rims, is to put a lot of them together, 
as close as the pots will stand, and to cover them all 
with old newspapers—then to keep an eye to the 
seedlings, and upon no consideration whatever, to leave 
one pot under the paper longer than the second day 
after the seedlings appear above ground; but still, 
these seed pots which “ are up,” as we say, must not 
be left in the sun, nor the sun even to touch them the 
first week, unless it be morning and evening; they | 
also ought to be tried here and there, every second | 
day, to find out how much air they will stand; if they 
are in a greenhouse, if the seedlings droop the least in 
the sun, or in the air, it is too much for them yet, and 
when they will boldly face either, you must think about 
potting them off, pricking them out, or colonising them, 
and that is just the time to prove if the seeds were 
sown judiciously. It is very difficult to sow the seeds 
of Lobelia, Calceolaria, and a few others, thin enough ; 
and it is equally difficult to know how to sow the seeds 
of all kinds of everlasting flowers, when most of the 
chaff must go with the seed; all these little steps will 
now, at the time of potting off, appear long ladders, 
