THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, January 10, 1860. 
221 
or natural to them, and far better for us and for our pur¬ 
poses than the one-half of us are at all aware of yet. 
In addition to my own four winters’ experience with my 
best breeders, I have had the two modes fully before my 
eyes the whole of this present winter, and I am in it, and 
a3 much interested in it, as any one who reads this. All the 
bedding plants at the Experimental Garden, without a 
single exception, were up and potted and pretty well 
rooted in the new soil before the frost came, as one of our 
Editors can testify, having seen them before the awful 
change. That was because the family were then down at 
the seaside for a couple of months. Many of our London 
readers, and of our other large cities’ subscribers, are also 
off at that season, leaving orders at home to have the bed¬ 
ding plants in in time. Little did the gardeners of Inver¬ 
ness, of Inverlocy, of Dingwell, of Lochcaron, or even his 
Lordship of MacDonald in the Isle of Skye, know there were 
gardeners among them at that time who could tell and 
teach them every turn and move in the Waltonian propa¬ 
gation to the last leaf and bud; but so it was, and all their 
plants, too, are as safe as if they had only been down at the 
seaside, or over in France and Germany, or down one 
steep, and up another, like the Cyclamens on the Alps 
and Apennines. While we and ours, who remained at 
house and home, got into all this mess, and loss, and vex¬ 
ation of spirit, by letting the frost have the flower of our 
stocks, leaving us bfit stumps, bare bones, and blisters to 
house, keep, tend, and manage, as best we may, the whole 
blessed winter, the two sides being just no?v as familiar 
to me as The Cottage Gardener itself. In all my ex¬ 
perience I never saw such well-to-do plants as the bedding 
plants look now at the Experimental Garden. No trouble, 
no care, and no bother at all with them; and the glasses 
are off at every fresli turn of the 'weather-glass, as I am just 
aiming at, from seeing them do so much better that way. 
Here at home, in the minimum conservatory of your 
humble servant, are two thousand seedlings of the first- 
water strains, looking as free and fresh as any other young 
Christmas parties of the same high blood and spirit. There 
are my breeders, all in a heap, out on the benches, sunning 
themselves while they may, and getting under cover no 
more or oftener than is just necessary for their health 
and comfort. But my new pit under a west wall, which is 
over fifty feet of measure, is full from end to end of care 
and anxiety, of treasures and of trials, of good luck and of 
bad luck—a source of great pleasure, and of stiff sterling 
Rouble. Go to it any time, morning, noon, or night, 
and there is something wants looking to. There are no 
means yet of keeping out the frost but by coverings. The 
thermometer has been down once already to 10°, showing 
22° of frost, and that much has been guarded against by an 
equivalent to four runs of good new mats. 1 am thus pre¬ 
pared to prove, from practice, that a flue or liot-water pipes 
are less costly to keep bedding plants Ilian coverings, where 
all is to be done with mats; but with straw, stubble, or fern 
the cheapest way is covering. Mats alone make the 
dearest protection we can use; and, use them with all the 
care it is possible to bestow, they are of little use the 
second season. I should need four dozen mats yearly to 
cover this pit; and at the lowest figure, and discount for 
ready mouey, one can hardly expect them, one year with 
another, lower than 18s. a dozen. With a hot-water appara¬ 
tus I could manage with a dozen mats every two years. 
A dozen would once cover the whole pit, and with hot water 
they could be kept dry, and only used on severe nights and 
hard runs of frost. Therefore, I could contrive to make 
them last two seasons, or buy but six new ones every year. 
But with the price of eight dozen mats, the consumption 
of two years, I could get in pipes to last out my lifetime, 
and the coals would be no more than my time in covering 
and looking after the mats: And there is another con¬ 
sideration. 
There are thousands of gardens which are not larger than 
my private garden; and if I had the run of ever so much 
stubble or fern, the litter they would make in such small 
compass, and the bother to keep things tidy with them, 
would outweigh all considerations about a few more or less 
shillings or pounds in the yearly amount, and I should 
prefer hot water in ordinary pits and glazed six-inch 
pipes for flues in wider pits. My conservatory is heated 
by a copper boiler of small capacity; but my principal 
defence is from the six-inch , glazed pipes, which carry 
the smoke across the whole length of the back wall, 
rising gradually as it goes till it reaches the farthest 
corner, then straight upwards. This flue has kept itself 
clean these seven years ; and the pipe next the boiler is, 
sometimes, nearly red hot, and is yet not the worse for it. 
If the house is too hot or too dry, all there is to do is to lift 
off the lid of the boiler—the water never requires to be so 
hot as to make the smoke or vapour from it hurtful to the 
smallest seedling, and I have nothing but pleasure in doing 
anything for the plants. 
It often occurs to me how easily a combination of flue 
and hot water could thus be had for the very smallest 
greenhouse and how much better it would answer for most 
instances, than either hot water or a flue separately. A fine 
open day, and the appearances of a sharp frosty night, you 
make a fire to heat all the water, or a strong brick flue; and 
when all is done, the evening or night turns out differently, 
your labour aud cost went for little, and before the sun is 
up next day you may see occasion to repeat the tune, or 
dance out your fears without a tune. With these glazed 
pipes straight along, or down under the pathway, and up 
again immediately on the level, or on the slant—and it is 
all the same—the tune would be short and sweet. They 
heat as fast as iron, and cool as fast; but place a small, 
open boiler of iron, copper, or tin over the fire, and run 
two hot-water pipes from it as far as there is a straight line, 
and no further. If the straight line is short, let the pipes 
be four-inch ones like mine ; if moderately long, three-inch 
ones may do ; and if of considerable length, two-inch pipes 
may suffice; but have no bends or elbows, except the one 
bend to unite the farthest ends of the pipes, and you have 
the best means known to D. Beaton. 
DEUTZIA GRACILIS PRUNING. 
I AM about putting some in a mild bottom heat. What style 
of pruning do they require ?—H. L. 
[It is now eight months too late, or four months too early, to 
think of pruning any Deutzia whatever, and gracilis more par¬ 
ticularly. It is the same with all their kindred : when under 
cultivation for forcing, or in pots, to be brought under glass 
early in the spring, so as to flower sooner than out of doors 
without forcing—the same way as Mr. Rivers does with fruit 
trees in his orchard-houses. Philadelphus Mexicanus might be 
brought in a few years to the same standard, or condition, for 
forcing and flowering as Deutzia gracilis , if people would only 
treat them the right way. Any way, or any season of the year, 
they may be pruned, cut, and carved according to fancy out in 
the borders of the shrubberies: but for pot work every one of 
the kinds of Philadelphus, of Deutzia, and of Decumaria must be 
pruned at the same time as Camellias, and India and China 
Azaleas; and no shoot of a Camellia, or of these Azaleas, or of 
this family to the fourth and fifth generation, must ever be 
stopped during the summer. When a man goes to prune a pot 
Deutzia he ought to have a Camellia-bloom in his buttonhole to 
remind him that Deutzias in pots and Camellias anywhere require 
exactly the same kind and quantity of pruning, and the same 
time to do the work. That being so, what would you think of a 
gardener who would talk about pruning his Camellias, or his 
Azaleas, or his yellow Cytisuses, and the “ likes o’ them,” just 
at the turn of the new year ? These Deutzias are like them, and 
gracilis more particularly than any other. Therefore it must 
never be pruned in winter or in early spring ; and for this reason 
—that, no matter where you put in the knife, you must cut away a 
part of the very parts which are going to bloom. The reason for 
not stopping young shoots is, that they of one season will bloom 
the next from top to bottom. All the race to which Deutzias 
belong should be pruned exactly like Black Currants, just at the 
moment they have done blooming, except Deutzia gracilis and 
Philadelphus Mexicanus ; and these two do ten times better to 
