THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 28, 18G0. 
329 
with more substance. The candles I had last winter did the thing 
grandly, and so will Palmer’s twelve-hour night lights ; and the 
only thing against using them is, that they burn in lamps a foot 
high. The Cases could be made to stand high enough for that. 
“ If you have any stock of Shearwoods by you I will take 
them all, to use for night lights sooner than the public shall have 
them. In taking orders be sure to send ^he lamp, and say 
nothing about candles until the manufacturers can accomplish 
a fulfilment of the conditions I have so fully and frequently 
explained. 
“ Yours truly, 
“ Shirley IIibberd.” 
Here, then, after a delay of ten months, we arrive at 
the very point at which Mr. Walton presented the Case 
to Mr. West, and all through the best intentions. No 
wonder a certain place is paved with the very best of 
them, and a greater wonder it will be if Ave ever get rid 
of them. But why should editors and the conductors of 
public journals give place to such stuff? I have been 
asked over and over again. The only answer is that 
editors do not sit in judgment over their correspondents. 
If a peasant gives his name to an editor ho has as much 
right to be heard as a peer; a dairymaid as much as a 
duchess ; a fool as a philosopher ; but an anonymous 
writer is at the mercy of the editor, and has no right to a 
reply if his letter is inserted. So the Doctor is perfectly 
free from blame for this disappointment; but his corre¬ 
spondent is not equally free from censure for not writing 
to the Doctor to tell him of the failure of his practice as 
widely as he spread the fancies of his sanguine anticipa¬ 
tion, instead of writing privately to Mr. West, who had 
enough of the game to bear already, and who had to 
bear the lo:s and blame caused to his trade by the best 
intentions. But I can sympathise with Mr. Hibberd 
under the circumstances. I, too, deceived the public 
with the same ardour in the matter of the Boursault 
stock for Boses. When I discovered my mistake I was 
in an awful mood for weeks ; my appetite failed me, and 
I went moping about, till I made up my mind to change 
my name, and go to New Zealand, sooner than tell pub¬ 
licly what a fool I was; and there was no other person 
in the plot on whom I could fix. the failure. It was then 
I dreamed a dream, and saw the public in seeming good 
humour, notwithstanding that they were cognisant of 
all my fault, and I made up my mind on the pillow to 
confess the Avhole truth, and be as good-humoured as 
they seemed to be. So I did in’these very pages ; and, 
ever since, they, the public, put more faith in what I w r rite 
than they ever did before. That page in the life of an 
old gardener should ever be present to the minds of the 
young in our line. Let no temptation under heaven 
ever sway the weakest minded of them from the path of 
truth and. straightforward manly character, and their 
reward will follow them ; for, no matter what scrape they 
may fall into, people will never think the worse of them 
for it. 
And now we must think about oil lamps for the Wal- 
tonians, until an improved Shearwood comes out to 
replace them. The Cases as they ar6 now made are 
fitted for lamps ; and, for Shearwoods, all that is neces¬ 
sary is to make the wick about double the size of the 
present one, or about six times larger than those in the 
common night lights. Then, of course, they must need 
greater thickness, so to burn for ten hours, or even nine, 
if that is nearer the mark in price. Then, should the 
price be a little more than that by the lamp, the simpli¬ 
city of the mode will make it to be universally adopted 
among the class for whom it is the very best system of 
propagation. 
In the accounts of it under the Doctor, there is not a 
word too much in its praise ; but there is a sad libel on 
it in his last tickler. I mean where it is said to be a pro- 
pagating-case and no more, and that no plants can be 
grown in it after they are rooted, which is just as wide 
of the mark as the poles are asunder. As far as its 
capacity goes, it is just as good a Wardian Case as any 
that has been hitherto thought of for the whole summer; 
and, no doubt, a minimum light will be Avanted to keep 
it up to 50° all the winter. It need not be idle a single 
day the year round, take my word for it. I studied the 
whole plan with Mr. Walton himself two years before it 
w'ent westways, and I have never lost sight of it since. 
I have seen it crammed \yith plants the summer through 
by Mr. West; but, of course, not using heat in sum¬ 
mer, and I kept it full of plants for Mr. West. The 
first spring he had it in his front shop, where all the 
passers by could see it. The expense is simply the only 
thing against it as a Wardian Case ; but when you once 
have it, and make up your mind to give it a do up once 
a-year, after the propagation, to suit a recess near a 
window, and to agree with good furniture, take my 
word for it, no Wardian Case will beat it the whole 
summer. 
To answer the suggestion of “An Amateur Sub¬ 
scriber” at the beginning of this article, about obtain¬ 
ing it from other makers. Besides the fact of being re¬ 
gistered, there is not one in the trade in a thousand who 
might hit on the exact requirements in making it, being 
far more ingeniously contrived inside than any one who 
has yet used it is at all aware of, and this part of every 
one of them has been made by the same man from the 
first day till now. Another man in Surbiton took to the 
making of it long ago, but he could never hit it off, and 
he gave it up in despair. From the want of a practical 
recommendation, it is now safe and certain, that no one 
will buy any of them which does not pass the ordeal of 
criticism from The Cottage Gardener. But anybody 
who shall recommend it to anybody else, will be doing 
that body a real service, and a thousand of them can be 
got ready in a season; but no one should put off the 
ordering of it to the time for propagation. Every order 
from the middle of January to the end of May, must 
wait the turn of first come first go, and first-rate success 
to it to the bargain. 
The last improvement in the working of it, is to make 
it temporary, in two divisions, by a centre piece of glass 
to drop down from the roof, and to be of the same slope; 
then by tilting the glass frame which forms half of the 
roof you have air and more coolness for seeds, the other 
end being closed for more heat for cuttings ; but the safe¬ 
guard for it is a cold box with loose panes of glass for a 
top, and to remove seedling-pots from the seed depart¬ 
ment of the Case as soon as they require it, and that is 
just where thousands fail in gardening, and blame the 
seeds and seedsmen for bad seeds, when the whole and 
sole blame rests with their own want of knowing the 
exact way of doing them. A thousand chances against 
the best-saved seed in the shop in the hands of ten 
thousand who find pleasure in doing the best they can 
think of. 
Sometimes I am apt to think there are more seeds sent 
to me than I ordered, for I seldom have a miss in seeds ; 
and if I could confine myself to a good-going Waltonian 
Case, I am satisfied that there is not a packet of seeds in 
a respectable shop in London, but I could get up just as 
well as if I had the run of a large establishment. I never 
heard a syllable against seeds at the Experimental Garden 
yet. It is in the kinds that ever I was taken-in with seeds. 
If I want a particular kind of Scabious or Dianthus, or 
of any of the mauy kindred sorts, the chances arc against 
me, for the names do not always tell the right tints ; but 
the seeds seldom fail with me in vegetating. Lettuces, 
Cabbages, Broccoli, and Peas, often play me the same 
tricks ; but that comes of the carelessness of the seed 
growers. The only practical rule for removing the seedlings 
of bedding plants from heat, is to watch that the heat is 
not too much for them, drawing them up with weak, long 
stems ; and after they are turned to a cool place, to have 
them kept as close, from air, as they Avere in the Case or 
hotbed for a whole week, or even longer, thus early to 
