THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— October 14, 185(1. 
/ '«* 
the leaves could get tio fresh matter to feed upon, and the 
plants died in consequence. The Verbena is one of the 
worst things to do well when taken up and potted late. If 
fresh roots are not formed before the short, dark days, they 
may remain green for a time, and then they will, ere long, 
say, good bye. I do not hold out any hope that you will be 
a bit more successful this year, unless, perhaps, you were 
to pot directly, and, in about a week, prune well back, in the 
hope of getting young shoots to grow. I have thus suc¬ 
ceeded very moderately with great care. If, six weeks ago, 
you had placed a shoot over the mouth of a small pot filled 
with light, sandy soil, and put a stone over the shoot, to keep 
a joint or two just in the soil, and watered now and then, 
you would now have had as many nice-rooted plants as you 
used pots, merely by severing them from the mother plant 
as you would cutoff a Strawberry runner alter it was rooted. 
You might try the same now, though rather late, and if the 
autumn is mild you will succeed. Rut in order to have two 
strings to your bow, take off such little tit-bits ns are mentioned 
in the previous answer, remove all the bottom leaves, 
shorten the middle ones, and leave only the two little ones 
at the top extended, picking out the flower-bud if there is 
any, the curtailing of the leaves being for the purpose of 
lessening the perspiring surface of the cutting. Then 
examine your pantry or cupboard, and see what bell-glasses, 
bee-glasses, or crystal tumblers you can conveniently spare. 
Select such pots that the glasses, turned upside down, will 
stand just within the rim of the pots. Fill such pots, half 
full with drainage, then sandy loam within an inch of the 
top, and half an inch of sand above all; water it, and let it 
stand for a day ; then sprinkle a little more dry sand over 
it, make a mark with your glass, and, at a little distance from 
that mark, in a ring all round, insert your cuttings thickly 
and firmly, with their heads leaning a little inwards. Fill 
up the little holes made with dry sand, water gently, and 
when the tops of the cuttings are dry, place your glass 
firmly over them, set pots with their glasses on the table, 
shade from bright sunshine, and, after a day or two, if the 
room is not very dry, give a little air at night by raising one 
side of your glass a little. If you can just dew the cuttings 
in an evening, without wetting the soil much, they will 
strike all the sooner. The same dewing in a hot, sunny day 
will be better for them than dense shading. With a little 
extra care for a fortnight or three weeks you may thus ob¬ 
tain nice, small, healthy plants, that will be easier kept than 
old ones, and do you good service next season. When 
rooted, the glass must be removed by degrees, first 
tilting it up on one side at night, then altogether removed at 
night, and by-and-by during the day. If the atmosphere 
of the room is at all dry, all the plants will be benefited by 
the table on which they stand being covered with damp 
moss. I believe the first Verbenas I struck were so ma¬ 
naged; and, having neither syringe nor fine-rosed watering- 
pot, I used to place the pot gently on its broad side when 
the soil was wet enough, and whisk the cuttings with mist, 
thrown from a brush made of fine hay dipped into water. 
A very little practice insured something like perfection in 
giving a misty, vapoury, wetting dew from such a rude in¬ 
strument; and, after all, most of the fine instruments now 
so much praised are only for ladies and gentlemen that 
must keep hands and feet unsoiled. A rough practical would 
have all the affair done and settled before they were ready to 
commence. A gentleman, some time ago, suggested a (/rent 
improvement for the water-barrels; but, before a pailful 
could have been got by the improvement, I should have ex¬ 
pected to have seen the barrel of some ten pailsful or more 
emptied and ready to be filled again. I should have no wish 
to see our lady amateur with hands as rough as my own. 
She may, with propriety, defend herself with stout gloves, 
&c., which to me are an abomination; but one thing is 
certain, that gloved or ungloved, all who would garden iu 
earnest themselves must neither be too refined as to what 
they touch, nor the make-shift instruments they must at 
times use.] 
Size of, and time for making Cat.ceoi.aiua Cuttings. 
—“ Some six or eight weeks ago a friend took up some 
shrubby Calceolarias out of his border because I admired 
them so much, and sent them to me, that I might get plenty 
j of cuttings at once. 1 cut up all the shoots, and planted 
tfioYn iiTAsl- 1 fid 1' place under hand-glasses, and I find that 
”ery few are gro'ffiVg-. What can be the reason?” 
[The chief reason I s"uspettTo Uial u! c P^ an * ;s at ' 
time contained little but flower-stems, and these p.cver do 
strike easily, and worst of all in summer and autumn. \t nBc 
I would cn,} 0se ns cuttings would hardly then be found, or, 
if found, wtvjjid be exceedingly spongy. I would advise 
sending now to your friend, not for a hamper of his plants, 
but for two or three hundred little firm side-slioots, from two 
to three inches in length, slipped off from the stems ; and 
if to be sent by post in a Cm or carc i box, to have tlio lower 
leaves removed to lessen the Woht, anc i packed dry; for, 
if not long on the road, spreading o. em , ou t and sprink¬ 
ling them over with water will make e, , m right in an 
hour or so. These inserted in pots, boxes, or iu the 
ground, in sandy soil and in a shady place, win -. )0 t by 
the first or second week in November, though, if early > not¬ 
ing kinds, the rooting will take place before then. It is onijr 
time and labour thrown away to commence propagating 
these shrubby Calceolarias before the end of September, as, 
if the plants are allowed to bloom freely, and do not have 
the tops pruned off on purpose, they will not produce, those 
nice stubby side-shoots much before that time; and they 
answer so well, that they should be patiently waited for. 
—R. Fish.] 
A DESERVING MAN WHO WANTS A LITTLE 
HELP. 
“ Your interrogatory clause has induced me to take my 
pen once moro in hand to give you a few details respecting 
myself and my present position. 
“ To commence, in a few plain words, and to give you a 
proper insight into my case, 1 must say, in the first place, 1 
am poor, unfortunately poor. My father was only an 
accountant or book-keeper at a cotton-mill; and I am the 
centre, or middle-most, of a family of nine children. Father 
and two brothers are dead. Two elder brothers are married, : 
myself and another elder brother, and three younger sisters, 
are left at home with our mother; so that you may partly 
compute that we are not abundantly stocked with “ warld’s 
gear;” but then— 
“A man may ha’e an honest heart. 
Though poortith hourly stare him 
and it is upon that and my poor abilities, together with some 
unexceptionable references, which I can procure, that I 
must stand. I am twenty-four years old. 1 am a five years’ 
old teetotaller. I am a very hungry reader; and, unfortu¬ 
nately, for want of some wise head to direct and control my 
reading, I have, among some very sound corn, picked up a 
great amount of chaff; but, having now to make mine own 
way in the world, to get mine own living, and assist a little 
at home, the resolve is grafted into me to endeavour to be 
something, relying upon the Great Disposer of events for 
strength, and upon the kind assistance of a few sterling 
friends to aid me to achieve success. 
“ Seeing, then,the demand upon me, you will perceive that 
it will be necessary that I should always be in pretty good 
wages; and, therefore, the idea of entering a garden where 
a premium would be required must be reluctantly relin¬ 
quished ; and I must work myself up, step by step, with a 
steadiness and perseverance that ultimately must insure a 
happy termination. 
“ Let us, then, be up and doing, 
With a heart for any fate ; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 
Learn to labour and to wait.” 
“ These lines, and my motto of ‘Excelsior,’ shall be my 
guide ; and, somehow or other, I have a presentiment that I 
shall succeed. I have thought to endeavour to get into a 
good garden in the neighbourhood of Manchester; and then, 
perhaps, I might get to such it place as Chatsworth or 
Trentham, and then in the neighbourhood of London.— 
Excelsior.” 
[We shall be very glad if some of our readers can aid 
this young man. Wo think he would not disgrace their 
patronage. We have his address.— Ed. C. G.] 
