THE COTTAGE GARDEN EE AND COUNTRY 
GENTLEMAN, 
July 20, 
1858. 
Linum rubrum will peg down and do well, but would do bet ter 
standing, and to be supported with a few slender branched sticks. 
There is not a plant in the country which would match 
Sedum acre in an edging; it is one of the best edging plants 
in the world, for towns and cities, and would grow in St. 
Paul’s Churchyard, London, just as well as on Epsom Downs; 
but the golden form of it, in winter, is by far the prettiest. 
Your own plans and contrivances are most excellent, and 
Lady Grenville is the patroness of all such contrivances.] 
PRESERVING THE BROOD WHEN BEES ARE 
DESTROYED. 
“ In No. 503 of The Cottage Gaedenee, for May the 
18tli, 1858, your worthy contributor, ‘ P. V. M. E.,’ writes 
thus, when speaking of brood or young bees unhatclied. ‘ By 
burning the hives in July, or very early in August, most of 
these, if carefully preserved, will live till the following spring.’ 
“ Now, I wish to know how, or by what means, the young 
brood unhatched, can ‘ be carefully preserved,’ so as to live 
the following spring ? ”— Ceeco. 
[I am vexed to have been so long without answering your 
correspondent “ Cerco’s ” inquiry, touching my meaning. 
When I speak of a “ carefully preserved ” bee brood living “ till 
the following spring,” I simply mean, that if theyonng brood, 
which is usually destroyed in early autumn by the burning 
process, were but suffered to be hatched out by the bees of 
some other hive, the young bees so preserved would add ma¬ 
terially to the strength and prosperity of that hive.—B. & W.] 
EXTIRPATING THE MEALY BUG. 
“ Will you inform me the correct names of the enclosed 
three Orchids ? Als o, what is the best work on the cultiva¬ 
tion of Orchids ? I have “ William’s Manual,” but I want 
something more modern and more in detail. Also, would it 
be possible to name a list of plants for a stove not liable to 
take the mealy bug ? I have spent two hours, this morning, 
cleaning a Stephanotis, from which I cleared every bug I could 
discover, not two weeks since. As an amateur not having 
much time on my hands, this insect quite beats me out, and 
discourages me. It does not attack my Allamanda Schottii , 
and cathartica , or Thyrsacanthus rutilans, and I think these 
are the only ones that escape; but it bids fair to kill the Stepha¬ 
notis , Dipladenias and Ixoras .”— An Old Subsceibee. 
[Your Orchids are :—1. Stanhopea occidata. 2. JEpiden- 
drum, cochleatum. 3. Ji.fragrans alias radiatum. William’s 
is the best work we know of for Orchids ; but the best prac¬ 
tical treatment, of the whole subject, will be found in Mr. 
Appleby’s treatise, in the pages of The Cottage Gaedenee. 
Every kind of stove plant is liable to the mealy bug, and once 
it gets established in a house, all the powers on earth, or 
under it, cannot completely get rid of it. The best mode is 
to make cuttings of young shoots, not yet infested; to rear the 
young plants a whole summer, in a dung frame or pit,—such 
as a Cucumber pit; to remove all the stove plants at the end 
of August; and to wash, clean, and paint, every inch of wood, 
stone, brick, brass, and iron, and all other things inside; and 
not to introduce another plant until it is proved to be free 
from bug or scale in some other house for three summer 
months. Nothing short of this very process will ever rid you 
of bugs; by it, the best gardeners find no difficulty in keeping 
their stoves free of it. Each of the nostrums, for getting rid 
of scale and bugs, is a hum, with the name of the insect at the 
end.] 
_ 
A Pbecocious Cuttle.— I was much amused with the 
j perfect self-possession of the first that was hatched in my 
I presence. It had not been free from the egg-shell for one 
I minute before it began a leisurely tour of the vessel in which 
S it first saw the light, examining it on all sides, as if to find out 
what kind of a place the world was, after all. It then rose 
and sank many times in succession over different spots, and, 
after balancing itself for a moment or two over one especial 
patch of sand, blew out a round hole in the sand, into which it 
lowered itself, and there lay quite at its ease. It executed this 
movement with as much address as if it had practised the art 
for twenty years.—( The Common Objects of the Sea-shore.) 
GROUPING- TREES IN PARKS. 
A paek without trees has as cold and dreary a 
character, almost, as a wild heath or barren moor: 
hence, all landscape gardeners plant that part of the 
domain, more or less, with trees, either single, in 
groups, or in clumps. A large single tree is an object 
that has, from all ages, been regarded by mankind 
with admiration,—from its grandeur, its beauty, and 
its usefulness. Hence, in all ages, man has either 
allowed a few of the wild denizens of the forests (which 
he has cleared away for farming purposes) to remain, 
to shelter and ornament his dwelling ; or, if none were 
there, he has planted some for the same purpose. 
If this admiration and use of trees was practised by 
the ancients, it is still more so now. But, alas ! a tree 
does not grow so as to be effective as a beautiful ob¬ 
ject for almost half a century: hence, it is desirable, 
in order to produce effect more speedily, to plant trees 
in groups, and shelter them from cattle, till they have 
grown so tall as to be out of their reach. A group 
may consist of only a couple of trees, or the number 
may be extended to half-a-dozen, or even nine trees, 
all of which may be arranged in different forms, so 
that each may have a different character. To attain 
this requires considerable knowledge and skill, and a 
prophetic eye as to different combinations of figure 
and kinds of trees necessary to produce a desired 
character in the scene. The greatest beauty of a 
group of trees, as far as respects their stems, is the 
different forms they take as they grow into trees. 
Some, for instance, grow quite upright, if ever so close 
together; others take a slanting direction; whilst, in 
some groups, one tree will grow quite upright, and its 
neighbour will push out in an almost horizontal po¬ 
sition. These different arrangements, or appearances, 
may be attained in various ways, by planting in dif¬ 
ferent distances from each other. I have often ob¬ 
tained a very pretty group by planting two or three 
trees in one hole, and allowing them to grow naturally, 
just as they pleased. 
Great diversity of character may be given to groups 
of trees, and the greater the number (within bounds) 
of trees, the greater variety of position, and, conse¬ 
quently, character may be attained. The grand object 
of group-planting, however, is the connecting them 
together in various views, and, at the same time, to 
leave a sufficient breadth of the grassy part of the park 
open for grazing. Groups should always be connected 
in the distance with the wood, forest, or belt, but should 
never be planted in the deep sinuosities of the margin 
of such a mass of trees : they should rather be placed 
near to the projecting swells, and by that position 
they will seem, in different views of them, to form a 
part of, and increase the depth of, the wood or belt. 
In such a position, a single tree should be planted 
beyond the group into the park, to still more increase 
that character. Single trees, in general, are very ob¬ 
jectionable. It has been, I am sorry to say, a very 
common practice, by many planters, to introduce into 
park scenery a great number of these single trees, with 
a view of effecting a character which can only be 
obtained by grouping. I once saw, in Hampshire, an 
example on a large scale of this dotting with single 
trees. Nay, the planter was not content with planting 
the trees (Oaks) singly, and at equal distances, but he 
actually planted every one of them on large hillocks, 
three or four feet above the surface. The insipidity 
and absurdity of this dotting arrangement was abso¬ 
lutely sickening. How different nature arranges the 
group, the glade, and the thicket, every lover of 
rural or forest scenery is aware of. Let such formalists 
go to the wild forest, or even look at groups of trees 
in such places as Chatswortli, Eawsley Park, Hooton 
