40 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 4, 1860. 
produce such distressing deaths as strychnine, it is true, 
but it lays open the region of the inner man and woman 
to the horrors of one of two things—that of being able 
to digest the raw eggs of water insects and the green 
livers of creeping things, or to undergo the awful reality 
of hatching the one, and rearing the other, for the certain 
end of cutting the silver cord at last. The way adopted 
there, to avoid all that, was to make a thick bed, or layer 
of puddled clay, on the surface of a dry piece of ground, 
as for the bottom of a canal, to raise a puddle bank on 
each side and across both ends, the side and end-banks 
to slope inwards, and to be covered with a layer of clean 
sand to keep the clay from cracking; the outsides are 
held up perpendicularly with strong one-inch-and-a-half 
boards. A tap at one end and a waste pipe in the other, or in 
it, and in the centre division, will soon fill or empty either 
or both beds with a few inches deep of water, in which, 
with a little mixture of pure sandy earth, Water Cress 
will grow and keep in perfection for a long time. 
The beds were then both in crop, and such as would 
make one’s teeth water. Both were awned to save the 
true colour of the herb, thus—a row of pots the size of 
Sea-kale pots on each side on the curb or bank of the 
bed, and tiffany lights across, resting on the pots with 
a space of 1 foot to 15 inches, or the depths of the pots, 
to give a draught of pure hill air over the whole. A bed 
made to that model, and filled six inches deep of Rhodo¬ 
dendron-peat, after turning the tap for awhile, would do 
to get Cranberries by the bushel; or, if you like it better, 
leave the tap going night and day on a half-quarter run, 
and fill the whole bed with marsh plants of the greatest 
beauty from all the temperate regions of the earth or if 
you go near the tropic for them put one run of single 
pipe down the muddy hollow, and another run on each 
bank, and cover it on the span-roof principle of the Houses 
for the Million, and you will soon be talked about as if you 
had an Experimental Garden at your back. D. Beaton. 
LIQUID MANURE TO CAMELLIAS IN TUBS. 
I have two large Camellias under my care. They are growing 
in tubs which are three feet in diameter. The tubs are full of 
roots—in fact, a complete mass of roots, as far as I can ascertain. 
The plants are nine feet and a half through, and as much high ; 
circumference of the stem fifteen inches. Now what I want to 
know is, if I may give them liquid manure. We have plenty 
here of tw r o kinds—one simple drainage from a large dunghill, 
the other from the cow-houses, piggeries, laundry, &c., with a 
small quantity of the ammoniacal liquor from the gas works in 
it. Which do you think I may give them? I wanted my 
employer to have them planted out of the tubs in the conser¬ 
vatory, but some gentlemen told him we might give them larger 
tubs, but not unlimited root-room. So between the two they 
have got neither.—W. H. 
[We would pick off a little of the surface soil, and resurface 
with fresh. When the buds were swelling freely, we would use 
the manure water, hut would prefer that from the dunghill, and 
be sure to give that weak enough. Let the water at first be but 
little more than coloured. If you use it strong you will be apt 
to cause the buds to fall. We have known Camellias do well in 
the same pots and tubs for a dozen years.] 
CULTURE OF MANDE VILLA SUAYEOLENS. 
Can you give me any hints as to the proper treatment of 
Mandevilla suaveolens 1 I have had a plant for two or three 
years, but cannot induce it to flower. In Devonshire we used 
to flower it in the open ground in summer, and I tried it here 
(Wilts). The plant grew luxuriantly, but refused to put forth 
a single bloom. This year I kept it in a large pot trained to a 
wire in a greenhouse, but with as little succees. Ought it to be 
pruned ? If so, how ?— Kectoe. 
[The Mandevilla will bloom freely on the wood made this 
summer, proceeding from buds on well-ripened wood of last year. 
We had a fine plant ourselves, allowed to twine round : n iron 
pillar, and then spread somewhat wildly over the part of the roof 
of a conservatory, and with roughish pruning it bloomed pro¬ 
fusely. Ere long, however, we shall have to cut down the plant 
to within a foot or so of the ground. It has grasped the pillar 
so tightly, and the iron being the stronger material of the two, 
that many parts of the twistings are already dead. If, when 
thus cut down, the old stem breaks freely, we shall remove ulti¬ 
mately all the shoots but one, and allow that to grow as strong 
as it likes; refraining from watering in the autumn, that the 
shoot may be matured as well as strong. Next season we would 
cut that shoot back to within a few feet above the height of the 
pillar, and most probably disbud the buds on the shoots four or 
five feet from the ground, as most likely there would not be light 
enough for the flowers to expand freely. Next season we would 
allow the main shoot to grow on again, and also the lower buds 
to grow. Many of these side-shoots will bloom in summer and 
autumn. If very straggling we would nip the points out, and curtail 
water again in autumn and winter. In winter and spring prune 
hack these side-shoots to a hud or two, and the leading-shoot, 
according to its strength and the room to be given, to several feet 
above where we cut back last season. Treat your plant thus 
grown almost exactly as you would do a Yine on the spur system 
of pruning, and there will be no lack of abundance of flowers. 
When the young wood is allowed to grow in bunches, and no 
regular system of pruning, there is apt to be more growth than 
bloom, and the flowers come irregularly. On the above plan, 
based on experience and observation of the finest plants we have 
seen, we do not see why in any conservatory the flowers should 
not be as regular as Grape flowers on spur-pruned Vines. Bear 
in mind, that every bud on a piece of well-ripened wood of this 
summer’s growth is capable of producing a shoot next season 
that will bear flowers. One great advantage of the method of 
spurring back every season to a bud or two is, that in a few 
years the shoots do not come so strong or long, but much more 
compact and fuller of flowers ; so that a long stem so filled with 
these leafless spurs in winter and spring will look like a huge 
garland of the purest and sweetest-scented white in the autumn 
months. Our correspondent may thus see how he should treat 
his plant now, and how prune in the winter. Just as on the 
Yine, long well-ripened shoots will send out blooming-shoots 
from all its best buds ; but the spurring system is the simplest, 
and involves least trouble. We think we may safely state, that 
in no gardening work has the rationale of pruning plants been 
given with anything like the clearness as has been done in many 
such cases in this work. 
We don’t think that the Mandevilla would do in the climate 
of London out of doors. We some years ago saw a splendid 
plant at Shrubland on the conservative wall; but then it was 
covered with glass, so that the wall was a conservatory in winter. 
We have no doubt that in many places in Devonshire it would 
flourish against the warmest walls of houses as well as the Myrtle. 
In such cases we would train the shoots two feet apart, spur 
them, and perform the pruning about April or May every year. 
The spray would partially protect the plant in winter. In 
pruning, leave one, two, or more buds, according to the room left 
for the shortish shoots that will be sure to come when the plant 
is well established. In planting let the border, pot, or box be 
W’ell drained ; and use sandy loam, with a portion of leaf mould 
and peat earth. When coming into bloom enrich with weak 
manure waterings. The soil should he dryish, not dry, in winter.] 
THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 
(Continued from page 316.) 
During the ripening process, both of fruit and seed, all plants 
give out more carbonic acid and less oxygen than during the 
earlier stages of their growth, and thus is given a reason why 
room plants should be removed when once past their meridian 
vigour. 
Now, to effect these changes, to ripen perfectly—that is, to 
generate its best proportions of sugar and aroma, every plant 
requires a certain amount of sap, light, heat, ah’, and moisture ; 
and how these are best secured to them, so far as training and 
the atmosphere around them are concerned, may be here appro¬ 
priately considered. These circumstances, so far as the roots, 
flowers, and leaves were also concerned, have been examined in 
previous chapters. 
The more rapidly, and, consequently, the greater the amount, 
of sap poured into the branches, the greater surface of leaf is 
required for its elaboration; and, as the plant has power given 
