THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 10, IS60. 
10 
Marigolds over the winter from what is here suggested, 
or rather revived from an old practice. 
Who will try a batch of Zinnia cuttings this very 
spring to see if we could have them under eighteen inches 
high ? I never tried them, and I never knew that they 
would not come true from seeds if justice were done to 
parentage until Mr. Pish gave the result of his experi¬ 
ments upon them; and that saved me a world of trouble, 
for I was just on the point of trying the same experi- j 
ments, the Zinnias being generally extra at the Experi¬ 
mental, also great favourites there. 
And now would be a good time to try another most j 
worthy experiment by scores and scores of people. The 1 
trouble will be nothing as compared with the results of 
many trials at the same time. I mean to make cuttings 
of all the young tops of Delphinium formosum before 
April is out, and to make a second lot of May cuttings, 
also to plant out after the lirst batch have flowered. 
Root both lots as fast as your means will allow, put each 
footed mqrsel in the smallest pot, get it potbound in the 
hardening off, and plant out the ball entire, and only six 
inches plant from plant. Surely these will bloom dwarfer 
than divided plants or seedlings. They may be later in 
blooming ; but if the plan is worth following out, that 
could be remedied in future by beginning earlier. We 
are in the background entirely, and altogether about blue 
flowers for bedding. 
The only ribbon-line in blue is the dwarf blue Lobelias. 
I once, and only once, had a splendid row near the back 
of the border of Salvia patens. The way I did it 
swallowed up one thousand and some odd plants, all 
seedlings, late the previous summer. I took a bottom 
width of eighteen inches for that one row, and planted 
three rows of plants in it, none of them more than six 
inches apart. They were allowed to stand upright; and to 
keep them upright as volunteers are to be, I had to put 
in neat stakes, at six feet apart, along the front and back 
of them, and to run a tarred twine, from stake to stake, 
the whole length, and in such a way as not to be seen 
from the walk. Some people talk about beds and bed¬ 
ding plants, as grooms do their beds in the stables. It 
is a bed, or a bedding thing with them, and with these 
grooms, if they have a horse, or a donkey, or any thing j 
on all fours. But in reality a bedding plant is no more a ] 
bedder than I am, unless it lasts in bloom to the end of * 
the season. 
Farfagium grande will make a grand front row for par¬ 
ticular patterns of ribbon-borders. It is as hardy as the j 
Scotch Crocus, and multiplies just as fast; but the first ! 
pincher will hurt or kill the leaves in the autumn. My 
plant in the front garden was much admired last autumn ; 
the first severe frost killed all the leaves. The crown 
of the plant is not quite half an inch below the sur¬ 
face ; the whole bed was frozen as deep as the roots, 
and no sort of protection. In order to prove this plant, 
it was just one month behind Dielytra spectabilis in 
showing through the ground, and it is now as free and j 
fair as a Coltsfoot—an evergreen in-door3, and a winter 
rester in the open air. But Mr. Lord, our first boot and 
shoe merchant in Surbiton, has had the Zebra plant 
which goes, commonly', under the name of Tradescantia 
zebrina these three years in a hanging-basket in his front 
shop, with a bunch of Isolepis gracilis in the centre of the 
basketwith no more artificial heat than the gas till bedtime. 
Recollect that Mr. Kinghorn has proved Nierembergia 
gracilis to be one of the best hanging-basket plants we 
have. Old, straggling, long, wiry-looking plants of it 
are best for the purpose. Young ones are only fit for 
one of the neatest beds on the corner of the lawn. And 
do not forget, in these busy days, that the hardy 
variegated Deeringia Amherstia is one of the very best 
pot plants for exhibition in the variegated classes of 
plants, provided it is done the right way ; and the way 
to do it is, to cut down every living morsel of it to the 
surface of the ground, in the spring, just as I did my I 
Deutzia gracilis, now nine years old, and, perhaps, the 
finest in the world just now. To give the variegated 
Deeringia as much pot room and the same soil as the 
variegated Hydrangea requires ; and when the young 
sucker-like shoots arrive at from six to ten inches high, 
to begin to stop some of the strongest and some of the 
weakest of them, so as to have a bushy plant from the rim 
of the pot up to the top. ‘ D. Beaton. 
HOW TO FARM TWO ACRES AND MAKE 
THE MOST OF THEM. 
{Continued from page 4.) 
THE DAIRY. 
The management of the dairy has in all ages been a 
subject worthy the attention of even those who generally' 
consider it beneath their dignity to acknowledge ac¬ 
quaintance with household duties; but as all like good 
cheese and good butter, as well as the materials these' 
useful articles are made from, a few words here may 
suffice to describe one or two important features in this 
department of household economy—especially as the 
knowledge of good cream, good butter, and good cheese 
seems tolerably well diffused, and anything below medi¬ 
ocrity is sure to entail vexation on the part of the unfor¬ 
tunate manager. But as our “Two-Acre Farm’' cannot 
pretend to make cheese on any principle excepting for 
novelty’s sake, the modus operandi need not be gone into 
here ; but the general management of the milk and the 
making of butter are important to know. 
We will commence with the dairy-room, which ought' 
to face the north ; and if slightly sunk voider the ground 
level—say two or three feet, so much the better. A 
latticed window is necessary, with a glass shutter for 
very severe weather; and if there be two windows so 
much the better, as good and thorough ventilation is 
absolutely necessary. Slate or stone shelves are better 
than wood; and the floor ought either to be of stone or 
brick, to allow of being frequently dampened when 
necessary. One of the best dairies I ever knew had a 
stream of water running through it, but this cannot 
always be had. Great cleanness, however, is essential as 
well in the dairy itself as also in the various utensils ; 
and the washing-up, or scalding, ought always to be done 
in another place. The dairy milk-pans may either be of 
glass, earthenware, tin, or wood; but the latter has gone 
much out of fashion of late years in consequence of the 
trouble in cleaning. Glass is also not so much in general 
use as it promised to be, its liability to accident being one 
drawback to its use. A good well-glazed earthenware 
pari answers very well, as likewise does tin ; the latter is 
almost in universal use in the west of England. Wooden 
or tin pails are used for milking the cows in, and the 
moulds for butter are invariably of wood ; but the general 
management of the milk in different counties varies so 
much, that one or two examples known to the writer may 
be recorded here as examples. 
In the west of England, Devon and Cornwall, the new 
milk on being brought in is strained into tin pans of 
about fourteen inches diameter, each pan containing five 
or six quarts. These pans of new milk are set away for 
twelve hours, when they are subjected to the process of 
“scalding,” and then are set aside to stand twelve hours 
or more longer, when the cream is removed by carefully 
skimming it, and the milk is taken forjise. The scalding 
is effected various ways; but the best that I have seen 
was a sort of trough like a hot plate, with circular holes 
in the top of it to receive two or more milk-pans, which 
were of tin, and of such a size as to sink half their depth 
or more into these holes, so that their bottoms were one 
or two inches in the water, which was kept about a 
boiling-point by the fire below. These pans were allowed 
to stop there, until, by a certain blubbering on the surface 
