THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, March 10, 1857. 395 
to see beautiful plants more generally in windows, and the 
culture of them attended with a charm and an interest never 
formerly known. R. Fish. 
(To be continued.) 
A CHAPTER ON INQUIRIES. 
Trifles— ? am glad to find that “ Excelsior ” sees 
the importance of these little matters. “ The best-laid 
schemes of mice and men gang aft aglee.” Why ? 
Because in the greatness of their aspirations they over¬ 
look the trifles that form the only sure foundation of 
success. Here, too, lies the great difference between the 
plodding, ever-watchful practical and the very learned, 
scientific theorist. The latter will give a reason for 
every operation — a cause why he has succeeded in one 
instance and failed so thoroughly in another, and that, 
no doubt, must be a consolation to him in the many 
failures he meets with. The former, when asked how 
such and such results come about, may be able to go no 
farther than just to say, “Sure it is so; have not I 
always found it so?” but so long as be attends to the 
sound teachings of experience, and minds the trifles , he 
wall less seldom have to grumble over mischances. Com¬ 
bine the far-reaching science of the one with the practical 
experience of the other, and the attention to trifles which 
that experience will ever teach, and failures will not only 
be less frequent and success more sure, but the operator, 
accustomed to trace cause and effect, finds a greater plea¬ 
sure and a higher zest in every operation in which be 
engages, whilst such reasoning and generalising ten¬ 
dencies will enable him to suit and alter these operations 
to the ever-varying circumstances in which he may be 
placed. 
Complaints at times reach us—and, at first sight, not 
altogether without reason — that such works as The 
Cottage Gardener, and such individuals as your hum¬ 
ble servant, who cannot keep a professional secret, were 
they to be well paid for doing so, have made the whole 
system of gardening such an easy-looking, simple affair, 
that any person possessed of very common abilities could 
master the whole in a very short time indeed, and that 
the extreme confidence thus produced can hardly be 
broken into by a felt sense of deficiency—the first grand 
step in real progress, though failure after failure, and 
the consequent disappointments, follow quickly after 
each other. We might be more inclined to plead guilty 
if, with attempts to simplify, there had not been asso¬ 
ciated urgent reasons for attending to little matters—the 
trifles—the essential groundwork of all successful gar¬ 
dening. We hope that all, and especially our young 
readers, will so plume themselves on unremitting atten¬ 
tion to these minutiae as to save themselves and us from 
all such unpleasant imputations. 
On the same principle that has led “ Excelsior ” to 
tell us of his disappointment I have not hesitated to 
record some of my own mishaps, believing that even 
failure is not an unmitigated evil when rightly used as 
the sign-post of danger. I might safely say that in 
nearly every case some little trifle overlooked became 
the cause of the disappointment. Were I to chronicle 
the complaints from this cause alone during the last 
twelve months that have come in my retired w r ay a whole 
number would be necessary. Just for the sake of exam¬ 
ple and instruction let me specify a few. 
Here is Mr. A., an enthusiast for getting Cucumbers 
and Melons from fermentiug material as the medium 
of heating, and though he has changed the master of 
the works several times, he cannot get a person who 
can make a dung bed as his old worn-out gardener used 
to do. He can have abundance of little essays on this 
gas and that gas, this and that sort of steam; but he 
cannot get a bed that is not burning hot at one time, 
and cold as ice at another, or this gas and that gas 
laying his plants withered flat on the bed ; so that, 
instead of Cucumbers, he is obliged to be content with 
the reasons why they cannot be forthcoming. 
There is Mr. B., a most painstaking fellow, whose 
bod is all right, as the sight of the plants within will tell 
you. The heat declines a little, and he claps a front 
lining to it not over sweet; the sashes do not fit very 
close to the frame, and, in a careless moment, because 
the night is very cold, the covering not only reaches all 
over the glass, but several inches over the lining, and 
the rank steam drawn inside through the small open¬ 
ings, as if with a pump sucker, acts like a blast from a 
hot furnace on the fine, healthy foliage; and Mr. B. 
abuses himself most heartily, and scratches his head all 
the more desperately, because “ be might have known it 
would just be so.” 
There, again, is our old acquaintance, Mr. C., a most 
generous-hearted fellow, whose greatest pleasure seemed 
to be derived from being able to confer a favour, or give 
you something you had not got. On seeing thousands 
upon thousands of half-hardy cuttings striking seemingly 
with little trouble, he resolved to astonish his neighbours 
with bis success; but it was long before he bad the 
opportunity of doing so, as his cuttings clamped off at 
one time, and were scorched off at another, because be 
was too magnanimous to attend to what he called the 
mer ejidfads kindly mentioned to him as the elements of 
success. 1 shall never forget one visit. He meant to 
astonish me, and he certainly did. He had gone to a 
great expense in procuring a first-rate collection of all j 
the crack florist Calceolarias of the day. He had kept 
them over the winter pretty successfully in a green¬ 
house Vinery by letting them alone, with the exception 
of a little water. As spring came on he was anxious 
these should form tolerable specimens, but more 
anxious still that several friends, myself among the 
number, should receive cuttings or young plants of each. 
He had been warned that if he wished to have fair-look¬ 
ing specimens he must be very moderate in the way c f 
giving them extra heat ; but he could not see why - 
Calceolarias could not. be forced into large growth and 
plenty of cuttings as well as any other plant, merely if 
plenty of heat were given. He took into his councils a 
very clever young fellow, who had graduated in several 
large establishments, and who, if talking could do such 
a thing, could easily have talked your head off. By 
their joint efforts a bed was put up to give a fillip to 
these Calceolarias, and inside they became duly located ; 
and what was meant to astonish me was the going to 
have a peep at this wonderful bed. On moving the 
sash a rush of rank steam came out, so startling, that a 
strong dose of ammonia or concentrated smelling salts 
were mild in comparison; and but for the lesson to be 
gained the money spent on the Calceolarias might as 
well have been thrown over London Bridge. 
Then there is Mr. D., who was rather vain of a bed of 
early Melons and a beautiful house of Peaches nicely 
set. A few days of dark, dull, cold weather came, fol¬ 
lowed by one colder still, but with a bright sun along 
with a piercing north wind. He is afraid of this wind, 
or rather, I suspect he forgets the sudden change to * 
which the plants are subjected. At any rate no air for 
hours is given, while the sun beats fiercely on the glass ; 
and, if he discovers it not before, the next day shows him 
the rims of the Melon leaves blotched and scorched all 
round, and the young Peach fruit more abundantly on 
the floor of the house than where they ought to be. The 
disappointment is all the more mortifying as Mr. D. 
well knows that the cooling of the heating medium—the 
giving only a little air early —would have prevented the 
temperature rising injuriously, and avoided any neces¬ 
sity for large draughts of cold air in consequence; or 
even a little shading would have averted all the mischief 
