THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 6, 1859. 
139 
The surest way, then, to get the longest yarn at our shop 
is to send in the shortest notice anent it. No matter 
how much may be our own ability at spinning, the Editors 
have a dread and horror of reading long letters by the score 
and furlong every morning of their lives, unless the letters 
happen to be about some very useful process in our line 
of calling ; and then the longer and more broad they are 
the better for us all. The only fault in the above letter 
is “A Country Subscriber.” No doubt he means the 
dear old country ; but we would not be left to infer the 
country or kingdom from which letters to us are des¬ 
patched, for we have them from all countries. The only 
excuse is, that it is from a gentleman—ladies never make 
such lapses. 
But about the “ something” relating to double China 
Primroses. The best way is to begin at the beginning, as 
I have just done and finished. The next best act for an 
amateur is to start with a healthy plant or plants ; for 
there is nothing in the whole circle of gardening so dis¬ 
couraging, and so sure to fail, as to begin with a poor 
sickly stock to grow on or to propagate from. There are 
a thousand little ways in which a good practical gardener 
can manage to make both ends meet in success which an 
amateur can never, or very seldom, attain to ; but let 
him start on fair grounds, and it is often surprising to the 
best of us how soon and how completely he can fall into 
our ways. Some few healthy-looking plants are just now 
showing their colours, and should remain in the same 
pots till the flowering is all over. Nothing is so bad for 
them as to be a long way from the glass, or to be kept 
too long in the drawing-room. Either way is sure to 
draw up the plants unnaturally ; and if they thus receive 
damage, cuttings from them will never make sound 
healthy plants. The plants should not suffer from want 
of water or of air, nor have too much of either all the 
time they are in bloom ; but when they are in full growth, 
at the latter part of summer and in the autumn, they 
require an abundant supply of water, and as much air as 
Heaths : therefore cold’ frames are better for them then 
than the best greenhouse culture. 
Young plants from cuttings late last spring should 
flower first in large 48-sized pots. The double ones, 
being all from cuttings, must not have such large pots 
the first year as single kinds from seeds. Indeed, the 
whole secret of success is to have them underpotted the 
first year—that is, the double ones. The single kinds 
will do as annuals in large or small pots. But it is a kind 
of unnatural forciug to put double kinds in larger pots 
than these 48’s till after the first winter is over; and if 
the pots are very full of roots the plants will do all the 
better in a dry large house or in a sitting-room, standing 
in saucers with a little water under them—but mind to 
let the saucers get dry one day in every week, and two 
days in very dull or cold weather. 
When the winter is over and the bloom is past, or 
wdiether so or not, about the middle of March, they ought 
to be repotted into No. 32-pots, placing them deeper in 
the pot than is done for Geraniums. If the weather is 
not warm at the time they should be encouraged, for a 
month or six weeks after potting, in a warmer place than 
a greenhouse—say a close pit or frame, with mats over 
the glass at night, and a little shading in the middle of 
hot sunny days. Erom May to August these double 
kinds will not grow so fast in proportion as other plants, 
and single kinds of themselves: therefore the middle of 
August is time enough to shift them into 24-pots. Erom 
August to November they make the best of their yearly 
growth. At this time, the end of their second year, some 
few of the strongest will need No. 16-pots ; but, as in the 
first year, unless the roots are very much cramped by 
September, they are more safe in No. 24-pots, and to 
have a little extra water instead of larger pots. They will 
bloom strong this second winter ; and the third winter 
they are at their full size ; and at their best after a shift 
in March and another at the end of June, or between 
that and August, according to their progress. When a 
dozen or more of them are under this treatment, some 
will require to be potted earlier, and some later; some 
into larger and some into smaller pots ; but no directions 
can regulate this so well as the judgment'of the grower. 
When any of the plants increase to two, three, or more 
heads, the second or third year, all the heads are fit for 
cuttings; and if they or any one of them is cut off where 
they divide, it will make a new plant, and the bottom 
part will throw up more heads, or shoots, for other 
cuttings, as did my great “ Good-gracious ” Polyanthus. 
Erom March to the end of May is the best time to make 
such cuttings ; and each cutting should have a very small 
pot to strike in, in heat under a close-fitting glass,— 
they root best that way,— and in half peat and half 
sand, with clean sand on the top. Generally they take 
six weeks to root—some more and some less, according 
to the hardness or ripeness of the bottom part of the 
cutting and the steadiness of the bottom heat, which 
should be about the same as for Cucumbers. As soon 
as they are well rooted shift them to pots one size larger, 
and one-third sand to two-thirds loam, and keep them 
close for the next two weeks. After that all heat and 
closeness may be dispensed with ; but for the whole of 
the first summer they should not be exposed to too much 
sun. A cold frame in a north aspect is better for them 
than much shading in the full sun. At the next, or 
third shift, into No. 48-pots the compost should be 
equal parts of sand and very rotten cowdung in a dry 
state one-half, and the other half good holding loam, 
yellow or brown. Some growers make the compost 
stronger by more loam; and some much lighter, by using 
more old rotten refuse from linings or from the rubbish- 
heap ; and some have always a little peat with the com¬ 
post. All the plans are equally good in the hands of 
expert growers, but not so sure and steady as the loam 
alone with the sand and rotten dung, which is as near as 
possible to what is used in the Kingston Nursery, where 
they have been brought to the highest perfection; and 
where immense quantities are reared every year for 
the trade, after supplying their retail customers; and 
where a whole houseful of the largest specimens is kept 
on pitrpose for cut-flowers every winter. The huge plants 
in peck and half-bushel pots standing on other large pots 
turned upside down to get them near the glass. The 
heat of this house is from 40° to 50° all the winter, which 
causes an earlier growth in the spring, when the large 
plants are all reduced into cuttings, and the bottom parts 
are then forced to double and treble the number for 
propagation. D. Beaton'. 
A TRUE AMATEUR AND HER GREENHOUSE. 
“ M. L. E.” cannot forbear expressing her thanks to Mr. Fish 
for having taken so much trouble in answering all her queries 
respecting the heating, airing, and watering a small greenhouse. 
She perfectly understands his very clear directions, and will 
apply to them in her difficulties. As he does not seem to think 
it a trouble to hear about this said greenhouse, as he says he 
should have liked to know the mode of heating it, she must 
inform him it is by liot-water pipes. She has no gardener except 
an old man, who washes all her pots and mixes the moulds as the 
different sorts are read over to him. She pots all herself; and 
her maid lights her fire under the boiler, which is in a little 
potting-house attached to the greenhouse by means of a sliding 
door; and the greenhouse communicates with her dining-room. 
The Acacia arm at a is coming into flower ; so are her Camellias. 
Her Steplianotis grows fast, looks healthy, but has never yet 
flowered ; and whether it will ever become acclimatised to the 
heat of the house time must show. Gloxinias have made buds ; 
but “M. L. E.” does not think they will ever come to per¬ 
fection, not being of sufficiently high temperature : it is generally 
at its lowest range—42° or 45°, and the last few warm days at 50°, 
The plants arc beautifully healthy; at present not a green fly, 
for it is generally fumigated every fortnight or three weeks. She 
has now in full bloom Scarlet Geraniums, Bouvardia cerantlia 
and j B. longiftora for the second time, Petunias, Chrysanthemums, 
