97 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Mat 18, 1858. 
like it, but liking, or disliking, lias nothing to do with 
rules or principles. 
Principles can be applied in so many different ways 
in planting, that no one need have a bed he dislikes, or 
blame any known principle for compelling the use of 
an obnoxious bed, for the sake of any style, or arrange¬ 
ment of beds. The greatest error in planting flower¬ 
beds, which pretend to a style of art, is in the edgings ; 
in nine cases out of ten the edgings are mere pimping 
lines, whereas the edging, to give effect by contrast, 
ought to stand as one-fourth of the width of a long 
bed, or one-eighth of the diameter of a circle, as a 
thumb rule ; that is to say, if your long bed is twenty 
feet wide, the band of a different plant round it should 
be five feet wide, instead of being a mere line, which 
has no meaning in principle. But, if this bed was a 
circle twenty feet in diameter, the rule is very different; 
the one-eighth of twenty is two and a half, and that 
would be the width of the edging—just one-half of 
five feet, the edging to the other bed. The way in 
which ladies calculate for edgings is by the one-fourth 
system; and, supposing all kinds of beds to be reduced 
to the oblong shape, when you tell a lady artist your 
circular bed is eight feet in diameter, or eight feet 
through, she will reply like a carpenter, and say that 
is four feet “ on the side,” on one side of the centre 
plant in the bed. An oblong bed, four feet wide, has 
an edging one foot wide ; but from the four to the six 
feet bed, the rule is arbitrary ; a bed six feet wide will 
carry an edging fourteen inches wide only, and up to 
eighteen inches wide is the rule, for the largest beds, 
which I have seen measured for edgings ; and I should 
say, on my own authority, speaking as a gardener, who 
has fought the battles of the planter, that six inches 
should be the narrowest edging of any flowering plant 
whatever. When we come to work in Box, and make 
it tell in a design, I consider a four-inch wide Box edge 
equal to one foot of a flowering plant. But those who 
are able to work in Box patterns, are those very heads 
from wTiom. come the laws of designing all kinds of 
planting, and they stand in no need of our instruction. 
The last part of the business of the day is by far 
the most difficult branch of the subject, and that is, to 
know the exact and actual distances at which all bed¬ 
ding plants ought to be planted apart; and that is just 
where I am most likely to break my back. When I 
come to the rule of “ cutting according to your cloth,” 
and find that my flannel petticoat is not longer than 
my Scotch kilt, that will not do in planting; but I 
was never at a loss about running plants, like Verbenas 
and Petunias ; if I had only ten plants of one of them 
for a bed, which required fifteen or twenty plants, I 
would first plant the ten at regular distances all over 
the bed, and plant between them with extra kinds, 
with a small stick to each of the latter, that they 
might be known, and be pulled up as soon as the true 
bedders are spread over the surface ; and that rule I 
• ! would still advise with all the strong kinds of Ver¬ 
benas, because in nine cases out of ten strong Verbenas 
are planted too thick for the looks of the thing, and 
they never bloom so well as when they have ample 
space. The best way to learn planting is this ; to 
suppose all bed planting to be in single rows ; then 
strong Verbenas would be safe at fifteen inches apart, 
and ten inches from the side next the walk, and 
eighteen inches from the next row; I would plant 
Robinsons Defiance at that distance anywhere, and to 
fill the rest of the ground, for a while, I would rather 
smuggle in other kinds, or annuals, even if Defiance 
I was from late spring cuttings ; dwarf Verbenas I would 
plant ten inches plant from plant, six inches from the 
side, and one foot row from row. If the plants were 
' small, I would smuggle again, and I would train them 
and the Petunias the same planting day, for fear of 
their blowing about. All Petunias may be planted at 
the same distances as strong Verbenas, but if they are 
scarce they may stand further apart. All Calceolarias 
• and Geraniums must stand at distances according to 
the size of the plants, rather thickly planted, as they 
can be thinned early for cuttings, which are never too 
early. D. Beaton. 
PROTECTING, OR NOT PROTECTING, 
PEACH AND APRICOT TREES. 
A great variety of opinion, and of practice, obtain 
on this subject. Some of our best gardeners protect 
carefully, others equally successful, do not protect at 
all. In different gardens, nay even in the same gardens, 
trees as much as possible alike, as to the due ripening of 
the wood the previous season, the strength of the 
wood, the abundance of healthy fruit-buds, &c., will 
turn out quite differently, some producing abundantly 
under protection and non-protection ; while others will 
fail under protection at one time, and without pro¬ 
tection at another. In each case, where the matter is 
duly considered, great stress is laid upon the proper 
thinning-out and ripening of the wood the previous 
summer and autumn. Without that, there is always 
the risk of not getting a crop from the parts of fruc¬ 
tification being immature, or the principal part being 
altogether defective. On such crowded soft wood that 
even showed bloom strongly, and apparently all right, I 
have examined hundreds of blossoms that had no trace 
of a young fruit in embryo, and, of course, no treat¬ 
ment could make them productive. The maturing of 
the wood is, therefore, of first consequence in any cir¬ 
cumstances, but it does nothing to settle the question 
—Which is preferable, to protect, or not to protect P 
I presume that the answer must be greatly regulated 
by the circumstances of the case, the position of the 
garden, as respects lowness and elevation, and its free 
exposure from all directions, as its comparative warmth 
and shelter by surrounding woods. There is one argu¬ 
ment in favour of non-protection, and a powerful one 
too, if only we could always secure a crop by it, viz., 
that the trees undergo no debilitating process, such as, 
to a certain extent, they must experience under most 
modes of protection. Gardeners frequently complain, 
when, after protecting carefully, until towards the end 
of May, and securing an abundant crop, that then, 
frequently, a sharp frost afterwards has injured the 
whole, when they might have escaped uninjured, if they 
had not been rendered tender by previous codling 
and covering. On the other hand, when a crop is 
destroyed by frost, and no protection has been used, 
the gardener hap the unpleasant reflection that some 
simple mode of protecting might have prevented the 
disappointment; and there are plenty of employers 
who would not ’scruple to say so, and yet would grudge, 
or forbid, the outlay which would be necessary to 
secure proper canvass, or calico, coverings. Even when 
using such simple modes, our success may not be so 
great as we anticipate, but it is so far consoling to be 
able to say, “ We did what we could.” 
The subject, then, is one well worthy of considera 
tion, and in order that many gardeners and amateurs 
may be induced to give us the results of their practice 
and observation, in the shape of an expressed opinion, 
I will commence with stating what is my own opinion 
at present, but which will ever be influenced by the ex¬ 
perience and observation of others; and also mention 
some of the practices that obtain in this immediate 
neighbourhood, merely premising, that this season, so 
far as I can learn, there is the appearance of an 
abundant crop in most jAnces. For though the frost 
was frequently severe when the trees were in bloom, 
the weather was generally still and dry, and though 
