edging of Musk Mimulus all round the middle platform; and a line of upright greens " along its centre to the extent of 40 feet or so-consisting of Araucarias, as excelsa, Cookii, and the Brazilian forms of them; Callitris australis, the best of all "furnishing" evergreens, as no amount of bad usage, in confused passages upstairs or down, seems to harm it in the least and what is more graceful out on the lawn in summer than a well-grown specimen of the graceful Callitris ? Also Dacridium cupressinum, with its drooping branches as if they were made of the Scotch Lycopodium selaginoides, and stuck on stems of L. selago itself the latter the best remedy for all vermin which infest every variety and race of dogs, as I can testify from long experience all these worked artistically from a centre plant of Araucaria excelsa, and all plunged in green moss. All the double Hyacinths are said by this firm to do best in pots, boxes, or the open ground, "whereas the single varieties, when properly treated, rarely fail to reward the cultivator with fine spikes of flowers therefore we recommend single Hyacinths for glasses, vases, China bowls, and for early flowering." And for all these purposes they give sound practical instructions and selected lists in their bulb catalogue, from which I have just quoted. And now to the grand Show itself-and I will begin with Double Red, Rose, and Pink. Comtesse de la Coste is a firstrate deep rose. Duke of Wellington the same, with a lighter red. Groot Voorst, which I forced nearly forty years, is yet without a rival among double blushes. Another bedding beauty, and one of the best forcers-Regina Victoria, which you will find at the farthest end of the south stage, as I can now see it, is unrivalled as a waxy Peach blossom of the finest shape; and Waterloo is still as good as when I first knew it a dark rosy red, and cheap to bed by the score. Double Whites.-Same as I said of them the previous week, with the addition of Triumph, Blandina, and Prince of Waterloo -two very telling sorts, and very good for bedding. Double Blue, Purple, and Porcelain (or very light caste of blue).-Old Laurens Coster, again only beaten in true blues by Sir Colin Campbell; but Rembrandt (shaded mauve), and Van Speyk are both up with Sir Colin. The rest of this section as at Highgate. Single Red.-L'Ami du Coeur is one of the oldest and best forcers in this class, and, I should think, a first-rate bedder, and is one of the cheapest. I shall never stoop to that vulgar mistake of preferring a new plant or a new colour to an old one equally good, and perhaps better, by being cheap enough for all consciences. But I have a dread of horrid foreign names, and here is the very worst of them for one of the best of the forcing red Hyacinths-Diebitch Sabalskanski. Madame Hodson is also a very fine light pink of great beauty. Amy, Florence Nightingale, and Mrs. Becher Stow are still my own three greatest favourites in this class. Apellius, Cavaignac, Circe, Lina, Robert Steiger, and Schiller are all as good, or very nearly so. Single White.-A gentleman of our Floral Committee put it to me at our last meeting thus:-"Which do you consider the best white Hyacinth ?" "Madame Van der Hoop," I said at once. "Well," he said, "you are not far out-perhaps you are quite right:" but he considered Grand Vainqueur always as the very best. Now, if the two were before us for the first time and as new kinds, I would move to vote a first-class certificate for Madame Van der Hoop; and if I carried it by a majority, and he moved for the credit for Grand Vainqueur, I would second him-that would be equivalent to saying they are both best. Dolly Varden, a blush; Elfrida, another blush; Gigantea, another the same; Grande Vidette, clear white; Orondates, the clearest white; and Victoria regina, fine waxy white, are all first-rate flowers in this class. Of single Lilacs with mauve tints-Dandy and Unique are the best. Single Blue, Purple, and Porcelain.-Enricus is still the best forcer in this beautiful group; Argus, Baron von Humboldt, and Baron von Tuyll the next best. Charles Dickens is very fine, and so is Couronne de Celle. Mimosa is superior to the old l'Ami du Cœur, which is one of the best blues for forcing and flower gardens; and the Porcelain Sceptre and General Havelock, the next to Mimosa, both being first-rate. Of CROCUSES-David Rizzio, Prince Albert, and Ne Plus Ultra were the best purples. Queen Victoria the best white, and Majesteuse the best in Sir Walter Scott's strain, but not much larger than Sir Walter this time. NARCISSUSES-Superbissima was the best yellow pale perianth, and deep yellow cup; Queen of Yellows next best, and both superior to our old favourite Soliel d'Or. Gloriosa and Queen Victoria the two best whites with yellow cups, and both superior to the old Bazelman major, which held the sway so long. Maximus, or Yellow Trumpet, is a splendid thing to force and to make large beds of (it is not of the Polyanthus race); and Ajax bicolor, major, minor, and minimus or pusillus, are edging plants for spring beds which I have used for years, and found there the true pusillus, which I had been long looking out for. I still want Narcissus papyriferus with six to eight flowers on a spike-one of the earliest, and would pass for a Polyanthus Narcissus. A gentleman told me last year that Mr. Stephen Brown, of Sudbury, Suffolk, sells it, and I ordered Mr. Henderson to procure it for me. How strange that such a beautiful flower should be so little known, and so much neglected! Mr. Arthur Henderson had Cummingia trimaculata, with which I was familiar in 1823 and 1824 as a Conanthera, and every other bulb you could mention from that day to this, all as cheap as Potatoes, and yet country gardens are starved out of them from sheer ignorance of the existence of such things; while Stinging Nettles are run after if there is a variegated spot on a leaf of them! Then the summer of 1859 had put the spell off the Russian and German Ivy plant Ipomea hederafolia, and it flowered out of doors against a south wall-a pale lilac Convolvulus-looking flower, just as Plumier painted it. When Mr. Masson travelled in Russia and the north of Europe, and wrote his notes six or seven years back, he said the nobles in Russia had backgrounds of Ivy to all their drawing-room decorations of flowers in the dead of winter; but nobody in London could understand how they managed their Ivy, and, being then out of humour with the Russians, they did not care much about the loss of their way of growing the Ivy. But when I was last at the Clapton Nursery I met a nursery man there from the north of Prussia, and we rode in the same "bus, and there I got at the secret. He said the Ivy was never so used in as far as he travelled on his yearly rounds in Russia. But there, and with them in Germany, the Ipomea hederefolia had been time out of mind trained in narrow boxes for in-door decorations in winter; and by mixing it with flowers, and backing flowers with it, nothing in its way could possibly excel it. No matter how hot, or how dry was the air of their living-rooms, the "German Ivy," as he called it, was sure to be at home there, or elsewhere away from the frost ; train it up inside their double-glazed windows, or over their mantlepieces, or against the walls anyhow, no hurt or harm, or insect ever went near it. "But you in this happy England," he concluded, "have no difficulty in greens; for everything keeps green with you, and you have no need of them." But you heard last week of the Highland welcome which this same German Ivy has met with in New York, where our Ivy has no chance against the frost; and may we not after all have a leaf out of their books? What would you say to a Euphorbia jacquiniæflora trained to a trellis which had been previously Ivied all over as thick as the ruins of the monastery of Monkbarns, to stand in the front drawing-room against one of the paper panels, and to last there for six weeks in splendid bloom in the dead of winter? Or how would it look in lieu of muslin curtains across the bottom of the window in your office, or rather in place of the everlasting network blinds you are so safely screened behind? Would not a thick screen of Ivy leaves, trained from a handsome box below the sill, do for blinds? and might they not also be got up higher to serve for curtains at the same time, and put you in mind of the country in the midst of London? But what most struck me in the Pine Apple Place Nursery was the high style of culture given to all the plants, no matter where placed; the specimen stove plants in a house at the upper end of the nursery, and the house for the greenhouse specimen plants, together with the show-house, as you enter the gate, are the three best evidences of good cultivation and arrangement I ever saw so early as this in the season; and I should say that in about six weeks the New Holland house alone would be worth a journey to London to see it in bloom. But that would be the least part of my object, as I had so often seen all the best of them in bloom; it is the style, the potting, the outlines of the plants, their different sizes, their health, and the absence of all traces of insects that would amaze me, after knowing all that could have been done during the lifetime of the father of the young men who now attend to them, and the whole collection is on the selfsame footing. season. Great quantities of the Indian Fig, Ficus elasticusthe aristocratic Loudon plant for the front drawing-rooms; all the finer Cannas, of which bicolor and iridiflora-the former for its leaves, the other for its splendid flowers-are the most deserving; Hibbeclinium aurantiacum, a weedy-looking plant, yolk-of-egg colour, and even the true Magenta colour-the only plant we yet know which produces the true Magenta, and that is the colour of the flower-stalks of the American Poke, or Phytolaca decandra-a very old shrubbery plant, which every one who raises seedlings ought to grow to compare his seedlings with in the autumn, as Magenta is now the great want of the day. The Ficus repens-a very different plant from the repens so called, against the back wall of the specimen stove, sticks to it like Ivy, and hangs out from it as regularly as the ears in harvest, just like Sweet Bay leaves-is the finest screen for a back wall I ever saw. Here everything good and handsome is grown as a specimen, just as if it were for the Show. Medinilla magnifica in full bloom-with the richest of all yellow shades of colour; the Vitellinum, or and if the Messrs. Veitch had never introduced another plant, they might be proud of their success through this plant alone, Euphorbia jacquiniæfloras, lots of, in bloom. Gordonia javanica, an excellent forcing Tea plant in full bloom. Ardisia undulata, plants by the hundreds, and the white or yellow-berried kind of it grafted just as freely, and all for decorating the dinner-tables in London with their holly-like berries. One grower near London grows one thousand Ardisia undulata each year for the London market. Hippeastrum reticulatum, which I feared was dead and gone "lang syne," was there sure as certain, and not so high-priced as one might think, considering it is the best and the scarcest of all our ancient families. We had a rumpus with some one in our early days about the reticulata of this very plant, he saying the reticulation, or the network-like veins, were in the leaves; and we, the contrary-that the net was on the flower, which is of a light crimson colour, with a white star round the eye, and a broad white longitudinal band down the centre of each leaf, and a large pot of it would make a better variegated specimen for exhibition than many that have been tried. The white variegated Agapanthus is getting a lift here to hurry it on in growth, being a very slow goer, but a beautiful thing when of a large leafy size. Begonias all of the best sections, and the crosses from Marshalii by Rex, have a fleece of snow-like spots all over the leaves on both sides of the milky way-the zone or sonata of our "Proceedings." I was very much gratified to hear Mr. Henderson say that the report of this class by Mr. Moore, and the selection by the Floral Committee, were both most excellent and trustworthy; but we owe it all to the high style in which Mr. Eyles and his men got them up for examination; and equally so to hear the Baron Rothschild in his garden, near Paris, had large edgings of both Rex and Marshallii last season, and that they were the most exotic sight on the whole continent. The greenhouse specimen-house is full of all the best leading plants recently potted and making rapid growth-really a sight of itself. A large specimen of Brachysema longifolia is a perfect mass of scarlet pea-blossoms, and is one of the few plants of that style which sets its flower-buds in the autumn, and may be slightly forced to come in in January, or any time in the spring. Pultenea subumbellata in full bloom; Loddigesia bellidifolia the same; Acacia rotundifolia, very slender and drooping, is a fit subject for hanging-baskets, and such are in great demand; Aphelexis, of sorts, bursting their rich, shining, crimson flowerbuds, for everlastings;" Epacris ceriflora, a white, earlyflowering species, the hardiest and most useful of the family, as it may be forced very gently to come in any time in winter, and all of them may be forced the same way from November; Acacia Drummondi, in whole dozens, and all bloom as free as Crocuses, but never seed unless the plant is half-starved, and not fit to be seen; Platytobium parviflorum, one mass of yellow and brown blossoms. In another house were a lot of Araucaria Cookii recently sent over by Mr. Moore, of the colonial botanic garden at Sidney. When I first knew Mr.Moore he was a little fellow in the seed-shop at Pine Apple Place, and getting no more shillings a-week than he now gets hundreds a-year, and richly deserves them for his services in the good cause. This house was full of rare useful things, from the Arabis variegata, in hundreds, for edgings to Blandfordia nobilis-one of the finest Australian bulb-like plants. Anopterus glandulosus with its long upright spikes of Arbutus-like blossoms, which come early in spring; Dyckia rariflora, a scarlet representative of the American Aloe, which would do for an age in a No. 48-pot, and bloom every year of its life; Nerines, Pentlandias, Trilliums, Camassias, Coburgias, Alströmerias, Cladanthus, Phædranassa, Zephyranthes, Gloriosas, Griffinias, Hemanthi, Cypellas, Calochortus, Cyrtanthus, Ismenes, Lycoris, Habranthus, Rigidellas, Tritelejas, Bomareas, Bravoa, Milla biflora at last, Brodixas, with Caladiums, Crinuma, Amaryllises, Cypripediums, Eucharis, Vallota and many others; and all with more or less kinds of species and varieties of the first order of merit; but they are not bedding plants, and therefore not sought after, but by a few knowing customers who delight in having some of all the best flowers of the creation. In a large three-spanned-roofed house were the Gloxinias all showing for bloom to meet the early demand of the London The old stove is brimful of Ferns and fineries, of which Platycerium grande is the most out-of-the-way; but I shall have a new start with it shortly-a far better way of doing it than at present. In the old Orchid-house is a large planted-out climber, which few have yet done half so well or even know of. It is Clerodendron speciosissimum, the fellow to splendens, but requires a very different treatment; but I should get what I often require if I were to enlarge on it at the tail of a story like this. Bougainvillea spectabilis, the highest mauve; Dracenas by the scores for dinner-tables; Caladiums by the dozens. But who can bide all this? Let me, however, say of a recent cut from Paris, that Dracena conjesta is there seen in all their best shops and houses, as the Acacia lophantha is seen down at Canterbury, the Indian Fig in London, or the Aaron's Beard in country cottages-a universal favourite, and graceful-looking Pampas-Grass-like leaves. Also Wellingtonias out in bushel baskets 2 feet across, to be planted baskets and all, and no hurt or cramping to the roots. I think we owe this most excellent plan to Mr. Rivers, who, with M. Naudin, calls "geothermal earth heat, while the true meaning of the word is just what we all want-and that is earth warmth. D. BEATON. ICE-HOUSE VENTILATION. HAVING observed the remarks upon ice-houses in THE COTTAGE GARDENER of March 19th, "A SUBSCRIBER" would feel much obliged by having some information upon the best means of ventilating an ice-house, which is constructed thus:-The well is sunk about 5 feet, surrounded by two brick walls with a space between them. That part of the outer wall above the surface, about 5 feet, is surrounded by a bank of clay. The well is about 10 feet across. The roof is very steep, aud has about a yard thickness of straw upon it. The ice is broken up small, and piled up into a cone. The ice is placed upon small pieces of wood, so that there may be a cavity underneath: at the bottom there is a trap-drain, to avoid having a current of air from below. The well is lined with straw, so that the moisture may run down the straws to the drain. There are three doors facing the north. The spaces between them are filled up by sand. No air can enter. Could anything be done now that the ice is in? It would be a great convenience if any method could be advised so as to avoid removing the sand every time the ice is wanted-and last year there was considerable waste.-E. T. [The sand and straw are the causes of the loss of ice. If iron hurdles which would keep out cats and dogs were where the doors now are, and all the sand were removed, and a small opening were made in the highest part of the dome of the roof, with a cap supported a little above the opening to prevent the rain from getting in, a current of air would pass from the outer door (and no second door is at all necessary), through the passage and out at the top of the dome. Then there should be 6 inches of very loose straw put on the top of the ice to keep the current from the surface-not between the ice and the brickwork, which is a wrong idea altogether, and has melted ten times more ice than ever it could save. Every inch of the straw is soon full of confined air damped to the point of saturation, and that is what melts the ice. The longer and the drier the passage is, the faster the vapour is carried off from the ice. Dry air in rapid motion has a thirsting power of sucking up damp, and damp warmed by confined air into vapour is always, and in all places, more destructive to ice than the blast of a furnace. That we have ourselves proved over and over again; and we have cured one of the largest and worst icehouses in the kingdom by the same means as we now propose to you. For ten years previously the family derived no more use of the ice in that ice-house than the keeping of things. which would not keep so well in the larder. We heard of the airing | plan having been adopted by some clever scientific architect, who built a famous ice-house for a large family above ground. The gentleman for whom that house was built told us the story, and the reasons of the man of science, and that led to our own ideas and practice of some years being cast into the current; and some other fixed notions of the age might well be spared to go the same way, but none more so than the old notions for keeping ice. Ice-houses should never have been built under ground at all, that is just their ruin; and if they could be built on cradles above ground, like corn-stacks, and then sufficiently covered with non-conductors, that would give the least waste of all. Ice-stacks built on "flats," made in the face of a steep bank facing the north, is the next safest plan, and is the most practicable now; but a stack of ice at the bottom of any high ground is in the next worst position to a well of ice in the bosom of the earth.-D. BEATON.] THE SPRING MANAGEMENT OF CARNATIONS AND PICOTEES. MR. BEATON is quite right in saying that the Royal Horticultural Society, since the formation on a broad and liberal basis of the Floral Committee, now, for the first time in its history, has the advantage of real practical florists; and I quite agree with him that, great profit may be derived from the mutual intercourse of such and gardeners in general. Our own pages show how much this interest is increased, and that one kind of fancy encourages another. I know it has been the fashion with some (I am not sure that I do not recollect some sly tilts of D. B. himself), to decry the rage of florists for shape and smooth edge, and the other points of a florist's fancy; but let two flowers be placed together, one indifferent in a florist's qualities, the other up to the mark, and I am quite sure it will be at once seen that shape, &c., have a good deal to say to beauty. Look, friend, at Mrs. X., with a figure somewhat like a sack tied in the middle is she as good an object to feast one's eyes upon as Mrs. C., with her slight ladylike figure, even though her rival may have plenty of colour both on her face and in her attire ? And so form, I say, in the first instance, then colour afterwards. This much by way of preface to a few remarks on the spring culture of a flower, which owes no little of its beauty to the zeal and discriminating taste of those hybridisers who have said we must have form-who have set before themselves an ideal, and have worked up to that until little is left now to be desired in that respect. It has obtained size and thickness of petal, smoothness of edge, circularity of outline and depth of bloom; but, of course, after much toil and continued weeding of inferior varieties from the list. The last season was as unfavourable to them as it was to everything else. Great difficulty was experienced in getting the layers to root; and Mr. Turner, the largest grower of them in the south of England, has hardly sent out any, I believe, until the spring, allowing them to root better before doing so: consequently those who wish to begin growing this very sweet and beautiful flower, can have no better time for adding to their collection a few favourites than the present. Let me suppose that these have been procured (I shall add list of a few good ones in each class), and that an amateur wishes to commence their growth. Having thus caught your hare, the next thing is to see to the cooking thereof. The most certain method is to grow in pots, for wireworm and other abominations are likely to destroy your rising hopes if grown in a bed. Pots about 9 inches across are the best. Unfortunately, I have learned by bitter experience that larger-sized ones are a nuisance in every way, and do not grow the plants as well; the only advantage they possess being that they offer a broader space to layer in. The pots ought to be quite half filled with coarse drainage, and then a little moss placed on top of that. The compost should now be put in. This ought to consist of good sound yellow loam, well-rotted frame manure, and leaf mould in about equal parts, with a little road grit to keep it open. Let every handful of the compost be passed under your hand and eye, and carefully look for the foul form of a nasty yellow grub, called a wireworm, which has a disagreeable habit of getting into the centre pith of the plant, eating out all its heart, and then decamping in quest of another. Immolate him without mercy on the shrine of Flora if you catch him. This being done, fill in your pot nearly full with compost, and then prepare to put in your plants, a pair in each pot. If these have been kept in single pots all the winter they will turn out all the better, as the less the roots are disturbed the sooner they will lay hold of their new quarters. Now fill in with compost, give the pots a good shake, and then water either with a fine rose or a syringe. They may then be placed for a week or two in some sheltered position until they become established, and after that removed to some open place. The centre of the walk I find to be as good a place as they can be in. When the flowerstem commences to run up they should be tied to stakes-one in the centre of the pot will be sufficient. Weeds must be carefully taken out, and, if the weather be dry, watering be attended to; and as the summer advances I hope to say something more with regard to their management for blooming. They have been divided into various classes. Carnations into scarlet bizarres, crimson bizarres, pink and purple bizarres, purple flakes, rose flakes, scarlet flakes; and Picotees into red, purple and rose-edged ones. By-the-by, I have noticed some (to those unacquainted with them), most misleading advertisements of seeds under each of these different heads, as if they likely as not to produce every one of the kinds named, so it were to be had distinct-whereas one pod of seed is just as really only answers the purpose of selling a dozen packets of seeds instead of one. I have also remarked seeds of Pelargoniums advertised with the names of the flowers the seed has been saved from. But unless these have been carefully crossed, their having one parent good is very little use, and no guarantee whatever in any case that the seedling will partake of the parents' character. I now give a list of some really good kinds, and such as are of good constitution; my object being to encourage beginners, and not to set them to grow varieties which baffle even old cultivators. As soon as March comes in it is time to plant the second early Potatoes. The best sorts that I know of are, what we call in Shropshire, Knapsacks, Early Flourballs, Sportsmen, and Liverpool Merchants. Having purchased about fourteen pecks of the best sorts you can procure, mark out fourteen rods of the land that you have double dug, and plant the Potatoes 2 feet from row to row and about 8 inches or 9 inches from set to set in the row. You may plant them how you like--with spade, fork, or dibble, so that you do not plant them too deep. About 4 inches is deep enough for this time of year, and I believe this to be as good a time as any; and I have planted them at all times from October to July. In 1856 I obtained seventy-two bags to the acre from Potatoes planted the 22nd of June. Do not plant large sets, or whole about 18 inches from row to row, and about 7 inches or 8 inches Potatoes, unless they are very small. If you can get them, small- from each other in the row, laying them carefully in the trench sized Potatoes that will weigh about 1 oz. each are the best, with their sprouts upwards, and mind not to break the sprouts cut through the middle, minding to cut through the crown. If off. All that are not nicely sprouted should be put on one side, you have large Potatoes do not let the sets have more than one and planted by themselves, to grow seed for another year.good eye each, there being nothing worse for the Potato produce THOS. JONES. than too much haulm. I intend writing a very long chapter (To be continued.) upon Potato growing when I am not quite so busy. I will then tell you how I grew thirty-one pecks to the rod in 1859, and eighteen pecks to the rod upon the same land in 1860, some of the Potatoes weighing 14 lb. each. I placed thirty Potatoes in my window that weighed 25 lbs., and that same land has had Potatoes on every year for twenty years. LATE PEAS. Any time in March, or the first week in April, mark out two rods of land, not too close to hedges, and dig about one ton of good manure into it. If you put them in with the spade, as I advised for the early Peas, let the rows be about 2 feet apart, and do not sow them too thick in the rows. I put mine in with a dibbling-iron, the same as is used for dibbling horse Beans, and they do better in that way than any way I have ever seen. I make the rows about 14 inches apart, and the holes about 3 inches or 4 inches from each other, and about 2 inches or 3 inches deep, and drop the Peas one in each hole. The best sorts that I have grown are the Bellamy's Early Green Marrow, the Champion of England, and the Victoria Marrow. PARSNIPS. These should be sown as soon as possible in March. Let the land be double dug, the same as advised for Potatoes, not too close to trees or hedges: and if you have a good tank for the soapsuds and such sorts of slops, pour a good bucketful or two into the bottom of every trench. Mark out the land, about one rod, into four-feet-wide beds, and sow four rows upon each bed. Make the rows with the back of a rake just deep enough to cover the seeds, and sow a row of Radishes between each two rows and up each outside. CARROTS. Carrots may also be sown in March, if the land is not too stiff or wet; if it is they would be better sown about the middle or latter end of April, and then dig a good dressing of charred rubbish into the land, and mind to sow the seed as soon as the land is dug. If it is light or sandy land it does not matter how soon in March you sow them. Mark out one rod of land in the middle of the garden and away from trees; dig it deep and well, and if you put a good dressing of soot and dig it in, so much the better. Mark it out into three-feet-six-inches-wide beds, and sow the one half with Early Horn and the other half with any large sort you like best. I always find the Altringham to sell best. Sow five rows of Early Horn upon each bed; but four rows will be thick enough for the large sorts, and you may sow a row of Radishes between each two rows of the large ones, but not between the Early Horn. ONIONS AND LEEKS. Early in March mark out six rods and a half of land almost anywhere, so that it is not too much shaded. Put a good dress ing of manure upon half a rod that is the farthest from the outside for the Leeks; dig it in deep and well, mark the ground out into three-feet-six-inches-wide beds, and sow the Leeks broadcast, and not too thick. Then dig the other six rods. Then take about three tons of very rotten manure (after you have marked it out into three-feet-six-inches-wide beds, and trod them down pretty firmly), and spread upon the beds regularly and evenly. Beat it down with the back of the spade; then sprinkle it over about half an inch, or 1 inch, thick with soil out of the walks. Mark out five rows upon each bed, and sow about 1 oz. of Onion seed to every 10 yards length of bed. BROCCOLI, SAVOY, BORECOLE, AND CABBAGE PLANTS. About the middle of March mark out three rods of your best warm borders to grow plants for sale-such as Broccoli, Bore cole, Savoys, and Cabbages; dig it over, and sow the seeds as you go on, not too thickly. If the land is very poor, give it a good dressing of charred rubbish. EARLY POTATOES. About the last week in March will be time to plant your Walnut-leaved Kidney Potatoes. Plant them with the spade THE CENTRE BED OF A FLOWER GARDEN. THE garden is about 110 feet by 60 feet, and enclosed on the east and south by a wall covered with Magnolias, &c.; on the north by a range of hothouse, conservatory and vinery; on the west by a wall with arches, through which the rosery and park beyond are seen. There are about forty-eight beds of various forms converging towards the centre, and advice is wanted as to whether the centre bed should be formed of three tiers, what is the best to form the outside of each tier, and how they should be planted to give the best effect through the summer? The bed may be 10 feet across each way. Or would a wooden or wire stand of lower and upper baskets be recommended in preference ? -ROSA. [The centre bed of so large a flower garden as yours, where forty-eight beds converge to the middle bed, must not be raised in two or three steps as you contemplate, but be as nearly flat as possible, say a ten-feet-in-diameter bed, to be raised 6 inches in the centre. Neither must it be planted with scarlet or yellow flowers, nor strong pink-coloured nor purple flowers, nor have any kind of standard plants in it; and the reason is that a tall raised centre, or a centre of very strong colours, would arrest the eye, or attract it too much to the prejudice of all the off-side beds viewed from any point all round it. The best way to plant your centre bed is, either to fill it with mixed flowers of all colours and edge it with variegated Alyssum, or with some variegated plant; or to plant it with one, two, or three kinds of variegated Geraniums in separate rounds, and to edge them with the dark blue Lobelia speciosa.] ARRANGEMENT OF CROCUSES. MANY of your readers besides myself will thank Mr. Beaton for his remarks on the Crocus. I have several beds done somewhat in the manner described, but I shall now be able to improve them. For instance: I had used in some cases the Cloth of Gold yellow, not being aware it was so much earlier than others. By the time the others are in their prime this is going off, and the effect is much impaired. Now that I know the bulbs can be moved without harm immediately after flower. ing, I shall alter this. Nothing in the whole world of gardening delights me more than the pot culture of the early bulbs for in-door decoration. For a mere novice I think I am tolerably successful; but I have a difficulty. The Crocus bulbs always rot away after producing four or five little bulbs. The Tulips and Narcissi divide them selves into three or four, and neither these nor Crocuses will flower next year. Does this arise from bad management? Can it be obviated? I was surprised to learn there was a larger and finer Crocus than Sir Walter Scott; but I shall look forward to a trial of Majesteuse next year. I had upwards of nine dozen blossoms from five bulbs of the large yellows in one pot. Is not this an unusual number? It was a blaze of beauty.-H. A. [Of course, in planting lines or beds of mixed Crocuses, all the kinds should be in bloom at the same time. We cannot give an opinion as to the cause of the bulbs decaying until we know the nature of your soil and the mode of culture.] I AM very much dissatisfied with the manner in which my gardener has planted the Crocuses, and I have seen with but when I came to study it, it seems to me so confused that great delight a chapter on the "Arrangement of Crocuses;" I can make nothing of it. You will be conferring a great boon on a great many of your readers if you would just give us a few intelligible hints. Mr. Beaton is generally sufficiently intelligible, but this seems to have been written in a hurry.-A SUBSCRIBER AND ADMIRER. [Begin with the A, B, C of planting Crocuses, and let a stand for white and all shades of white, в for yellow, and c for purple, and plant them thus-A, B, A, C, A-B, A, C, A-B, A, C, A. That is how to plant Queen Victoria (A), Dutch Large Yellow (B), and Prince Albert (c). There is a white on each side of the yellow and on each side of the purple, and that rule is to apply to any number of shades of all the Crocuses. Sir Walter Scott is a white, with streaks in it: therefore call it Al, and plant it, like a Queen Victoria, at regular distances. Majesteuse is a white, with more streaks than Al, call it A2, and plant it also at equal distances, as on each side of yellow and on each side of purple. Marie d'Ecosse is a white, with most streaks, call it A3, and plant it at equal distances in your row. If you have a large vellow and a small yellow, mark the latter B1; and if you have its NEW PLANTS FROM JAPAN. FOR nearly three hundred years the empire of Japan was till lately closed against all European nations except the Dutch, and it is consequently through them or their employées that any information has hitherto been acquired respecting this remarkable country, people, and products. Had that communication been free and general, our knowledge would have been much more extensive; and we might, through a people so enterprising and intelligent as the Dutch, have become possessed of as complete a history of Japan as of any other region of the world. But even the Dutch enjoyed only a limited intercourse, their trading being confined exclusively to the harbour of Nagasaki. In consideration of this permission to trade with the Japanese, the Dutch thing to the living collections in European gardens. Dr. Siebold, also a physician, who has resided several years in Japan, has hitherto been the only European who has introduced living plants of Japan into Europe; among which some species of Liliums and of Clematis are familiar examples. The circumscribed limits to which the residence of all these men was confined, operated against their acquiring a more extensive knowledge of the country and its productions; and hence it is that some of the grandest of the trees and shrubs of Japan remained unknown except by reputation. It has therefore, been rcserved to the enter prise of Mr. John Gould Veitch (son of Mr. J. Veitch, of the Exotic Nursery, Chelsea), gentleman young in years, but mature in knowledge and experience of plants, to erjoy the well merited repu tation of being the first to introduce a pelled to send an embassy annually to the Imperial Court at Yeddo; and it is to the scientific men who accompanied some of the finest this embassy, that trees of that remarkwe are indebted for able country. To enwhat little knowledge able him to do this, we have of the plants Mr. J. G. Veitch has and natural products possessed advantages of the empire. Those which no previous who have written on travellers ever had. the subject have geArriving in the nerally been employed as physicians to country after the the Dutch embassy. opening of several Kæmpfer, a native of ports, and under the most influential pa Westphalia, arrived at Nagasaki in that tronage, and attached as he was, as bocapacity in Septemtanist, to the consuber, 1690, and, after lar establishment at residing two years, left in November, Yeddo, he occupied a position of which he 1692. Thunberg, a Swede, pupil, and subsequently successor to vas not slow to take every advantage, and as such he had the the great Linnæus, was also attached as physician to one of these rivilege to penetrate into the country and make excursions embassies, and arrived at Nagasaki in 1775. To him we are which were denied to all other Europeans except to such as indebted for a pretty extensive knowledge of the plants of Japan; were attached to the establishment. It was thus that he was but beyond dried specimens of the plants he describes in his permitted to join in the pilgrimage to Mount Fusi Yama, a "Flora Japonica," neither he nor Kempfer contributed any-privilege in which no European ever before participated. |