THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Jras 19, ISfiO. 
1M 
place when the roots are close to, technically are hissing, the sides 
of the pot. Many seem to forget this fact. I shall at present say 
nothing in the way of explanation ; I merely want the fact to be 
recognised as a fact. Thus : supposing I grow two Vines in pots 
this summer, and obtained on each a strong, well-ripened shoot 
before winter, rested them securely in the cold, dark months, 
and started them into growth next March ; but allowed one to 
remain in its pot, but turned the other out into a bed of proper 
soil, I should expect a fair crop from the first, and but little or 
nothing from the second. Had I grown them equally strong 
and well ripened in the soil of a border the previous season, I 
should have expected both to be equally fruitful, if prudence did 
not advise taking but little fruit from them. Just so were you 
to plant now in a border of a conservatory healthy Camellia 
plants, and give them requisite attention, yon might expect them 
to flower next winter and spring. But if you left the operation 
until September, or later, I should expect a great part of the 
flower-buds to drop. Just so, and even more with a Camellia 
plant in a pot, or by the way almost every other plant in a pot. 
Successful flowering will greatly depend on having the pots full 
of roots before the flower-buds swell. Of course, the sooner the 
wood is made and ripened, and the flower-buds knotted, the 
sooner will the plants bloom when exposed to an average tem¬ 
perature from 45° to 50". When long much lower than that 
the buds will not swell. When in comparative rest, in winter, 
the plants will keep their flower-buds in a stationary state for 
months. 
Soil for Polling .-—Nothing is more easily satisfied. I have 
never seen finer plants than those grown in brownish yellow 
loam, and enriched, when growing and swelling their flower-buds, 
with weak manure waterings from old cowdung. Two parts 
sandy loam, and one part heath soil, rotten sweet leaf mould, 
and bits of broken charcoal, and a little silver sand, will also 
grow them well. Where such are not convenient, nothing is 
better than rotten turf from the roadside. If soil is wanted soon, 
go to a roadside in a loamy district, pare off the turf there, and 
lay it aside for future use, and then take about two inches of the 
upper stratum, and spread it, and turn it in the sun for a week or 
more. If you use a riddle at all, use a fine one, to get rid of the 
finer particles, and use the rest a little, rough, mixed with a little 
leaf mould, dried and sweetened in a similar manner. Most 
establishments could manage a few bits of charcoal to help for 
drainage, if not to mix with the soil. An open simple soil will 
answer thoroughly ; but plants are something like animals, they 
are apt to tire when they have the same dish continually from 
day to day, and from year to year. 
General Management .—Supposing the plants are now out of 
bloom, the starting, pruning, potting, and growing will be the 
principal things. Under such circumstances the plants will be 
the better of a warm, close, somewhat shaded atmosphere, with 
as much water at the roots as the plants can consume, without 
deluging them, or keeping the pots in saucers, and frequent 
syringing overhead. 
As the young Bhoots progress give more air and light by 
degrees. When the shoots appear to stop lengthening, and form 
buds about the size of pin heads, give more air and light still; 
and when the buds swell a little more, the plants should have all 
the air possible, and be shaded a little from the brightest sun. 
In July and August, therefore, the plants would be quite at home 
in an open greenhouse with the roof a little shaded—in an open 
room with the window open, but the plants a few feet from it— 
on the north side of a wall, and, better still, of a hedge, which 
would blunt the force of the sun’s rays and yet allow the plants 
to have the full play of the air. After the buds are set less water 
will be required; but the Boil must never be dry, and the sun 
should not beat against the pots with force. When growing 
freely, and also when the flower-buds are swelling, weak manure 
waterings may be given freely. In the early period of growth, 
the sponge or syringe should be used freely. The plants should 
he defended from heavy autumn rains ; and it is safest to house 
them before the end of September, as in wet porous pots very 
little frost is apt to injure the roots, and when thus injured the 
buds are apt to drop. Plants with forward buds may be placed 
in n warm greenhouse or room, and the water given them should 
be warmed to from 50° to fiO°. The flowers will not open well if 
the average temperature is lower than from 45° to 50°. Plants 
with the buds still small should be kept rather dryish, and in a 
cool airy place all the winter, but free from frost. As the sun 
gets power in spring the buds will swell and open freely, more 
water being given in proportion to the heat and consequent 
evaporation from the foliage. When done flowering, encourage 
growth. A plant may bloom continuously in the same window 
or greenhouse without extra care ; but with the attention indicated 
success will be more certain. B. Fish. 
[We havo allowed Mr. Fish to play the agreeable to our cor¬ 
respondent; but we must recommend her in addition to buy 
“ Window Gardening for the Many.” It may bo had at our 
office for 6 cl .; and she will find in it full directions for managing 
“under difficulties” all her potted and petted plants.— Eds. 
C. G.] 
WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS NEEDED IN A 
LANDSCAPE GARDENER? 
Many years ago, there was a grand struggle between the 
medical and legal professions as to the fitness of their members 
for the office of coroner. The lawyers asserting both the custom 
and the propriety of appointing a man who understood the legal 
bearings of a case ; and their opponents declaring the superior 
utility of anatomical knowledge in cases of personal injuries, and 
of medical experience to guide inquiries and conclusions concern¬ 
ing the proximate causes of death. The result has proved that a 
man of abiiify, whether surgeon or solicitor, may make a good 
coroner. 
In like manner the faculty of landscape gardening has been 
fi'om time to time arrogated by architects, ns that of architecture 
has been by landscape gardeners; and some degree of acrimony 
has followed the innovators in either case; therefore it may 
not be wholly unprofitable to devote a few moments to the 
inquiry. 
Between architecture and gardening in its proper and ac¬ 
customed acceptation, as identified with the science of botany, 
there is the most obvious difference and dissimilarity ; so that it 
would appear altogether incomprehensible, if a professor of either 
of these distinct arts were to assert that lie found no line of 
demarcation between them, and that they blended imperceptibly 
with each other. Nor is there, perhaps, an instance in which 
such a pica was ever made for adopting the two vocations as a 
joint pursuit. 
It is not between architecture and botany that any moot point 
subsists, but simply as to the qualifications necessary for “ the 
artist in practical landscape ”—that is to say, for enabling him to 
treat a given site upon such principles as shall best develope its 
elements of the beautiful, and raise the largest degree of admira¬ 
tion of which that site may be readily susceptible. It is evident 
that an artistic feeling is demanded, similar to that which guides 
the painter in the highest class of landscape compositions. They 
have each the same natural objects to deal with,—such as the 
winding lake with its sinuous boundary, the level glade, the 
gentle rise with lines of long but varied sweep, the sharper knoll, 
the unexpected vista, the abrupt eminence with crisp articula¬ 
tions of abraded rock, and catching lights contrasted with the 
deepened shadows of some near ravine, are open to the eclectic 
pencil now as they were to Claude and Salvator Rosa. To dis¬ 
play the same feeling by earthworks, roads, water, and con¬ 
structions, to prepare and give to the practical cartoon its “ mould 
of form,” constitute the scope and purpose of landscape 
gardening. 
Some perception of surface and texture as well as indications 
of arboreous accessories may be included; but nothing that 
requires more botanical knowledge than men like Lee and Cres- 
wick may care to acquire. They can paint what they see; but 
they paint with feeling and discrimination, arranging the general 
subject by a sense of the agreeable, excluding any vulgar or hurt¬ 
ful feature, and interpolating accidental points, to lend an interest 
and impart relief. 
In Italy, where architects were often so largely imbued with 
the painter’s conception nnd manual power as to practise both 
arts, the finest palaces are sometimes so mixed up with the 
grounds, arched corridors conducting to some fairy-like grotto, 
or “ cropping out ” in some remote nook, cooled by the sparkling 
jet cl'egv, terraces decorated with choice vases, or porfe fears, 
and marble figures from the graceful noble to the goat-like satyr, 
as to leavo no doubt whatever concerning the nature of the 
directing mind. 
Of what use, indeed, would botanical knowledge have proved in 
these cases ? and ns to floriculture it ennnot be heard of in the 
same sphere at all. 
If I have rightly conceived the principles of landscape garden- 
