February 2, 1907. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
67 
The Kitchen Garden. 
Jigging- 
Di», dig, dig, if any ground still remains 
untouched. Where wireworm and other 
■rubs are numerous, use vaporite at dig¬ 
ging time. I myself am still hard at it, but 
? must say w.th every comfort. My one 
>ane has always been cold feet. I have 
,poken of wooden soled boots before, but 
iow that Greenlees, of Glasgow, is offering 
;arden clogs at 3s. 6d. a pair, no one should 
niss them. Cold feet make one miserable, 
! iut these wooden boots make land walking 
1 pleasure. 
Seans and Peas. 
A really good substantial sowing of Broad 
Beans may be made now with confidence. 
\lso of early Peas. 
Cabbages. 
Cabbage beds should be well attended to 
ind blanks filled up. Lift and plant with 
1 trowel, as when the plants are pulled out 
)f the seed beds half the roots are torn off. 
Potatos. 
See that all Potato sets are boxed up,. 
■Seed Potatos should be purchased without 
lelay, in order to ensure getting sound and 
•igorous seed. Midlothian Early is without 
loubt the best in its class. Cigarette or Sir 
ohn Llewelyn are fine second earlies, but 
nake sure of getting hea’thv stock, as they 
ire really bad when the see"?is poor. Factor 
Liehlander and Duchess of Cornwall are 
;reat late Potatos. I would strongly advise 
1 trial of Dobbie’s Talisman. It is a won- 
lerful Potato. 
Horti. 
The Amateur’s Greenhouse. 
Amaryllises or fiippeastrums. 
Most of these will now be in growth, and 
t is not safe to leave them longer beneath 
;tages or in any dark place. If the plants 
rave not been potted for two or three years, 
he work should ibe put in hand now. 
'ormerly I believed in a somewhat heavy 
ompost for these handsome bulbs, but 
■ince a gentleman told me that he had seen 
nillions growing wild in almost pure sand, 
. have used soil considerably lighter in 
'haracter. Unless really coarse sand is 
obtained, I prefer using finely broken up, 
:oarse brick, soaked before breaking in 
strong liquid manure. The way in which 
he roots cling to this shows how greatly 
t is to their liking. Use equal parts of 
jood loam, leafmould, and coarse sand or 
rroken brick, and on no account allow more 
han the base of the bulb to be covered. 
The plants will now take plenty of water 
rntil the season for drying off again sets in. 
Sowing Tuberous Begonias. 
YAhere plenty of heat is available I believe 
in sowing tuberous Begonias a fortnight or 
three weeks earlier than this, but in an 
ordinary greenhouse the middle of February 
: s quite soon enough to make a start. The 
seed is so fine that it speedily decays in a 
cold temperature, particularly if the soil is 
kept too wet. Most failures in raising these 
beautiful and useful plants may, however, 
be ascribed to covering the seeds too deeply. 
I never cover at all. After well crocking 
the seedpan, I place a 1 inch layer of the 
rougher parts of the compost on the crocks, 
;hen fill in with finely sifted very sandy soil. 
This is made firm and level with the bottom 
of another seed pan, and then the seed is 
thinly sown, after previously mixine it with 
a good pinch of fine silver sand. The sand 
forms sufficient cover, and also serves to 
regulate even sowing. Watering is per- 
■ormed bv immersing the pan to within an 
inch of its top in a tank of tepid water. 
For a Wet Day. 
When the weather forbids outdoor work, 
one may well spend an hour or two at this 
season with a brush and sponge extermin¬ 
ating insects on Palms, Ferns Dracaenas, 
etc. If not checked now, such pests as 
scale, green and white fly, and mealy bug 
increase at a fearfully rapid rate, especially 
when the sun brings additional warmth. 
The inexperienced had better rely upon our 
old friend Gishurst Compound or some other 
manufactured insecticide; most gardeners 
have fearful and wonderful mixtures of their 
own. Whatever is used may be used as 
hot as the hand can bear, and should be 
forced into every crack and cranny. A tiny 
bit of sponge on the end of a small slit of 
Bamboo is good for getting at the sheathing 
bases of Dracaena and other leaves, and 
one end of the Bamboo may be pointed 
sharply, to drag unwilling mealy bugs from 
their hidden fastnesses. 
Deutzias. 
When well managed there are few prettier 
spring flowering greenhouse plants than 
Deutzia gracilis. Old plants are generally 
met with, and often look like half worn 
besoms in bloom ; young ones are infinitely 
preferable, and an amateur who has a dozen 
nice youngsters in 3 and 6 in. pots should 
be a happv man. They may now be intro¬ 
duced to the greenhouse, from cold frames 
or the outdoor ash plunging bed, and will 
give very acceptable flowers for Easter. On 
no account put them straight into the 
hottest p’ace at command, for too much 
heat in the early stages of forcing causes 
the flowers to become small and deformed— 
blind, gardeners call it. Give only enough 
water to keep the soil nicely moist, and do 
not commence feeding until the leaves and 
flowers are showing. 
Lobelias From Seed. 
If a good strain of seed is obtained it is 
easily possible to raise splendid Lobelias 
for bedding from a sowing made now. Lise 
a well drained pan, fill up with a mixture 
of equal parts of leafmould, loam, and 
coarse sand, and mix the seed with sand for 
sowing, as advised for Begonias. Cover the 
pan with a pane of glass after watering, 
and stand it in a warm, moist corner. The 
seedlings must be pricked out as soon as 
they can be raised with a forked match, 
placing them 2 inches apart in other pans 
or boxes surfaced with fine sand. The tops 
can be utilized as cuttings when an inch 
long, should stock be short. 
'Solomon’s Seal. 
This is a well known occupant of our 
flower gardens, and may still be found 
growing wild in a few of our woods. In 
neither place, however, are the pretty flowers 
so clean and white as when grown under 
glass, and anyone who has a few clumps 
to spare may well lift and pot them now. 
Even did they never bear a flower, they 
would still be worth growing for their 
foliage, which is strikingly handsome. 
Large pots should be used, and any old 
soil will serve for filling in round the roots. 
If the greenhouse is a cold one, the pots 
may go straight into it, but they axe best 
prepared for a warm greenhouse by a fort¬ 
night’s or three week’s sojourn in a cold 
frame. 
Golden Feather. 
This is as easy to grow as any weed— 
in fact, I have seen thousands of plants 
raised in a gravel path—but many amateur 
gardeners fail to get good plants by bedding 
out time. This is chiefly owing to their 
not recognising that the plant requires a 
long season of growth. By sowing seeds 
now this is assured, and excellent stuff will 
be available for bedding out at the end of 
May. The seed is somewhat light and 
coarse, but although one gets a lot for 
money, it should not be sown at all thickly. 
Early pricking out into boxes, and careful 
and eariy hardening off should be the rule. 
• Sunnyside. 
Orchids for Amateurs. 
Selection for Crosses. 
Amateurs, as a rule, are not long content 
with the mere cultivation of Orchids, when 
they have overcome some of the little ob¬ 
stacles and find their plants making satis¬ 
factory progress; they are anxious to know 
how to raise seedling Orchids. There are 
also those with longer experience, who may 
desire some other methods of raising plants 
to that they have been following. Now, for 
beginners it is well to commence with some 
object in view. It should be remembered 
that from fertilising the flower to the 
ripening of the seed vessel takes in most 
cases a year. After the seeds are sown they 
are some time before germination is apparent. 
The first year there is not a great deal of 
progress, but after that they proceed more 
quickly, and it is possible to flower plants 
in from three to six years. 
It will be apparent that some considerable 
amount of labour and expense is necessary 
during that period, and it is thus desirable 
at the end of the time to produce something 
that is worth having when the flowering 
stage is reached. It is not altogether neces¬ 
sary to produce new kinds, there are plenty 
of good hybrid Orchids that are worth 
raising again. There is plenty of room for 
the good ones, the indifferent ones are not 
worth the soil they grow in. There are 
plenty of published records of crosses in 
Orchids that have been already raised, so 
that hybridists starting to-day have a greater 
facility for success than older generations 
possessed. By studying thpse records we 
find what has already been done, and it will 
be somewhat of a guide to the future. Its 
aid should enable us to form some little 
idea as to what we may expect to get. Al¬ 
though there will always be disappointments 
from those crosses we set the greatest store 
on, we may look for a reasonable amount of 
success. There are considerably larger 
quantities to work from than was the case 
a few years ago. In addition to the species 
that was then in cultivation we have now a 
vast field of varied hybrids belonging to 
the different genera, in which we can have 
selection. 
Secondary Crosses. 
There has been comparatively little done 
in the way of raising secondary crosses that 
have appeared up to the present. There can 
be no doubt very great strides will be made 
in this direction in the near future. It is 
this class of hybrids that appeals to me as 
the ones we may look to for the greatest de¬ 
velopments in future. One should look 
for vigour in constitution as well as the 
superior qualities of colour possessed by the 
subjects intended to be crossed. Secondary 
crosses, in so far as my observation goes, 
have produced a great amount of variation 
in the hybrids and in most cases have proved 
encouraging for future development in fol¬ 
lowing out this line. 
Crossing Different Genera. 
Again, there are many bigeneric forms 
procurable, that is, from crossing two dif¬ 
ferent species of distinct genera. There has 
3^et been comparatively little done and there 
is ample scope to experiment in the hope of 
acquiring something new. If definite lines 
of this kind are "followed it lends far 
greater interest to the work and considerable 
pleasure is derived when an amateur can 
produce .something that interests the expert 
out of the ordinary way. Many of our 
finest hybrids have been produced through 
the instrumentality of amateurs in the past. 
