800 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Aucmsi 23, 1859. 
treble tbe beat that is at first most conducive to the fair 
starting of a bulb or tuber. Let a British gardener but 
put any bulb or tuber iu a pot, or box, and that is a 
sufficient reason for him to water it; which is more than 
enough to explain why we, in August, at any rate, do 
not have our yearly bed of Tuberosa as they used to 
have them two hundred years back. 
The sum of the way they got them into bloom is to 
have the tubers potted, in April, using the very richest 
compost below the tirbers in the pots, but fresh earth 
round and over them as we use sand, the top soil being 
“ rank,” the same as the bottom; to plunge the pots in a 
hotbed, and not to water them till they were “ grass 
high.” The hotbeds of that time had no straw or litter— 
nothing but sheer horse-droppings, gathered as carefully 
as we do for Mushroom-beds, “ and thrown up in one 
corner of the stable till you have a quantity sufficient for 
the length and bigness of your bed.” The sides and 
ends of these beds were “wattled,” two feet of “wet 
dung and litter ” in the bottom, one foot of the horse- 
droppings, and the two layers beaten down nearly as 
much as for Mushrooms ; they were then hooped over to 
be covered with “ mats, hair elotli, or canvass.” When 
the “ violence ” of the heat was over, “ it being to be 
little more than bare warm,” the pots with the Tuberosa 
were plunged—say in 70° to 75° of bottom heat, with a 
cold frame temperature over head, and no watering till 
the leaves were “grass high,” or two inches. If all the 
gardeners of the last and present century had kept to that 
very old plan, this country might now be the richest in the 
world in bulbs of all climes. Nine out of every ten kinds 
of all the bulbs on the face of this earth would do to be 
potted in dry soil, to be plunged in something not hotter 
than “ bare warm,” and not to have a single drop of 
water till the leaves were “ grass high,” or fully two 
inches long. Yea, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of 
every thousand of them would do that way ten times 
better than ninety-nine out of every hundred British 
gardeners have done them for the last hundred years. 
I cannot make out when the mad start took place ; but it 
was only on the wear out when I was a boy. Even then 
every bulb was roasted, baked, or boiled ; and very many 
of them went the three stages on the same journey, but 
never came back to tell a taie. Ninety-nine out of every 
hundred kinds of bulbs known to us would do with cold- 
frame temperature till they were grass high ; but no bulb 
dislikes a little more warmth under it than over it, except, 
perhaps, the very smallest bulbs of the Ixia tribe from 
South Africa. The tuber-rooted plants, or most of them, 
are much in the same condition as bulbs as respects their 
wants and the treatment to which they yield with the 
least injury to themselves: and our Tuberose is not an 
exception. 
The same treatment as to a Cap>e bulb seems to be 
the best treatment for the Italian Tuberose — a little 
warmth below to start the roots in April, abundance 
of air, and a cool moist atmosphere about them till 
the leaves are three or four inches high ; then to take 
them out of the frame, and to plunge the pots to the rim 
close to a south wall; to put some soft mulching round 
them, and to keep that mulching constantly damp, 
without allowing more water to the tubers than would do 
for any other kind of plant till the scape, or flower-stalk, 
is a foot or so high; then more water, just as to a forced 
Hyacinth, till the first flowers opened; and from that 
day the pots to be lifted, and to stand them in saucers, in 
or out of doors, with a little water in the saucers till the 
last flower is just opening. Or, if they are put out into a 
bed, as I had seen them at Frogmore, the soil should be 
light, very rich, and be kept very moist. Then, if one 
had access to the cocoa-nut refuse, an inch of it all over 
the bed or border would save watering and encourage the 
roots to the surface, then the hottest part of the ground. 
I cannot say that I could fancy the Tuberose in a 
flower-bed; but where there are borders near the doom 
or windows, no plant is more desirable for two months. 
A few of them would scent a whole house, even from the 
outside. Strong-scented plants like this are not nearly 
so good for indoors as many people believe. At all 
events, such is a digest of the culture which the Tuberose 
received in England when it was first introduced: and as 
the plan is in strict harmony with what I know to be the ; 
best treatment for hundreds of best bulbs, I can hardly 
believe but it is far preferable to the present mode, by 
which one can hardly see a dozen of good healthy plants 
of it in a day’s march. As we cannot grow the Tuberose 
so cheap and sure as those we buy, I see little use in 
bothering our heads about that part of the business : but 
in the old times they grew their own “ roots ” in England, 
the main points being a very rich border, a warm situation, 
and abundance of moisture; but “ it rises not to flower 
that year.” 
It is the want of knowing the right act to be done at 
the right time which makes gardening so difficult to the 
amateur. But an example will best tell my meaning. 
Then let us have it from my fashions for August of this 
year, my very last experiment, the most promising I ever 
made, and it bears on the question in hand. 
From the talk about Tritoma uvaria last year, and 
from the fine drawing of it in the “ Illustrated Bouquet,” j 
nothing would do but we must have a lot of it into the 
Experimental at the end of October, nalf-a-dozen, or ' 
seven or eight nice stocky blooming plants, two of which j 
were put up for experiment, of course. The rootstock of j 
this plaut is as full of eyes as the rootstock, or rather the 
stump, of a Pine Apple plant after the fruit is cut, or as ! 
full as the rootstock of an old Polyanthus. There is an 
eye down below the surface of the ground for every leaf 
these plants had ever made. We gardeners know all 
that without seeing or scenting it. We had the tale I 
about the yellow Polyanthus already, how that on tbe j 
1st of July every plant in a whole bed of it was cut an 
inch or two below the surface, every one of the young- 
tops so cut made an independent plant, and the root¬ 
stocks below have all, save one, made a fine fresh growth, ■ 
just such another crop of cuttings as the last crop, but 
more numerous. You may increase Polyanthus, double 
and single, Primroses and Auriculas of all sorts, just in 
the way of Tom Tlmmb Geraniums, for I cut some com¬ 
mon border Auriculas at that time also to prove the! 
thing. But the next move is that which pays the best. | 
The one with the Tritoma uvaria, and all the other kinds i 
will do the same way. 
My two plants of this Tritoma I cut just as they 
used to cut Potatoes into “ sets ” in Ireland before the 
famine. I hunted out the eyes by the fireside, cut as 
much of the fleshy part to each set as I could manage ; 
then, keeping them indoors for a week, dried them 
sufficiently to be safe for planting, and they were set 
in a row just like so many Potatoes. The two “roots ” 
made fifteen sets, and every one of them is alive 
now; but unless it were in black and white you could 
hardly credit the size and strength of some of them. 
The oldest plant of them at Few has not longer or more 
vigorous leaves, and three of them are in full bloom, 
which I can see through the window as I write. But the 
right act at the right time did it all. The place ; 
where they stand is the best place in the garden as to 
soil. There was a hotbed there last year, and the place 
for the bed was filled in with all manner of dead vege¬ 
tables, and a large portion of the cocoa-nut refuse. 
Altogether it is nearly four feet deep ; the soil, how¬ 
ever, is rather light, and would hardly do for Cauliflowers. 
In the spring I allowed them to be over “ grass high ” 
before they had any watering except from the clouds. 
After they were six inches high I began to water them 
three times a-week; and when they got up to eighteen 
inches, they had water six times a-week. So strong was 
the water at times from the house-pails, that I was rather 
doubtful; but I like a kill-or-cure experiment. They 
