THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 20, 1859. 171 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
Day 
of 
M’nth 
Day 
of 
Week. 
DECEMBER 20—26, 1859. 
Weather 
Barometer. 
NEAR LOND 
Thormom. 
ON IN 18 
Wind. 
58. 
Rain in 
Inches. 
Sun 
Rises. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
Rises 
and Sets 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
afterSun 
Day of 
Year. 
20 
Tu 
Erica pinnea. 
29.G77—29.542 
46-38 
S.W. 
.04 
5 af 8 
50 af 3 
17 4 
26 
2 
19 
354 
21 
W 
St. Thomas. 
29.732—29.557 
52—43 
S.W. 
•03 
6 
8 
51 
3 
38 5 
27 
1 
49 
355 
22 ■ 
Tti 
Sun’s declin. 23° 28' 8. 
29.742—29.628 
49-41 
S.W. 
.01 
7 
8 
51 
3 
52 6 
28 
1 
19 
356 
23 
E 
Erica gracilis. 
29.600—29.157 
51—37 
S.W. 
.04 
7 
8 
52 
3 
55 7 
29 
0 
49 
357 
24 
S 
Diosma ericoides. 
29.516—29.475 
47—31 
S.W. 
.01 
7 
8 
52 
3 
sets 
© 
0 
19 
358 
25 
Sun 
Christmas Day. 
29.653—29.335 
45—30 
S.W. 
.25 
8 
8 
53 
3 
54 a 4 
1 
0 bef. 11 
359 
26 
M 
St. Stephen. 
29.376—29.220 
48—37 
W. 
.17 
8 
8 
53 
3 
7 6 
2 
0 
41 
360 
Meteorology of the Week.— At Chiswick, from observations during the last thirty-two years, the average highest and lowest 
temperatures of these days are 44° and 32.3°, respectively. The greatest heat, 58°, occurred on the 25th, in 1827 ; and the lowest cold, 9°, 
on the 22nd, in 1855. During the period 137 days were tine, and on 87 rain fell. 
IN-DOOR GARDENING- OPERATIONS EOR 
THE WEEK. 
GREENHOUSE AND CONSERVATORY. 
Continue to keep the supply of heat and moisture at 
the lowest degree compatible with the safety of the 
plants from frosts. In damp, foggy weather, a gentle 
fire to be applied occasionally during the day to expel 
moist, stagnant air. 
Calceolarias (Herbaceous).—To be shifted into larger 
pots if they require them, to be kept near the glass, to be 
watered moderately through a fine rose, and on no 
account to be allowed to get thoroughly dry. To be 
careful when removing decayed leaves, not to pull or to 
cut them off too close to the stem, by ivhich the flower- 
shoots would be very likely to get injured. 
Camellias. —Great care is necessary that they may not 
be exposed to great alternations of temperature, which 
are sure to cause them to drop their flower-buds. The 
great reason why flower-buds very often fall oil' without 
properly coming into bloom, is the too sudden changes 
in the temperature to which they are exposed. For in¬ 
stance : when the buds are nearly ready to expand, a 
sudden heat causes them to push too rapidly; and, on the 
contrary, a decrease of warmth at the time checks their 
growth, and in other cases causes them to fall. The heat 
required to expand the blossom-buds is about 60° by day, 
and 50° by night. If this be attended to, the plants will 
continue in flower for a great length of time, as the 
plants in that heat are not excited to grow. A little 
weak manure water to be given occasionally to the 
blooming plants. 
Chrysanthemums. —When they begin to fade, to be 
removed to the north side of a wall or fence, the pots to 
be plunged in old tan, leaves, or sawdust, to protect them 
from the severity of winter. 
Cytisuses. —Place them and other such early-flowering 
plants in the coldest part of the house, where they may 
receive plenty of air at all favourable opportunities. 
Orange Trees.— These, or other such plants that have 
not been recently potted, to be surfaced by removing a 
little of the top soil and supplying its place with fresh. 
Attention to be paid to keeping the leaves clean and 
healthy. 
STOVE AND ORCHID-HOUSE, 
Allamandas. —Continue the temperature and treat¬ 
ment as lately advised. To be potted, as also Steplia- 
notis, &c., and trained preparatory to starting them into 
growth, about the beginning of the new year. 
Forcing-bit. —Introduce such plants as are generally 
used for forcing, especially the sweet-scented sorts, Lily 
of the Valley, Sweet Briar, Lilacs, some of the Tea, 
Bourbon, or Hybrid Perpetual Roses, and bulbous plants. 
Ixoras. —To be elevated near the glass to set their 
bloom, and to have plenty of air at favourable oppor¬ 
tunities. 
EORCING-HOUSES. 
Peaches. —It is becoming very much the fashion to 
have Peach and some other sorts of fruit trees which are 
No. 586.— Vol. XXIII. No. 12. 
wanted for early forcing in pots, and the plan is so far 
good, that it affords the advantage of being able to give 
the roots a mild, regular bottom heat, which is of the 
greatest importance in early forcing. Those who have 
good established trees, in pots, may now start them in a 
moderate heat. Air to be given liberally in favourable 
weather, and the syringe to be used freely over them 
morning and evening. The surface soil to be stirred up 
and kept open, and a supply of manure water to be given 
previous to starting them. 
Potatoes. —Plant some sound, whole sets, singly, in 
three-and-a-half-inch pots, to be placed at the back of a 
Pine-pit, or in any other place where there is some heat, 
they will, in due time, be useful for planting out in the 
exhausted Asparagus-frames or pits. 
Pines. —Continue the same treatment as lately advised. 
Vines. —When started and until the buds are fairly 
broken, endeavour to keep the points of the shoots nearly 
on a level with the lowest part of the Vine, and if that 
should not be found sufficient to induce the buds to start 
regularly throughout the whole length of the Vine, the 
rod should be bent so as to bring the most forward buds 
to the lowest level, and elevating those that are backward. 
A moist atmosphere to be kept up by sprinkling the floor 
and paths, and by syringing the Vines lightly every 
morning and evening until the leaves begin to appear, 
when the supply of moisture will not be so much required. 
Introduce a lot in pots to some house, pit, or frame pre¬ 
pared with leaves or manure, if not done as advised last 
week. In such a place they will be found to start with ad¬ 
vantage. At first, Vines in pots are most useful for early 
work, as they, in many places, save the established Vines 
in houses, from the hazardous operation of early excite¬ 
ment. William Keane. 
ROSES FROM GRAFTS AND ROSES FROM 
CUTTINGS. 
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and 
a fact accomplished is more safe for guidance than a 
principle surmised. The longest gardener in all York¬ 
shire has taken the shortest method in the country to fill 
up the rosery at the A'ork Cemetery with hundreds of the 
freest perpetual kinds, and at the ieast possible expense. 
He bought over one and a half thousand of Manetti-stocks 
at a public sale for three-halfcrown pieces. The rosery, 
or the beds for the Roses, were not made this time last 
year. He grafted the stocks in-doors by the fireside last 
March ; and he reports in the last week’s number of The 
Cottage Gardener a first season’s growth—and such a 
season !—over four feet in length of shoot on some of the 
strongest of the free-growing Perpetuals ! At the very 
moment this intelligence reached London the gardeners 
at the Experimental Garden were re-arranging the mass 
of Roses which they succeeded in rearing from winter 
cuttings for the last three or four years ; and thus we had 
two well authenticated points for the degrees of com¬ 
parison between grafting Roses and rearing Roses from 
winter cuttings, or, indeed, cuttings of any month in the 
