167 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 12, 1860. 
to comparison. Such a small stove of brick, ox 1 a double tube of 
iron, with a pipe leading from it into the open air, well luted at 
the joints, will be the best and the cheapest for keeping all such 
plants as you first mentioned safely over the winter. But, if in 
addition to this, you contemplated turning your little house into 
a propagating-house in spring, then the shelf should be changed 
into a small bed over the pipe, so that the heat from it should 
be thrown first into some clinkers, rough gravel, &c., and 
covered with sand or tan. Then, farther in comparison, we 
woidd prefer for such a purpose a modification of Rendle’s tank¬ 
heating. But unless you make your house on the Waltonian 
Case system, and heat it by gas, or candle, or get your friend the 
ironmonger to make a small boiler for you, not much larger than 
a fair-sized tea-kettle, and so hollowed as to hold some two quarts 
of water or less, and you could have a small furnace outside the 
house, the trouble and expense would be so great, that we 
would certainly adhere, as the house is moveable, to a very small 
moveable metal stove. We feel convinced that when you can 
keep with it your hardier plants over the winter, that then with 
your contriving and inquiring mind, you will soon make that little 
stove sufficient for propagation or anything else. We may just 
add that, if you still prefer a fix-e-brick stove, you might also 
have hard-burned earthenware pipes for the flue; but in a move- 
able house nothing would be so easily moved as a couple or three 
pieces of iron piping and a small stove, some twenty inches or so 
in height, or less. A square one would suit your evaporating and 
Btriking-dishes best, but we presume a round one would be 
rather cheapest. With a double dish inside your evaporating- 
main you may strike a great many plants successfully, more 
especially if you could place a small hand -light over the cuttings. 
Another similar glass would be useful for placing your cuttings 
in when struck, to harden them gradually to the common tem¬ 
perature of the greenhouse. Thus : supposing in spring you 
kept your house at an average of 45° at night, with a rise 
from sunshine of 10°, with a sufficiency of air j by means of 
the glass case, or merely a little box with a square of glass to 
lie over it and a slight covering when necessary, you might 
keep your cuttings at from 50° to 70°, and shade at pleasure. 
As soon as struck take them out, and place at first under the 
other glass; and then, by regulating the air, the plants will 
be warmer than on the shelf of the greenhouse, and may be 
hardened with more and more air every day, until they will 
bo quite at home in the general atmosphere of the house. It 
is by attention to such little niceties as these, and not by great 
general or professional knowledge, that success will ultimately be 
gained. To the neglect or contemning of such niceties and little 
things most failures may be traced. Old gardeners of the present 
day complain of nothing so much as the neglect or contempt of 
these details among their young assistants. A young man who 
has lived in some good places will take plants out of a hotbed, 
pot them in a cold shed, go off to dinner and leave them there, 
and replace them, perhaps, in a colder pit in a couple of hours, 
and then wonders how or whex - e such lots of insects come from. 
“ Avoid sudden changes ” is the first rule as inspects plants under 
glass.] 
SLUGS. 
In the garden and fields slugs are a nuisance, inasmuch as they 
arc destructive to many tender and choice plants ; and to prevent 
their depredations the most effectual plan is to kill them. This 
is childish advice, it may be answered; but it is not childish to 
show how to catch and destroy them. 
The means are various and simple; and as they are shy intruders 
by day and early risers, the gardener must be up too (not up¬ 
stairs) seeking them—in the summer months as early as three or 
four o’clock, just before they are skulking to their hiding places. 
They may be gathered into an old watering-pot; and should he 
collect them by thousands, an ounce of salt sprinkled amongst 
them will kill all. But gardeners will reply, “This is too much 
to be expected from us, whose working hours are only from six to 
six, without being extra paid.” Be this as it may, recollect it is 
your duty to watch over your master’s interests at all times ; and 
you are bound not to neglect important duties affecting your 
calling. I grant, however, that you may as reasonably expect 
remuneration. And let me remind masters and mistresses that it 
is equally as incumbent on their part to pay for extra work, 
either directly by money, or indirectly by perquisites. “The 
servant is worthy of his hire.” 
Salt, also, strewed in rings around plants, so as not to touch 
them, is necessary, either to destroy slug3 or to prevent their 
approach. It would not disgrace the master or mistress to attend 
to those minor requirements, if the gardener is necessarily em¬ 
ployed on the lawn or elsewhere, and they would find themselves 
well repaid (for it must be done, or their crops will bo lost). 
Traps may be set for catching slugs overnight, and examined at 
early rising ; and these are of various kinds—such as fresh Cab¬ 
bage leaves, shoes of Turnips, &c.; lastly, ducks will effectually 
clear off slugs and other insects. 
A brood of ducklings may be trained to enter and depart at 
the garden-gate by one’s bidding or call. I have a brood so 
docile as to follow me to where I please—-not only into the garden, 
but also into my fields, simply by my strewing a small quantity 
of corn on the way, further each morning by degreos, and staying 
where I please to feed them more freely: and there I abruptly 
leave them till eventide, when I invite them home by the usual 
call—taking care to feod them then to their fill, and only then, 
during the day. A hole is left open after their bedtime in the 
duck-house (as should be in all fowl-houses, for egress as early as 
they please), not so large as a fox may enter; and they may be 
seen perambulating and at their morning repast of slugs and 
other insects amongst my corn crops, as early as three o’clock in 
the month of June. Instinct teaches them to find water, which 
they will do in the daytime, by hook or by crook, to catch aquatic 
insects. After my own breakfast they ai-e always at their post, 
waiting for me to give them their scanty meal where I think 
proper, and they will follow me even to two fields off. Ducklings 
for training should be bought when about a month old—say at 
6d. each, when the hen deserts them, as they are more troublesome 
to be reared to this age than ever afterwards, when they will in a 
great measure shift for themselves. They are greatgourmandisers, 
and will not pay for keeping if shut up and restricted what to eat 
till they are three months old. 
Ducks’ as well as hens’ eggs are said to be more addled this 
season than usual, by reason of cold w r eather during the hen’s 
sitting and leaving her nest. Old people tell me, that during 
prevailing north winds they are always subject to failures, and 
that the reason why ducks’ eggs so often fail brooded by a hen is, 
because the eggs are neglected to be dipped in lukewarm water, 
evei-y time the hen comes off to feed, assigning as a reason that 
the natural mother duck always has a swim before she returns 
to her nest to brood; consequently, goes on to her eggs with her 
body wet, hence the idea of dipping the eggs in water to substi¬ 
tute this requirement,— Abkaham IIakdy, Seed Grower , <%c., 
Maldon, Essex. 
THE STRAWBERRY “SIR HARRY.” 
I did not- question the good qualities of Sir Harry for late 
forcing, but have proved it wall not do for early work under the 
same conditions as Keens’, as a batch I tx-ied with my earliest 
Keens' did no good. I may add, they were exti-a-strong plants, 
potted and treated in every respect as the others. 
I have gathered Keens’ an ounce weight at the middle of April, 
with as good flavour as out-door ones. 
Did any of “ Q. Q.’s” fifty weigh half an ounce? If they 
averaged a quarter of an ounce it was a good weight for one 
plant, which, of course, they would do, or he could not call them 
good-sized ones. As it was not one of the best plants, we may 
safely reckon the average at a pound weight the plant, which at 
4s. the ounce, would make a nice thing. Surely Mr. Smith could 
not do that, even with the beautiful sorts he exhibited at the 
Crystal Palace, or he would retire from business in a season! 
The Sir Harry does not appear to be known oxxt of the Mid¬ 
land Coxxnties, I will send you some of the sort which came 
direct from the raiser. They should be dead ripe, or they are acid. 
I have kept them almost a fortnight after they looked quite ripe. 
I do not agree with your correspondent that the day of Keens' 
Seedling as an “ eai-ly forcer” is past. Of course, there is plenty 
of larger, handsomer sorts to come in at the end of April, but any 
sort would come in then.—J. T. 
Labge Cucumber. —We have been favoured by Messrs. Butler 
& McCulloch, of Covent Garden, with a view of a very fine speci¬ 
men of their Cucumber Empress Eugenie, which measures 28 
inches long, 8j inches in girth, and weighs 4 lbs. 1 oz. It is very 
handsome, straight and smooth on the surface, not at all ribbed, 
and with small white spines. It is of a fine deep green colour, 
covered with a delicate bloom. 
