90 
THE COTTAGE GARDENEit AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S COMPANION, November 11, 1S50. 
them nearly half full of strong loam, plant your Bog- 
worts in the centre, then put an inch or so of silver 
sand over the whole surface of the mould, still holding 
! up the plant in one hand for fear of mauling it about; 
j now tell your man or Susan to till up the pan with 
i water clear as crystal out of the spout of some silver 
! vessel. All must be silver or silver-like cleanliness 
about this job, for fear of making a milk-and-water or a 
{ muddy mass of it. Let the water pour on the side of 
| the pan as gently as can be, and when the pan is full 
j enough let go the top of your plant, and the whole thing 
j is as clean as a now pin, and looks ten times better than 
i all the glass pans in the world. But to prove this to 
your own satisfaction, put down a row of No. Ifi pots, 
bran new from the pottery, one behind or before each of 
the earthenware pans, and get as many of the largest 
bell-glasses, and put one of them in each pot bottom 
upwards, fill with loam, sand, and water, plant and all, 
as above, aud you will see the difference; but, if you 
should prefer the glasses, stick to them, and mount each 
of them on a golden lotus- in the drawing-room for an 
aquarium, to rear aud keep all manner of small living 
things, the tinyworts from the two kingdoms, as they do 
at the Zoological; but we shall keep to the pans here¬ 
abouts. 
Where the bot-water pipes enter this house there are 
several sets of iron troughs, perhaps ten inches deep 
and a foot or eighteen inches wide, so many lying side 
to side, as many to follow at the ends, and so on, every 
trough being connected with the one immediately before 
and behind it by inch pipes for How and return. Those 
next to the pipes are similarly connected with the main 
flow and return. Such a contrivance could be put up 
in any old house where hot-water pipes were, by merely 
drilling one hole in the top pipe and another in the 
bottom, and the smallest gas-pipe would answer both, 
and to communicate from trough to trough, or from 
cistern to cistern, or with one large cistern. The object 
is to get a regular hotbed for bottom-heat, to do all 
manner of things, and to help the heating of the house 
at the same time; also to keep the air to the proper 
pitch of moistness. Here an iron net-like grating 
covers the whole of the trough ; then a thick layer of 
moss to plunge pots in, such as pots of all kinds of 
Pitcher-plants, rare stove-plants, and everything looks 
as well as if in a dung hotbed. I am quite sure, if “ The 
Doctok’s Boy ” understands me, be could show the gar¬ 
deners how to “ play a hand” at more games than one. 
With a Vinery on the hot-water system, to begin forcing 
on the 1st of March, he would make a Waltonian | 
hotbed to strike cuttings and get up seeds, Cucumber- 
plants, and everything, in fact. The first thing would 
be to get a box, if ever so rough or ever so long, and 
place it on bricks, or on the Vine-border inside, on a level 
with the bottom pipe. If the box would not hold water 
he would put inside it a box that would. Any smith 
could drill a hole in the top pipe, and put in a gas-pipe 
to enter the box at one end, aud in the bottom one to 
receive a pipe from the other end of the box. Do you, 
brave “ Boy,” just think it over. D. Beaton. 
ANSWERS TO BEGINNERS. 
{Continued from page 75.) 
Scarlet Geraniums, &c., beneath a Greenhouse 
Stage.— “I have more young Scarlet Geraniums; old 
ones I wish to raise from the border; fancy kinds, as Flori- 
hunila, Yatemaneanum, Lady Mary Fox, that I can¬ 
not find room near the glass for without putting up more 
shelves. Could I not keep them well beneath the stage on 
the floor, where a considerable amount of light reaches, 
and also good Dahlia roots when taken up ? If so, how 
manage? ”—I can only say, yes and no. No better place 
could be found for Dahlias, provided you take care in 
watering the pots above them. The same answer as to 
the old Scarlet Geraniums, and lose no time in taking 
them up, as they will keep so much better if never 
touched by frost. Wheel them to your rubbish-heap, 
slip or break off all the very soft points, arid remove 
every leaf larger than a fourpenny-bit, and pack the 
plants as close as they will go together on the floor of 
the house, covering the roots witli light, sandy soil, with 
a little leaf-mould in it if you can get it. If at all damp 
the soil need not be watered. Give the tops a gentle 
syringe, and repeat the operation on some fine, sunny 
day, to keep the stems plump. Secure this, and the less 
water given the better. The chief perspiring organs 
being removed, the succulent stems pretty well absorb 
as much as they perspire. The removing of the foliage 
is a great point of success. Young plants, unless struck 
early, would not long keep in health under such cir¬ 
cumstances. The fancies will do better; but even 
they will not long succeed. With the exception of I 
Diadematum rubescens, &c., most of them bloom as well j 
from young plants as from older ones. If you resolve 
to take them up, save what roots you can, remove all 
but the very small leaves, and pack them thickly in pots 
and boxes, in light, sandy soil, aud keep them close 
until the roots begin to grow, when they should be more 
exposed to light and air, and kept cool, and get more 
room in the spring, when hardier things may be turned 
out into turf-pits and other means of protection out of 
doors. This subject has been so thoroughly ventilated 
that nothing afresh can be advanced. 
Golden Chain Geranium.— “ I have a few good 
plants, and I wish to increase them. Shall 1 try cuttings 
now ?”—Decidedly not, unless your conveniences of 
preventing damp are all right. Had you tried in July 
it would have been different, or even in August. Better 
defer now until spring, when, if the plants are growing 
and the cuttings favoured with a brisk beat, almost 
every one will be sure to strike. 1 previously stated 
that there was a difficulty in getting this-beautiful thing 
to propagate freely ; but now I am convinced that the 
difficulty arose from using such small, tiny bits as 
cuttings. Another error I committed was allowing the 
base of the cuttings to dry a little before inserting 
them. They do not seem to lose any of their moisture 
with impunity. By inserting fair-sized cuttings in a 
border in August they struck almost as well as other 
Scarlets. I am convinced that drying the base of the 
cutting a little, and using very small bits, were the reasons 
why I lost such a large percentage. Last season I made 
a number, and left the ends exposed for a day, the tops 
being moistened and covered. Next day one of my 
young men made some more, and inserted them directly, 
and very few of his went off in comparison with mine, i 
though he picked out both, and treated them alike ; he, ! 
however, having made larger cuttings. There is such a ! 
desire for this beautiful thing that these facts may be 
useful. I should have no objection to have as many | 
thousands as I have hundreds of it; for, even if I did 
not want them all, I could have the pleasure of presenting j 
them to those who admired them. 
Old Plants of Shrubby Calceolarias. —“ Could not ! 
I take these out of the beds, and keep them in a cold j 
pit? if so, should I pot them, or plant them in earth at ! 
once ?”—I incline to the latter mode as the best. Prune 
the softer part of the heads aud the flowers away, lift 
with moderate balls, and place the plants as thick as 
they can be squeezed together in light, rich, sandy soil; 
water freely, and give plenty of air, and shut up only 
when frost is apprehended. This tribe suffers little from 
damp, and in severe weather, provided the temperature 
is not above 40° inside, nor much below S0°, may be 
shut up for weeks and bo uninjured. By May, however, 
