210 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, January 3, 1860. 
network of open rings, amongst which, I suppose, the clods are 
hustled about until broken tine. The Cornish shovel is a less 
recommendable tool, and I think not likely to make its way 
elsewhere. It is in shape like the spade on cards, and has a 
long crooked handle, enabling the workmen to use it without 
stooping. 
There were some other things peculiar to the county not 
necessary to mention ; but our fair readers will pardon my saying 
that even in this remote district, and I believe in the most distant 
part of it too, crinoline and other female extravagances were as 
plentiful as in Regent Street. So far as I could judge, Truro 
presented as good designs in architecture outwardly, and as good 
arrangements inside, as any town of similar extent in England. 
Perhaps the most important difference a traveller would feel on 
arriving from London is his timepiece being twenty minutes 
faster than those of the town; the difference in longitude between 
this western metropolis and that of the whole empire being that 
much according to Bradshaw, the authority in such matters. 
—J. Robson. 
HEATING A SMALL BOILER BY GAS. 
a. The boiler. 
b. Chimney of two-inch screwed gas-pipe leading through middle of 
water. 
c. Steam safety-pipe opening externally, being of one-quarter-inch 
pewter-pipe. 
d. To supply water, kept close. 
e. Two gas-burners in rings. One has been sufficient at present. 
v. The door to pass in a light. This is a brass screw plug. They can 
be bought at any brassfounders. The centre has been ctit out, and a small 
piece of talc inserted, as it is satisfactory to see the light. The door has a 
cross handle. 
g. Is a circular addition to the boiler, and ought to have at least six 
inches of ground round the bottom. 
This is in a greenhouse, span-roofed, with glass on all sides. 
It is small, being only twelve feet square. 
Erom the outside I have laid a wooden-box ten inches by five 
inches, opening under the gas-burner. I am just adding the 
propagating-tank. 
To prevent any smell at lighting, there should be a continuation 
of pipe beyond the burners, opening externally. Letting the gas 
escape from this for a minute ensures the pipes being full of gas, 
and, consequently, it is quickly lighted. I think this addition 
important, as mixed air and gas might puff out in the face, 
besides vitiating the atmosphere of the house. The boiler, &c., 
is all of copper, except the chimney, which is gas-pipe, and cost 
altogether about 70 s. Laying on the gas, in my case, was the 
most expensive part, as I had some distance to take it. I should 
recommend three-quarter-inch pipe, as after midnight the pressure 
is only small, although quite sufficient. The apparatus is placed 
under a stage, and when not in use hidden by a pot of Ivy flat- 
trained on purpose.—II. B. 
LILITTM GIGANTEUM CULTURE. 
Last spring I bought a bulb of the Lilium gig ant cum. It did 
not flower last season, but its leaves have long since decayed 
away, and I have kept it at rest by giving very little water. It 
is now a fine large bulb, and is in a pot twelve inches wide and 
eight inches deep. I shall feel obliged by being informed if this 
sized pot is large enough for the bulb to flower iu. The pot 
appears to be full of roots up to the top of the soil.—M. E. 
[You are using your bulb quite right. Iveep it dryish, and 
free from frost until it begins to grow, and then give it plenty of 
manuro waterings, but not too strong at a time. Eor such a fine 
bulb we would have preferred a pot a size larger ; but that we 
would have givpn it whilst the leaves were yet green. AVe would 
not shift it notv, but wait until another season, unless the pot is 
very full of roots. Be sure that, after growth has commenced, 
you give water enough to moisten the whole. If you give enough 
nourishment, the size of the pot will not greatly affect the stem. 
Use fibry loam and a little peat.] 
A SUBSTITUTE EOR YELLOW CALCEOLARIA 
WANTED. 
Substitutes of one kind and another have been very prolific 
during the last year or two. The scythe ha3 been attempted to 
be superseded by the mowing machine; and the latter is threat¬ 
ened with annihilation when grass lawns are converted into beds 
of Spergulci pilifera. When the latter alteration will take place 
is more than any one can predict. Iu fact, the friends of this 
new-fashioned covering for mother Earth are so slow in recording 
their progress with it, that there are strong doubts of its utility. 
But it is premature yet to venture an opinion, especially as I 
have not grown it sufficiently to give one on my own experience. 
But there are other substitutes wanted as well as the one to 
take the place of turf. Some of our old friends in the flower 
garden are no longer the friends they once were ; their services 
the last year or two being so unsatisfactory, that substitutes of 
some kind or other must take their place another season. This 
is very easily accomplished in some things in which there is 
abundant choice of the article called on to fill a certain position; 
but when habit and colour become blended together, and that 
colour one difficult to match, then comes the difficulty, W here is 
the substitute to come from which succeeds the plant that has 
failed to give satisfaction ? We all know scarlet Geraniums may 
be followed by scarlet Yerbcnas, and the latter may be followed 
by several things scarcely inferior to the tw'O named in brilliancy 
of colour; but where are we to get a substitute for the yellow 
Calceolaria, which certainly has not done so well the last two 
years as it used to do ? Eor brilliancy of colour I have little 
hopes of obtaining anything to equal it, much less excel it. In 
years gone by it was amongst the earliest, and continued to the 
latest amongst the ornaments of the flower garden. Whereas, in 
1857, 1858, and 1859, the young plant bloomed profusely early 
in the summer, but, dry weather setting in, there was no progress 
or growth; so that, after the shoots of the spring had flowered 
out, there was a long blank, in which the plant assumed a stunted 
half-starved appearance, as if it were pot-bound ; and although 
growth commenced again in September, it was too late for 
flower-buds to be formed to bloom the same season. 
Now, although I do not despair of Calceolarias being as orna¬ 
mental in a moist season as ever they were, yet it would be 
better if we had something else to depend on in a dry one; or 
to plant in some of those dry situations where watering by hand 
cannot be attended to; or, in fact, if we had a yellow-flowered 
plant of equal merit with the Calceolaria, which delighted in the 
dry gravelly soils of some of the southern counties, where rain 
falls more sparingly than it does inland, and where there is no 
danger of too great luxuriance of foliage, as there is in some 
places with the scarlet Geranium, Petunia, Heliotrope, and other 
things. 
I do not despair of a substitute for the Calceolaria being found ; 
and I think it may be had from the same source from which 
