THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, June 19, 1860. 
179 
here and there. But if the land is free from perennial 
■weeds at the time of planting, there will be no other 
weeds to pull up. No annual weed can have a chance of 
establishing a footing in such a matted close surface; and 
there is not a carpet in Buckingham Palace that is more 
comfortable to tread upon than the whole of this acre will 
be after the end of the second season from the planting. 
In the month of July in each year the whole of that acre 
will be as uniformly white as the cloth for the dining- 
table, from the myriads of minute white starry blossoms. 
Every tiny flower will give a tinier seed-pod ;—and there 
will be a clause in the agreement between me and the 
Couucil of the Society, that every seed-pod on that acre 
shall bo gathered, harvested, and made up into small 
packets for the use of the Fellows of the Society; but 
that such Fellows as shall assist me with the necessary 
funds to secure that result shall have the first run of the 
seeds. 
And hero I shall assume the spirit of prophecy, and 
predict that by that time there will be a greater demand 
for that one kind of home-grown seed among the Fellows 
of the Society than for all the foreign seeds which all 
the foreign collectors, with all the Spanish in Madrid, 
and all the Portuguese in Lisbon in their heads, can 
send home from all parts of the known world. So you 
see, without any of the Garibaldi spirit, that I am 
perfectly in earnest in this matter ; but give me the 
money and you may have my head, and the shoulders 
also, if I do not do it better than I say. I have no fear 
about the pluck of the men who raised the wind for the 
new Garden at Kensington Gore. They have margin 
enough left to hand me over that acre, if I had the wind 
in my own sails. 
It is too soon yet to talk of growing lawns of Spergula 
from seed. When that day comes, the same method as 
for the White Clover, in laying down Lawns, will be 
adopted, or something very near it. But with the little 
packets of seeds of Spergula which can be had at present, 
the best plan is to sow them in good, clean soil in the 
kitchen garden, to sow very thinly, and to let the plants 
run as much as possible; but before sowing tread the 
whole surface of the bed as you would an alley, along the 
side of a wall, or at the back of a border; after hard 
treading, rake the surface over, just to form a bed for the 
seeds, and no more. After sowing and raking again, to 
cover the seeds, beat down the surface gently with the 
back of a spade. Of course, if the weather comes very 
dry, a watering occasionally will assist the spread of the 
seedlings ; but they will do without watering better than 
any other seedlings of the same size, and tramp on the 
bed, or roll it occasionally through the summer and early 
in the spring. When the surface is quite dry, roll it in 
earnest, or as often as you can. The more it is rolled in 
the spring, in nursery-beds, the better; and in loose sandy 
soil, without much rolling, to attempt nursing it, is just so 
much of “love’s labour lost.” Nevertheless, when a 
lawn of it is three or four years old and quite consolidated, 
as one may say, two rollings will suffice for it in the 
twelve months,’ and these two in the spring. 
From cuttings Spergula comes faster than Verbenas, 
and Mr. Kidd’s saucers of sand in water are as good a way 
of rooting it as any other. Seedlings and plants from 
cuttings require exactly the same kind of management 
after they are once planted out. I would plant both 
seedlings and plants from cuttings singly, and six inches 
apart every way, and in two years they will be fit to 
divide into pieces ; these pieces to be again planted six 
inches apart every time till you come to plant out on the 
lawn, then plant at three inches. It is folly, and no sign 
of professional skill, to disturb a seedling or plants from 
cuttings during the first two years, or to plant them out 
on purpose to lawn with. Everything iu our way wants 
nursing, and to nurse in a private corner is so much 
more to the purpose than to nurse out in the face of day, 
and in the face of folly and foolish people, who will never 
ceaso croaking at the length of time your lawn is filling 
up ; and there is not yet sufficient seeds to be had to use 
it as Clover seed. 
Anything that would assist Clover and Eye-Grass on 
a farm would tell equally on the seed-beds and on the 
new-planted lawns of Spergulas. As their family affects 
calcareous formations, probably the superphosphate of 
lime would tell on them better than the muck-pie. But 
I must hand over the farming part of the scheme to 
Mr. Eobson, who is a perfect model of a practical fai'ming 
writer; and I shall assume that Spergula is like my seed¬ 
ling Geraniums, and would be set a-racing by a good 
mixing in the soil and mulching with the Cocoa-nut refuse, 
which, I was pleased to hear last week, got down as far as 
below Bristol. The kind clergyman who lent me his 
Gilbert’s “Vade Mecum” from that quarter, tells me 
that he “ makes great use of the Cocoa-nut refuse at the 
recommendation of The Cottage Gardener. Its uses 
are endless, and for Ferns there is nothing better, in my 
opinion.” But for fear of the editorial rod, I must again 
put off a heap of useful windfalls. D. Beaton. 
CAPE BULBS—GAZANIA SPLENDENS— 
MIMITLUSES. 
Please let mo know the proper treatment of the following 
bulbs, and whether they are hardy or tender :—Pali ana villosa, 
Cummingia trimaculala, and Trichonema speciosa. I have them 
plunged in pots in a cool frame partly shaded by trees; but their 
foliage is looking yellow and stunted. 
Will the new bedder Oazania splendens thrive if plunged in 
a border in a pot like a Geranium, or would you adviso turning 
it out of the pot ? Would the old plant do equally well for- 
bedding another season, or do autumn-struck cuttings do better 
as the Calceolaria ? and will it, like the above-named plant, keep 
better in winter by being cool and moist, or will Verbena treat¬ 
ment suit it better ? 
Please let me know the names of a few of the best dwarf 
Mimuluscs. I grow Scctrloro' Defiance, General Pellisier, Gene¬ 
ral Williams, and Queen Victoria. They are looking very beau¬ 
tiful just now, but I wish for a greater variety.—A n Amateur. 
[Your Cape bulbs are merely going to rest for the season. 
Allow them to get quito dry, and keep them so till the middle 
of September, then shake them out, and repot them in nothing 
but sandy peat, and that not very line. 
Gazania splendens would be strangled if planted out in pots ; 
and the old plants, like old Heliotrope plants, are not worth 
taking up. It roots so readily from cuttings in the autumn, and 
they are among the easiest of all things to keep over the winter 
after the manner of Verbenas ; but not requiring a tenth part of 
the fuss they need, and must have, to keep them from insects 
and mildew. 
The following are six good kinds of Mimuluses; but, like Cine¬ 
rarias and herbaceous Calceolarias, by far the best plan is to sow 
a packet of seeds of them yearly from some well-known nursery 
where they are done well:— Vidor Emanuel, Tlierese Mianollo, 
La Fin da Monde, Comite Fatal, Curiosa, and MaynifloraQ 
OUE FAMILY POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
In communicating with The Cottage Gaedenee last year, 
it was our expectation to present quite a lengthy—we flattered 
ourselves even a valuable—report of our proceedings during the 
twelve months ending June, 1860. We wero over-sanguine. 
Tho severo frosts of the two last nights of March entirely blighted 
the prospects of our dwarf Pear trees, leaving literally not a single 
fruit upon nearly seventy pyramids, the majority of which had 
been crowded with blossom-buds. As, however, even our hardy 
thirty-year-old-standards only saved a sprinkling on the sheltered 
side of each, we were not surprised that our unprotected nursery 
fared so badly. To mako the matter worse, a heavy hailstorr 
visited this district of Cheshire in the middle of July, thimr 
out the poor crop of Apples the frost had left us. Even of t’ 
we harvested in October, we did not observe one upon whi- 
hailstones had not left their mark, causing each sort t" 
month or six weeks before its time, and then remair 
fection little more than a few days. The fruit 
