A Monthly Journal of Floriculture and Horticulture, for Professional, Practical, and Amateur Gardeners. 
VO Ibi IL.—No. 1 Ant Reeisictes at the G.P.O., Adelaide, for 
transmission by post as a Newspaper, 
| MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 1903. lee SUBSCRIPTION 
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The Flower Garden. 
rot ote > 
OPERATIONS FOR AUGUST. 
COMFORTING REMARKS FOR THE 
INEXPERIENCED. 
Many a person on first seeking to em- 
bark upon the tempestuous waters of gar- 
dening is so abashed by the many formu- 
le laid down in the text books on the sub- 
ject, implicit adherence to which is put 
forward as the only means of attaining 
success, that he hesitates to book a passage 
on, the good ship Horticulture, and either 
abandons the idea in disgusted despair, or 
contents himself by dabbling in the spray 
near the shore. To such my remarks shall 
be chiefly addressed, with a view to show- 
ing that much which is written in the hor- 
ticutural press may be conveniently ignor- 
ed by the man who, unencumbered by too 
idealistic ideas,-seeks rather to find plea-— 
sure among flowers and plants than to use 
them as a means of gaining fame and dis- 
tinction. peat 
It is not given to many to see. the horti- 
cultural scribe at work in his garden or 
greenhouse, but I can assure my readers 
that in his methods he is frequently a tot- 
ally different - personage from what his 
writings would lead one to expect. In- 
stead of a conscientious observance of those 
trivialities on which he: so emphatically 
lays stress in his book, here we sce a total 
disregard of them, and only the broad gene- 
Thus, he may be a staunch advocate of fill- 
ing a flower pot a sixth part full of drain- 
age—in the press. At home he frequently 
dispenses with drainage altogether, espe- 
cially inthe summer time, and relies upon 
a portion of peat fibre, moss, or partially 
decayed dung to prevent the egress of the 
soil, and retain water long enough to allow 
of the water can haying a rest sometimes. 
Publicly he shudders at the thought of 
allowing the water used in syringing to 
come into contact with a plant in blossom ; 
in his greenhouse does: -he remove such 
before subjecting the general occupanta to 
their daily douche? Oh dear no!. True, he 
does not fire his watery cannon point blank 
ati them, but they get wetted all the same. 
Of course, in winter, the only time when 
wetting the flowers can-do much harm, or 
when the summer sun is shining directly 
upon the blossoms, he does not syringe at 
all, but waits until the turn of tho tide 
which, with plants as with men, leads on 
to fortune. Cer 
The person who reads our scribe’s gifted 
public outpourings pictures the houses in 
his charge as being ventilated at the exact 
moment when the thermometer marks the ~ 
prescribed degree, and shut down again 
when the mercury has descended to its al- 
lotted ebb. In practice what often hap- 
pens is that, through absorption in the 
newly revealed delicacies of some fair Or- 
chid, the glass reaches to 10 deg. above the - 
supposedly safe maximum, and “air, con- 
trary to all teaching, is given.in one huge 
rush. - But does'‘the dreaded scalding so 
much written of follow? Not it. 
The half-hearted cultivator will spend an 
hour in digesting the instructions for’ sow 
ing a packet of seeds, and another one in 
carrying the instructions into effect; mean- 
while the “man who knows” will have sown 
a dozen packets, and perhaps be wonder- 
_ ing why some of the seeds are not “up.” 
0 _ So the two individuals will go on through: 
rai principle underlying them practised. 
out the season, the one with a faithful ad- - 
herence to (supposed) essential trifles, the 
other with a total disregard of them. And 
what is the result. Why, probably at the 
time of harvest the cultivator of the rough: 
