THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, December 10, 1856; m 
Palace of Industry at Paris. The beds out of doors every¬ 
where were gay with, I think, Venus’s Looking-glass. Will 
it do as well here ? It is old and hardy. When should it 
be sown ? A few papers on flower-gardens, with plans for 
humble folks, would be acceptable to many. A garden of 50 
feet, perhaps, wide, which we wish to plant round, so as to 
hide the neighbouring houses, and then place, perhaps, a 
dozen beds and two or three rustic baskets, which we wish 
to keep bright and gay as early and late as we can with 
annuals and bulbs, succeeded by more annuals and green¬ 
house plants. We have not bedding-plants by the thou¬ 
sand ; some few we keep through the winter. It is very 
difficult for those who thoroughly understand a subject, and 
are accustomed to do things on a large scale, to write for 
ignorant persons ; but if you could, by the time the period 
arrives for spring-work, give us a list for, say a dozen beds, 
the best Verbenas, Geraniums, Petunias, &c., you would do 
good service. It seems as if a plant or two of each, pur¬ 
chased early in the spring, could, with hot water underneath, 
be made to produce cuttings for a bed. When should the 
Sanvitalia be sown? Is there any seedsman who can be 
depended on ? we are badly off here. Seeds never come 
up bought here. Queen Victoria and Sir Walter Scott Cro¬ 
cuses, 4s. 2d. a hundred, and everything else dear and bad. 
I have been anxiously expecting more information on heat¬ 
ing by gas from Vincent Litchfield. What is the cost of his 
plan for a greenhouse, say 20 feet by 10 feet? He has not 
given us any dimensions in his plan, page 96 of this half- 
year. I cannot understand how the gas can ever heat the 
water; it looks so far off from the boiler. I should think, 
also, that the air-pipe inside the water-pipe would be difficult 
to get at to repair. I have also been hoping to hear more of 
a system of gas-heating, as found in page 223 of the last 
volume, June 24tli, 1856, by Alfred Kimberley, Edgbaston, 
and only wish I were nearer to go and see it. The cost of 
putting up he does not say, and there is no plan given. To 
begin, he has four fish-tail jets. This is wise, as I should 
fancy one or more could be lighted, reducing the number 
when the water was hot, and being less likely to go out in 
the night than several jets from a ring. Still there may be 
a want just at the worst time. He says, * so sure as we have 
gas in our houses and streets,’ &c.; but with us it has failed 
in very severe frosts. He does not say the number of feet 
of gas consumed; he says 30s. for three months, but I sus¬ 
pect gas is cheaper there than with us. Can you give us 
further details of this plan also, so that we could get either 
the first or second plan made in the country ? knowing the 
expense of every part; the shape, size, and price of boiler; 
the size and price of each sort of pipe per foot; the price 
of galvanized cistern holding four quarts. Could you 
also give more particulars of Mr. R. Bradley’s (King’s 
Bromley) mode of heating? Of what are the pipes com¬ 
posed? Three go right up the back of the fire-place; is this 
better than a small cistern ? I have a small greenhouse 
placed on a level with my living rooms, and if I could heat 
it from my kitchen fire it would be very desirable; but the 
kitchen fire is out at night, when beat is most required. 
How is the water to be drawn off in the mode described by 
Mr. R. Bradley, page 36, ‘ Greenhouses for the Many ? ’ and 
is there any occasion for a steam-pipe to prevent explosion ? 
My kitchen fire-place is eight feet from the wall against 
which my greenhouse is built, and there is to be added to 
this the seven or eight feet difference in the level. Can you 
advise me in the cheapest and best mode of heating ? The 
house is 10 feet by20feet; kitchen fire or gas? The inclosedis 
a leaf I bought fora plant of Tacsonia mollissima ; it has never 
bloomed: what is the reason? does it require heat? Is a 
small, velvety-leaf Geranium, with a small white blossom 
and a strong smell of peppermint, worth growing ? I have 
made in this note many inquiries ; but, if it is Mr! Beaton 
who undertakes this branch, I must beg him to consider me 
a countrywoman, and one Scotch person is always willing to 
help another. —Jane Forrest, Forrest Lodge." 
[The Editor reposed on his sofa for half an hour 
after reading the above. He was bewildered, and 
by mistake sent it to Mr. Fish, who thus comments 
upon it.] 
I hardly know how this letter has come in my way. 
Most likely Mr. Beaton would have been able more 
satisfactorily to meet its inquiries. His well-known 
gallantry to the ladies, not to speak of the appeal to his 
nationality, would have prompted him to more than usual 
exertion. I feel certain that the same motives will cause 
him to supplement my deficiencies, when, before return- i 
ing it, I take a passing notice of its contents. 
Our old fun-loving friend, Mr. Punch, ought to be 
made to beg pardon on bended knee. He will have it 
that the gist of all ladies’ letters is thrown into a post¬ 
script, and that it would be impossible for them to 
write a letter without one. Now, this letter is only 
one of many received from ladies without such tail 
appendage. The appositeness of the inquiries, the 
shrewdness of the reasoning, and the thorough deter¬ 
mination to know all about expense and detail before 
commencing operations, are well worthy of the imitation 
of the would-be lords of the creation. 
Without the postscript appendage there is something 
rather striking in its appeal to nationality at its close. 
Our correspondent cannot be quite aware of the very 
smooth and easy sailing of our beautiful craft, or her 
natural shrewdness would have led her to suspect that 
in such a vessel more than one Scotchman would have 
found a place as an oarsman, and had no desire to leave 
or “gang back again.” Not but that he often thinks of 
old scenes; not but that he may agree with the poet, 
that he must be a “wretch" who has no yearning for 
fatherland, and the associations of kindred and of early 
years; and yet we know our correspondent will excuse 
us if we confess to a want of sympathy in most of the 
present movements in aid of a Scottish nationality, 
which, divested of platitude and fustian, and read 
correctly, means little else than a clinging to old national 
prejudices. Then these prejudices, presented in an at¬ 
tractive form, and clouded with the halo of ancestral, old, 
bygone deeds — nothing can be more effectual for 
blinding a people to its real necessities and short¬ 
comings, and thus leaving it far behind its neighbours 
in progress and refinement, who have had the good sense 
to throw all such prejudices to the winds. No Scotch¬ 
man in our days, if he has been a worthy member of 
society, has had any reason to complain of an English 
prejudice against him — quite the reverso. However 
pleased, then, I am to attend, as far as I can, to the in¬ 
quiries of our Scottish correspondent, and to wish that 
many more letters of inquiry would reach us from north 
of the Tweed, yet the mere feeling of gratitude for 
kindness received, not to speak of common justice, would 
prompt me to pay at least an equal attention to inquiries 
from the south. It is high time that in these islands all 
nationality should be chiefly directed to provoking and 
stimulating each other as neighbours to run vigorously 
the same race of domestic comfort and social improve¬ 
ment. At some future time I may notice some of the 
very common things in which our northern friends are 
behind their southern friends, so far as may bo intro¬ 
duced under the general scope of this work; meanwhile, 
I will attend to the wants of our correspondent. 
Sowing Flower-seeds.—Advertising. — I believe 
that every seedsman who advertises in these pages 
would send out true seed as far as he could judge of it 
himself. There have, no doubt, been many rogueries 
in the seed trade, the chief of which was the mixing of 
kiln-dried dead seed with the fresh and good. This is, no 
doubt, very wrong; but the public was also to blame, 
because it could not be satisfied without quantity for its 
money. No man can long advertise a bad article with 
impunity. The benefit of advertising is, that instead of 
having a shop-window of so many feet in a certain street, 
you extend the shop-window over all the parishes and 
counties in the land. The advertiser who sends out a 
bad article would soon find a scarcity of fresh dupes to 
pay for the extension of his shop by advertising. Some 
