128 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 29, 1859. 
to the mansion was the finest deciduous Cypress I ever saw. I j 
forget the precise girth it was; but it was little short of that of 
some of the Oaks and Beeches by which it was surrounded. 
The lawn was in beautiful order; and the flower-beds were of 
large size, and scattered irregularly over the grounds, to blend in 
with the natural scenery everywhere prevalent. This irregularity 
afforded Mr. Hall, the worthy gardener there, the opportunity of 
carrying out the noblest specimen of flower-bed management I 
have seen this season, and I am told he has done the same for 
very many years. Although I have seen the same system pur- i 
sued to a certain extent with advantage, I never saw it done with 
so good effect as at St. Leonard’s Ilill. 
The plan is this :—the mansion being one of those coloured 
white, or nearly so, a sort of lattice-work was run up between j 
the window's to the height of fourteen or sixteen feet. This 
space was covered entirely with scarlet Geraniums, which at , 
the time I saw them were covered with a profusion of bloom 
of the most brilliant scarlet; which, contrasting-with the light- 
coloured walls and glossy green leaves of the plant, presented 
as gay an appearance as could well be imagined. But there 
was no glass covering to secure those fine plants in winter; 
and as anything unsightly could never be countenanced j 
there, Mr. Hall had the plants all taken up every autumn and 
housed somewhere. The large flower-beds on the lawn were 
also filled with very large plants: Tom Thumb being six feet 
high ; j Flower of the Day quite as large; Fuchsia fitly ens the 
same height; and Fuchsia corymbifora, which we rarely see 
now in flower gardens, w r as flowering beautifully eight feet high 
and upwards. At that height the fine carmine tubular blossoms 
showed to good effect, as likewise did the Fuchsia fulgens. In 
fact, unless these plants are on a level with the eye, or above it, 
their flowers c.o not show at all. I never saw them so well 
managed as Mr. Hall does them—the grand secret, no doubt, 
being their size and age ; besides which, a good deal of taste was 
displayed in the arrangement as well. Most of the beds had an 
edging proportionately lower than the centre, and some of the 
beds were composed of concentric rings well arranged ; but I 
cannot now call to memory their particular arrangement. One 
or two strong-growing scarlet Geraniums upwards of seven feet 
high, Ageratum much the same, Flower of the Day, blue Salvia, 
the tw r o Fuchsias above mentioned, and some Calceolarias, which, 
however, had not done well, were the principal plants used ; and 
the profusion of flowers they presented in such large masses con¬ 
trasted well with the fine detached shrubs, specimens of Pinus, 
and other things with which the ground was irregularly planted. 
The great secret w r as in keeping such large plants over the winter; 
Mr. Hall having only indifferent accommodation that way, every 
credit is due to him for so doing. I understand that some of the 
scarlet Geraniums against the house were nearly twenty years 
old, and had been treated all that time in the manner described 
— i e., taken up in autumn, and put in large pots with a stout 
stake or pole to each, and kept all the winter in an old glass 
structure; the small border they were grown in receiving a little 
assistance of fresh soil each year, but not much, as scarlet 
Geraniums do not require a rich soil to flower well. The beds 
also, no doubt, were well done by; for although I have seen some 
gardens the past season that rank high for their flower-bed 
management, I have not seen any that looked so well in their 
position as did those at St. Leonard’s Hill. Mr. Hall, the 
gardener, who has been there many years, and is far from being a 
young man, told me he had practised taking up scarlet Geraniums 
in autumn ever since he knew them, which must be a half century 
or more ago. J. Robson. 
GERANIUMS FROZEN IN OCTOBER. 
In your pages of November 8th, Mr. Beaton, in his articles ! 
states, “ Not an eye or an inch of Scarlet Geranium has been 
killed below the surface.” I am not fond of contradiction, neither 
do I for a moment imagine our worthy friend would on any i 
point wilfully mislead; but all men are prone to error, and I j 
think you will allow such holds good in this case when I assure you 
that out of a stock of at least 2000 Scarlets, carefully lifted and 
shaken to get rid of all frosted parts possible, afterwards spread¬ 
ing them as thinly as quantity permitted in sheds beyond the reach 
of frost, to gradually thaw, thero are not at this time 100 from 
which the bark will not part as readily as from a boiled Potato, even 
quite below the stump lie so sensibly recommends the storing of; 
therefore, I do not sec any bright prospect of cuttings from that 
source. Many may doubtless be secured by root propagation, 
and by this and the ordinary methods I see no fear of supplying 
all plants desired next spring; thinking little of the up-hill work, 
ever finding that part and parcel of the gardener’s lot in life. 
Trusting Mr. Beaton will not consider uncourteous this state¬ 
ment, which is easily explained by our flower garden lying con¬ 
tiguous to a lake, and very exposed to north-east winds, merely 
to prove that what with Mr. Beaton is of service for production 
of spring cuttings may with me and others be cast away, is the 
object of— Calceoltts. 
[Mr. Beaton only spoke of the extent of injury sustained by 
his own Geraniums, and we regret to hear that any one has 
suffered more than he did by that unexpected and severe 
frost.— Eds.] 
HOUSE AND TOWN SEWAGE. 
[Continuedfrom ytaye 115.) 
Having shown the modes in which the sewage of a house may 
be collected and applied without offence to purposes of cul¬ 
tivation ; and having made some unqualified assertions as to 
its value as a fertiliser, we will next produce some of the evi¬ 
dence by which we sustain those assertions. 
We have tried house sewage as a manure to Potatoes, Peas, 
Beans, all the Cabbageworts, Asparagus, Rhubarb, Sea-kale, 
and Grass ; and it has yielded us, of all of them, from a light 
soil resting on chalk, the best crops we have ever grown. 
Our mode of applying sewage is to soak with it the ground 
previously to digging, and growing every crop in rows with wide 
intervals, to pour the sewage as w r e deem needful in gutters made 
with the hoe between the rows. 
Mr. Cuthbert Johnson, of Waldronlmrst, near Croydon, 
employs it chiefly for irrigating grass, and he obtains by its em¬ 
ployment four or five liear'y mowings annually. This is from a 
light, sandy soil. 
Mr. Beaton, at Surbiton, uses it in the cultivation of his 
bulbs and others flowers with the utmost success ; and until we 
applied it to Roses and Chrysanthemums they refused to excel 
on a chalky soil. Early in the present year, writing in these 
pages, Mr. Beaton said :— 
“ When a crop of anything is in rows, whether they be bedders 
or for the pot or table, liquid manure of any strength may be 
applied in the centre betw'een the rows with less risk, or danger, 
than in any other way. I have often, with my own hands, 
poured down large quantities of the very strongest liquid manure 
between rows of plants, one drop of which would be destruction 
to any one of them if it touched the leaves or roots ; but filter¬ 
ing to the roots through a few inches of soil all harm is avoided, 
which goes to show' that a fair porous surface of earth is the best 
and safest fixer of ammonia and all over-strong matter in the 
liquid. Every one of my own bulbs, from Crocus to Hesperan- 
thus, gets it every spring from a place which one would shudder 
at the idea of, and 1 never lose a leaf. I quite agree with clarify¬ 
ing liquid manure for pot culture, and in the hands of those who 
do not know practically what a plant can digest, or wdiat the 
strength of their liquid is. But to keep a bed or border in good 
heart for a whole season at the least possible expense, have no 
recourse to clarifying the goodness out of the stuff, but give it to 
the plants fresh from the stable, cow-house, or piggery, or where 
it may be got much stronger, and one good soaking of it will last 
the whole of that season; the spring is the right time to apply 
it. Then, in June, if a handful of mould from below the surface 
is as good as a smelling-bottle, you may depend upon a good 
show of Roses and most bedding plants, if the beds wanted any 
assistance that way. The old florists who placed four or five 
inches thick of strong dung at the very bottom of their beds, and 
tw'o feet below their plants, were much wiser in then 1 generation 
than those of us who supply rotten dung on or near the surface. 
Mr. Rivers has been recommending, for a long time, one or two 
thorough good soakings of the richest liquid manure to the Rose- 
beds in the winter; and if Roses are ever to come out healthy 
on a thin, poor, sandy soil, that is just what will do it. When 
flower-beds and borders get exhausted by cropping, this strong 
liquid is very much better for them than rotten dung.” 
Mr. R. Moffatt, of Stirling, applied the sewage water of that 
town to grass land, alight soil and gravelly subsoil, at the rate of 
forty-five carts to the statute acre. The produce of hay from 
where the liquid was applied was 56 cwts. per statute acre; 
whilst from the part to which no liquid was applied, but equal 
in other respects, 28)- cwts. per acre. 
Mr. Fortesoue, in his Report to the General Board of Health 
