48 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION.— October 21, 1850. 
—‘ ( 
any other drainage, and now the balls come up out of the 
beds nearly as well as out of pots. We also tested “ The Doc¬ 
tor’s Boy’s ” plan of a layer of moss just beneath the sur¬ 
face in large pots, and it suits admirably. We shall have 
all our specimen plants of the soft-wooded section and 
Fuchsias on the “ Boy’s ” plan. 
You may remove old Cloves, Picotees, and border Carna¬ 
tions now and till the end of November, and improve them 
much by so doing if you trim the heads properly, that is, 
cut away all the old parts which flowered and the dead 
grass, so as to give freedom to the strong shoots which are 
to flower next year. It is not a good plan to keep any of 
these in pots out of doors during the winter ; they are more 
safe in the free ground. Charcoal is not a bad thing on the 
tops and at the bottom of plants; but it will not save your 
Verbenas under the stage if you water the plants on the 
stage like other people. Verbenas are the very last plants 
in the world to stand the winter under drip. Tf we should 
have a mild winter you will lose every one of them ; and 
if it is a very hard winter the fire may keep the place dry 
enough for them. In that case twice a week will be often 
enough to water them; but watch and see if the pots look 
too dry, and if they do, three times a week must be the 
rule.] 
[If removing this ten-feet-high Araucaria to an outhouse 
does not kill it before the winter is out, the heat of next 
summer will cripple it so, that, at the next removal, you 
would see the last of it. A Fleming or a Baron might 
manage it for years, but depend upon it amateurs cannot 
manage such things. Although wo strongly advise amateurs 
as to the best course to pursue, we should be the last to 
scare them from their hobbies. Take up the tree by all 
meaus, with all its roots, and as much soil as will adhere to 
them. Put six inches of half dry, light soil all over the 
space which the roots will occupy in the outhouse, and after 
placing it upright on that soil, let it be tied so that it cannot 
move right or left or sideways; let every root then run out 
as if the tree was to remain “for good." Now fill in about 
the roots till they are just covered ; then water gently over 
them with a fine-rose pot, to wash in the soil among the roots. 
| After that, put three or four inches of the soil all over the 
i space, but do not water this time, and the work is finished. 
! When you see a likely run of fine, mild weather, syringe all 
| over the leaves; but the roots will hardly want more water 
! till after the end of January; a little litter over the soil 
would keep it sufficiently moist. It must be near the end 
of May, and a pelting wet day, when you remove it out 
of doors. Pray let us hear how you succeed, if only to 
; register the death.] 
WINTERING PELARGONIUMS. 
“ I have got several healthy young Pelargonium plants of 
rather good kinds (such as Flavin, Roivena, Lucy, &c.) in 
my flower-beds which have been blooming the last month, 
and have still some flowers upon them. Some are plunged 
i in pots, and some without them. Be so good as to tell me 
! how I should treat them to keep them alive for next year. 
| Should they be pruned, cut down, Ac., or simply replaced in | 
j the greenhouse? Will their cuttings grow if simply stuck] 
I round the edges of a large pot as you recommend for Tom j 
j Thumb Geraniums, so as to bloom when potted out next 
1 spring ?—A very Young Gardener.’’ 
[This is a regular Balaclava business, but we are used to 
j it. In the first place, save the plants by all means ; but, by | 
S the time you see this, it will be just a month too late for 1 
; them, and all the cuttings will be lost. No one need put 
I in a cutting of any Geranium after the 1st of October who 
; has not stove heat and practical experience, and with both 
! we have ourselves lost them by the score sometimes, and 
| sometimes we lost few or none. If cuttings were taken at 
j the beginning of August, while the plants were at rest after 
the house-blooming, and put into the open ground, they 
j would have made better plants for next year than the old j 
1 plants under this system. It is not safe to cut the plants | 
down as you would potted plants in August. If you 
shorten them so as to do away with two-thirds of the bulk ! 
1 of the head that will be about the best proportion. It 
will be as well if the roots do not carry much soil with 
them. Keep them entire; use leaf-mould and sand as one- | 
i half of the compost, and put them all into as small pots as 
you can cram the roots into, and towards the beginning of 
February, give them large pots, and richer and more solid 
stuff to bloom in. After blooming next summer, plant 
them out, and before the lOtli of August make out-of-door 
cuttings, and, after you see so much return for so very little ■ 
j trouble, you will never forget again that all these kinds of 
cuttings should be done with in time to begin grouse shoot- ! 
ing on the 12th of August.] 
ARAUCARIA BRAZILIENSIS. 
“ Notwithstanding what you said in The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener of July 29th, under the circumstances, would it be 
well to let it stand as it is, or to take it up, and give it a 
little protection from frost, say in an out-building, with no 
artificial heat, so as to prepare it for the next winter, to 
stand the frost if it will ? 
“ You say, ‘ What made you buy such a troublesome cus¬ 
tomer? ’ The facts are these : I was at a sale of a gentle¬ 
man’s establishment, and bid 7s. 0d. for the plant, being in 
a large pot, and not thinking of becoming the purchaser 
I certainly at that price, and it was immediately knocked down 
at that sum ; consequently, the loss will not be very exten- 
! sive if I do not succeed with it.—A Six Years’ Subscriber.’’ 
GOLD FISII. 
Your correspondent, “ Z. Z. Z.,” The Cottage Gardener, 
October 7, should at once remove his Fish and clear out the 
pond, and, when he examines the bottom, he will most pro¬ 
bably find a number of water - beetles, or the larva of 
beetles, or dragon-flies. These have probably got into the ; 
pond, and caused the havoc he complains of. Dytiscus mar- j 
ginulis and dimidiatus are ravenous aquatic beetles, very j 
common in still, rank waters ; and, as they occasionally take 
wing in the summer, they may have taken up their quarters in j 
the midst of the gold fish, into which they would bore holes j 
in abundance, for they feed upon their prey without pre- j 
viously killing it. If the pond is not at once cleared the ; 
enemy may escape detection ; for many aquatic insects and j 
their larva pass the winter in a state of torpidity, ensconced : 
in muddy banks'. Perhaps “ Z.Z.Z.” may remember to have 
seen a few buzzing beetles about his pond during the 
past summer; and he may now, perhaps, if he looks atten¬ 
tively, see them rise occasionally to take air at their tails on 
the surface. One thing is pretty certain, the fishes them¬ 
selves are not pugnacious.— Shirley Hibberd, Tottenham. 
FATTENING PIGS ON LINSEED. 
“In a little book, called ‘On the Preparation of Cooked 
Food for the Fattening of Cattle,’ by Thomas Harkness, 
published by Blackwood, I find, at pp. 18 — 20, ‘The 
Cornwall plan of giving cooked food to cattle. Instead of 
feeding on oil cake, they mix 23 lbs of crushed Linseed 
gradually in 21 gallons of boiling water; after which they 
slowly put in 84 lbs of meal and a little salt,, and stir it well 
for a quarter of an hour; after which it is poured into tin 
moulds, each holding 7 lbs. The quantities and ingredients 
before-mentioned would make 36 cakes = 2521bs. 
“ It also goes on to say that this compound has been 
tried, weight for weight, and was found superior to oil-cake, 
and much cheaper, as it would only cost 5jd. per stone of 
14 lbs. 
“ Now, what I want to know is this—whether a large pig, 
allowed 14 or 16 lbs of this compound per day, mixed with 
warm water, would not thrive rapidly upon it, and gain 
from 2 to 3 lbs per day ; and, also, whether it would not be 
superior to barley-meal ?—A Farm Student." 
[The following reply is from a very competent authority: — 
“ Compounds, such as you describe, have been extensively 
tried in this county (Cornwall); but I do not apprehend 
that the results have been generally encouraging. A still 
more common and better mode of employing Linseed in¬ 
stead of cake has been reducing it to a mucilage by boiling, 
then mixing it with chaff, and adding meal. This is a 
simpler process, and has certainly been employed with great 
advantage in feeding cattle. As regards roots, the expense 
of steaming does not pay for cattle, though for pigs it cannot 
