A kind of cream cheese is, however, made in Yorkshire of cream only, without any rennet. "Take any quantity of cream and put it into a wet cloth. Tie it up, and hang it in a cool place for seven or eight days. Then take it from the cloth and put it into a mould (in another cloth) with a weight upon it, for two or three days longer. Turn it twice a day, when it will be fit for use."
The following is a receipt for making aBath cream cheese. Add half a pint of cream to a quart of new milk, and warm the mixture till it is about 80° of Fahrenheit; then stir in as much rennet as will coagulate it. As soon as thecurd has formed, put a cloth over the bottom of a large shallow vat, and, taking the curd up with a skimming-dish, place it in the vat and wrap the cloth over it. As the curd shrinks, the vat must be filled up with fresh curd, till the cheese is of a proper thickness. When the cheese has become a little firm, it is turned out of the vat and laid in a dry cloth. A board is then put over it, on which is placed a weight of two pounds. At night it is put into another clean cloth, and the next morning it is slightly salted with a little fine dry salt, and placed on a bed of fresh nettles or strawberry leaves, being covered with leaves of the same kind. These leaves are changed every morning, and the cheese is turned twice a day for a fortnight, after which it is fit for use.
I think I have now told you almost all I know relative to those points of domestic economy in which a country life differs from a life in town. I have, however, omitted to mention anIce-house, which you will find an important addition to your comfort in summer. A common ice-house is a kind of well, built in Roman cement, and sunk in the ground. It is arched over, and the ice is put in through a hole in the top. A door is on one side for taking the ice out, and there is a drain at the bottom for carrying away the water that runs off as the ice melts.
A more modern invention is a smallcellarbuilt adjoining the house, with double walls, the space between the walls being filled with charcoal. The cellar has double doors with a space between, so that one may be shut before the other is opened, to prevent the entrance of the atmospheric air. The ice is kept in a sunk part made like a bath, at the farther end of the cellar, furnished with a drain to carry off the superfluous water; and in the other part of the cellar are shelves, on which wine or food can be placed to be kept cool. The old-fashioned ice-house was always made in the park at some distance from the house, and consequently was of very little use; but the modern ice-cellar is very useful for keeping cool, water, butter, and other articles of daily consumption; which can be fetched out of it when they are wanted, as easily and expeditiously as they could be out of a common dairy or pantry.
When ice is supplied from a distance, it will soon melt, if exposed to the atmospheric air during summer. To prevent this it may be kept in anice chest, that is, a large deep coffer lined with cork, and with a double lid; or in a box called arefrigerator, which may even be brought into the dining-room. The refrigerator consists of a double frame of wood, with the space between filled in with charcoal. The bottles of wine are placed in little tin cases left for them, and ice isput between the cases. Below the ice is a tin grating, through which the melted water runs, and is let off when requisite by a cock. The box is made to hold two bottles of wine on one side, and a bottle of water and a glass for butter on the other.
TheAmerican refrigeratoris another contrivance of the same nature, which will keep the ice unmelted for a fortnight even during the hottest weather in summer. This box, like the other, is double, the inner part being of lead, and the space between the two being filled with sawdust. There are two lids so as completely to exclude the air when both are closed.
The usual mode of cooling wine and other liquids by ice, is to surround the bottle, or other vessel in which the liquor is contained, entirely with ice, observing that the hottest part of the wine is always at the top of the bottle, but that if the top is chilled faster than the bottom, the cold wine descends, and that which is still warm rises and takes its place. As, therefore, the wine is liable to be set in motion by the process of cooling, it is best to decant it before it is put into the refrigerator, as otherwise there will be danger of disturbing the sediment of white wine and the crust of port. When ice is perfectly clean and clear, like that of the Wenham Lake, it is sometimes broken into small pieces, and put into theliquid which is to be cooled; but this could not be done with the ice collected from the dirty ponds near London.
When it is wished to cool wine rapidly, it is only necessary to put it into a thin glass bottle, and to wet the outside with ether; as cold is produced by rapid evaporation sooner than in any other manner, wine-coolers are formed on this principle.
A freezing mixturefor cooling wine, and for freezing ice-creams, may be formed by mixing five parts of sal ammoniac with five parts of nitre and sixteen of water. A mixture of snow or pounded ice and salt produces a most intense cold, but it is only while the salt is melting the ice or snow that the cold is felt. Muriate of lime, mixed with snow, produces a still greater degree of cold. Several other mixtures may be used for freezing; but those producing the most intense cold are mixtures of nearly equal parts of sulphate of soda with nitrous or sulphuric acid, the sulphate predominating. Eight parts of sulphate of soda, mixed with five parts of muriatic acid, will produce a cold equal to zero. When any liquid is to be frozen by these mixtures, the bottle containing the liquid is put into a wooden vessel containing the mixture; and if the cold is to be very intense, the outer vessel may be placed on a flat piece of cork in a much largerempty vessel, the whole being covered with a woollen cloth. Water freezes soonest when it has been boiled, and forms the most compact and beautiful ice.
The principal utensils requiredfor making ice-creams are a tub large enough to contain about a bushel of ice, which must be pounded small, and mixed with salt, nitre, or soda, and a freezing-pot made of pewter, like those sent out with ice-creams. Copper spoons or spaddles are also required for stirring the ingredients of which the ice-creams are composed, while the process of freezing is going on. When all is ready, the ingredients for the ice-creams are poured into the freezing-pot, which is put up to its cover into the tub full of ice and salt, and kept turning round continually by its handle till the freezing is completed. The turning the pot is the most difficult part of the operation, and it requires great attention, as, unless the ingredients are kept in constant motion, the sugar, which is the heaviest, will sink to the bottom, and the other articles will be unequally frozen, so as to form unsightly lumps. The cover must be taken off occasionally, to see how the process is going on, and the cream that has adhered to the sides of the freezing-pot should be scraped off, and mixed with the rest by the spaddle, in order to prevent waste. The whole of the ingredients should also be mixedtogether with the spaddle if they appear to be settling irregularly.
Ice-creamsand water-ices should be perfectly smooth, and soft enough to break easily with a spoon. The ice-creams are made by mashing the fruit with which they are to be flavoured, and adding to a pint of the juice, after it has been strained, a pint of thick cream, the juice of half a lemon, and sugar to the taste. The lemon-juice should be put in last. Sometimes whipped cream is used, the cream being first mixed with sugar, and laid on a fine sieve, turned the bottom upwards in a bowl, as it is whipped, so that the cream which drains from it may not be wasted. Water-ices are generally only the juice of the fruit strained and sweetened, as, if water is added, the ice is apt to freeze too hard. Lemon-ice is composed of the juice of four lemons, and the rind of one, to a pint of clarified sugar-syrup, the whole being strained before putting it into the freezing-pot.
wood engravingGarden Front of the Manor-House in its improved state.
Garden Front of the Manor-House in its improved state.
It gives me great pain, my dear Annie, to find that you still think that you shall never like the country so well as town. I do not, however, despair; for I am convinced that you do not at present know whether you shall like it or not. The pleasures of the town and the country are, indeed, so different, that it requires some time to become accustomed to the change; but, when you are sufficiently well acquainted with country pursuitsto take an interest in them, I am sure you will never feel any want of the pleasures of the town. The great secret of being happy is, to be able to occupy ourselves with the objects around us, so as to feel an interest in watching their changes; and, when you can once do this in your present situation, you will no longer complain of dulness or want of excitement. To be convinced of the truth of what I say, you need only remember the pleasure your friend Mrs. P. C. takes in the cultivation of her garden; the interest with which she watches the opening of her flowers, the coming up of the seeds she has sown, and the growth of the trees she has planted. It is not the positive beauty of these things that occasions the pleasure she experiences in them, but the interest they have created in her mind; for the entomologist will find pleasure in the most hideous caterpillars, and the geologist will pass whole days delightfully among barren rocks. All that is wanted to give an interest in any subject is, a sufficient degree of knowledge respecting it to be aware of its changes, and our own natural love of variety will do the rest.
It is a great advantage in a country life, that its principal objects of interest must be found at home; and hence, as home is woman's peculiar dominion, the noblest and the best feelings of the female heart are more likely to be called intoaction in the country than in the town. In youth, especially, the ameliorating effects of country pursuits will soon be perceptible, both morally and physically; and your health, which has always been delicate in a town, will, I have no doubt, in the country become positively robust. As the first step towards the attainment of this desirable object, let me recommend to you to have a flower-garden laid out as near the house as possible. I should like to have those cedars, and the remainder of those gloomy firs, cleared away, which I see close to your house in your sketches, and your flower-garden so placed that you could step into it at once from the windows of your usual sitting-room. I hope that this may soon be the case, and, as I must have alocaleto make my descriptions understood, I will proceed to give you some hints as to the laying out and planting of such a garden as I should like you to have in the warm and sheltered corner under the southern window of your morning room.
In the first place, it will be absolutely necessary that the remainder of the trees should be not only cut down, but grubbed up; as it will be quite impossible for any flowers to grow under the shade of tall thick trees, and leaving the roots would prevent the possibility of digging the ground. In other respects the situation is admirably adapted for the purpose, as it is open tothe south and south-east, and protected from the north and north-west. Supposing the Scotch pines and cedars to have been cut down, their roots to have been grubbed up, and the ground to have been dug over and levelled, the next thing is to determine upon the plan for the garden. I think it should certainly be a regular geometric figure, and planted in masses, each bed containing flowers of one kind, so as to produce something of the effect of a Turkey carpet when looked down upon from the windows of the house. I enclose you a design which I think will suit the situation, and I will adapt what I have to say to it, though my observations may easily be made suitable to another plan, if another should be found more desirable.
We will suppose the plan (fig. 7.) to consist of twelve flower-beds on grass, with a gravel walk round, which may be bordered on the side next your room by beds for flowers, with little gravel openings opposite each of your windows; or be plain gravel, as you like. There may be a conservatory into which the drawingroom windows facing the south may open, and on the other side a shrubbery to unite the garden with the lawn. In the centre of the flower-garden there may be a fountain; and, as the flower-garden is to be seen principally from your windows, the beds nearest you should be planted with dwarf flowers,so that those in the back beds may be seen. I should also advise the shrubbery behind to consist of laurustinus and arbutus, so as to furnish a handsome green back-ground to the flowers in summer, and yet to afford a few flowers themselves in winter and spring, when flowers are scarce in the beds.
wood engravingFig. 7.Plan for a Flower-Garden.
Fig. 7.Plan for a Flower-Garden.
I will now tell you how I would plant the beds. As this is the beginning of May, and as I wish your garden to look well immediately, I would advise you to get a few pots of Californian and other annuals, usually raised in pots, from the nurseryman at the neighbouring town, and to plant them, putting three potfuls in each bed, but no more. In No. 1. put Phlóx Drummóndi, the flowers of which are crimson of various shades, and let the stems be pegged down, so as to spread over the bed. No. 2. may be Lasthènia califórnica,the flowers of which are yellow, and the stems generally procumbent; but they may be pegged down to keep them in their proper places, that is, to spread completely and regularly over the bed. No. 3. should be Nemóphila insígnis, the flowers of which are of a beautiful blue, and which will not require pegging down. No. 4. may be Erýsimum Perofskiànum, the flowers of which are of a bright orange, but the stems must be pegged down, or they will grow tall and straggling. No. 5. may be Nolàna atriplicifòlia, the flowers of which are blue, and resemble those of a convolvulus; this is a procumbent plant, and will not require pegging. No. 6. may be Nemóphila atomària, which has white flowers, and is a dwarf plant. No. 7. may be Leptosìphon densiflòrus, a dwarf plant, with pale purple flowers. No. 8. may be Gília bícolor, a dwarf plant, with nearly white flowers. No. 9. may be Clintònia pulchélla, a beautiful little plant with blue flowers. No. 10. may be Gília trícolor, a dwarf plant, the flowers of which are white and very dark purple. No. 11. may be Leptosìphon androsàceus, a dwarf plant, with pale lilac flowers: and No. 12. Schizopétalon Wálkeri, the flowers of which are white, and the stems must be pegged down. These are all annuals, which if properly treated by pegging down, and not planted too close, will produce a mass of flowers in each bed only just above the surface, and will have a very pretty effect from thewindows. Most of them like a poor clayey soil best, and they will only require turning out of the pots without breaking the ball, into the places prepared for them.
If you think there are too many white beds, you can substitute Sanvitàlia procúmbens, the flowers of which are yellow, for No. 8., but the seeds must have been sown the previous autumn to bring it forward, as otherwise it will not flower till late in the summer; and Bartònia aúrea, the flowers of which are of a golden yellow, may be planted instead of No. 12. Cladánthus arábicus, formerly called Ànthemis arábica, which has yellow flowers, may be planted in No. 8., if Sanvitàlia cannot be obtained.
I do not think you have ever told me what soil yours is, and perhaps you hardly know. You will, however, easily recognise gravel or chalk; if the soil be red, it is probably, if loose, a sand, and if close, a marl; a peaty soil is black and loose; and a clay may be known by water standing in little pools after rain, without running off. This is one of the worst soils for gardening purposes; but it may be improved by mixing it with sand.
I shall now give you a list of half-hardy plants for autumn, as most of the annuals will begin to look shabby in July or the beginning of August. No. 1. Verbèna Melíndres, bright scarlet; No. 2. Œnothèra Drummóndi, yellow; No. 3. Lobèlia bícolor, blue; No. 4. Calceolària rugòsa, peggeddown; No. 5. Verbèna Tweediàna, crimson; No. 6. common White Petunia; No. 7. Verbèna Arraniàna, or Henderson's purple; No. 8. Calceolària integrifòlia, yellow; No. 9. Purple Petunia; No. 10. Verbèna teucrioìdes, white; No. 11. Frogmore Pelargonium, bright scarlet; No. 12. Musk plant, yellow.
In October the following bulbs and other plants may be put in for flowering in early spring. No. 1. Von Thol Tulips; No. 2. Cloth of Gold, or common Yellow Crocuses; No. 3. Blue Hepatica; No. 4. Yellow Crocuses, or White Anemone; No. 5. Scílla vérna and sibírica, blue; No. 6. Àrabis álbida, white; No. 7. Double Pink Hepatica; No. 8. Winter Aconite; No. 9. Purple Crocuses; No. 10. Snowdrops; No. 11. Primroses; No. 12. White Hepatica, or Àrabis alpìna.
If you do not like the plan for a garden which I have sent you, you can draw one according to your own fancy, of any figure you like; but, as I believe you have not yet a regular gardener, it will be necessary to teach you how to transfer the plan you have decided upon from the paper to the ground. In the first place, the ground must be dug over, raked, and made perfectly smooth. The pattern, if a complicated one, must then be drawn on Berlin paper, which is covered with regular squares, and the ground to be laid out must be covered with similar squares, but larger; the usual proportion being that a square inchon the paper represents a square foot on the ground. The squares on the ground are usually formed by sticking in wooden pegs at regular distances, and fastening strings, from peg to peg, till the whole ground is covered with a kind of latticework of string. Each string is then chalked, and made to thrill by pulling it up sharply and letting it go again, which transfers the chalk from the string to the ground. When the ground is thus covered with white squares, it is easy to trace upon it, with a sharp-pointed stick, any pattern which may have been drawn on the paper; the portion in each square on the ground being copied on a larger scale from that of the corresponding square on the paper.
wood engravingFig. 8.Plan for a Flower-Garden.
Fig. 8.Plan for a Flower-Garden.
Simple patterns (fig. 8.), consisting of straightlines, need only to be measured, and pieces of string stretched from pegs put in at the proper distances, so as to form straight lines, oblongs, squares, triangles, or diamonds. If a circle is to be traced, it is done by getting a piece of string half the length of the diameter of the circle, with a piece of stick tied to each end. One stick is then driven into the ground in the centre of the circle, and a line is traced with a stick at the other extremity of the string which is drawn out quite tight. An oval is made by tracing two circles, the circumscribing line of one of which just touches the centre of the other; short lines are afterwards made at the top and bottom, and the central lines are obliterated. A square only requires a peg at each corner, with a chalked string drawn from peg to peg; and an oblong, or parallelogram, is made by joining two common squares, and taking off the corners if required.
wood engravingFig. 9.
Fig. 9.
A heart-shaped pattern (fig. 9.) is made by drawing a straight line fromatob, and then fixing a peg with a string tied to it, half the length of the straight line, and another peg at the end, exactly in the middle of the line, and drawing a half-circle with it; then taking a peg with a string half the length of the other, and another peg tiedto the end, and tracing with it the smaller half-circles,candd. With the same strings and pegs you may easily trace, or rather have traced, figs. 10 and 11. Even the latter, which appears at first sight a very difficult figure to form on the ground, will be just as easily traced as the others. You will observe, that in all these figures the straight line is only to serve as a guide to show the proper places for fixing the pegs; and that it is only to be formed by a piece of string stretched by pegs from one end of the figure to the other, which is to be removed as soon as the figure is sketched, and which is not to be traced on the ground at all.
wood engravingFig. 10.
Fig. 10.
wood engravingFig. 11.
Fig. 11.
With the aid of these figures, and the pegs and strings, several very complicated gardens may be formed; for instance, that shown in fig. 12. This garden is composed of a bed in the centre for a tree rose with a circle of dwarf roses; a gravel walk surrounds these; and there are five heart-shaped beds, which may be planted with Scarlet Pelargoniums, yellow Calceolarias, Petunias white and purple, and tall yellow Mimulus;and the crescent-shaped beds, which are on grass, may all be planted with different kinds of Verbenas. This plan is also a good design for a rosery, the roses to be planted in the beds, and in the half crescents which must be on grass, with gravel walks between the grass plots.
wood engravingFig. 12.Plan for a Flower-Garden.
Fig. 12.Plan for a Flower-Garden.
All the beds intended for bulbs and half-hardy plants should be particularly well drained; and the best way of doing this is, to dig out the soil to the depth of two feet or more, and then to put in a layer of brick-bats and other rubbish, to the depth of nine inches or a foot. On this should be placeda layer of rich marly soil, in which the bulbs should be planted. Dahlias, hollyhocks, and other tall-growing, showy-flowered plants, may have similar beds prepared for them, but the soil should be made very rich by the addition of the remains of an old hotbed, or some other kind of half-rotten animal manure.
You will observe, that when I give directions for planting the beds in any of the plans I send you, I merely say what may be done, and not what is absolutely necessary. Indeed, it will be better for you to vary the flowers as much as possible, according to your own taste, provided you take care that the plants are, as nearly as you can contrive it, of the same height, or that they rise gradually, and that you contrast the colours well. The rule in the latter case is, always to put one of the primitive colours (red, blue, or yellow) next another of these colours, or some colour compounded of the other two; using white wherever you cannot find any handsome plants of a colour that will suit the bed you want them for. Thus, for example, if you plant one bed with red, you may plant the next with blue, yellow, green, hair-brown, or white, but never with any shade of purple, as red enters into the composition of that colour; nor with any shade of reddish brown: purple, indeed, must always be next yellow, hair-brown, or white, but never next blue, red-brown,or red. Orange will not look well near yellow or red; and lilac must not approach blue or pink. A little practice will do more than any lengthened details; generally speaking, you may take the same taste to guide you in arranging the colours of the flowers in your parterre, that you use in choosing the colours of your dresses; and if you are in any doubt, you have only to colour the beds in the plan, and see how they look; or to stick coloured wafers on a piece of paper for the same purpose.
When you have settled what to plant in the beds of your garden, supposing you to choose the plan fig. 7., you must next think of the beds round it. I should advise these to remain unplanted, unless they are sown with mignonette, or something of that kind. The shrubberies, I have already stated, should, I think, consist chiefly of the finer kinds of hardy evergreens; at least that should which is opposite the windows of your sitting-room. The other shrubbery, which is intended to unite the garden scenery with that of the park, may be planted with rhododendrons, acacias, and kalmias; the rhododendrons being farthest from the walk, and carried a little out into the park, so as to make a broken line, projecting in some places and receding in others, and here and there mixed with bushes of phillyrea, alaternus, holly of various kinds, and cratægus,so as gradually to mingle with the clumps of trees in the park. On the side next your room, if there are to be beds under the windows, there should be spaces left in them which should be gravelled so that you may throw the window open, and not only walk out on gravel, but walk round the garden on gravel also. This you will find a great convenience if the weather should be wet, though you must not mind going upon the grass, if you are to be a real gardener, and to attend to the flowers in the regular beds. With regard to the beds near the house, I would have a Lonícera flexuòsa trained over each window, on account of its delightful fragrance in summer; for a similar reason I would have Chimonánthus fràgrans against the walls between the windows, and mignonette and violets in the beds.
I think nothing can be more delightful than to throw open your window, and to inhale a refreshing odour from growing flowers when they are swept over by a balmy breeze, particularly after a slight shower; and, for this purpose, I would strongly recommend you to plant flowers near your windows which have a refreshing, but not a heavy, scent. The flowers of the evergreen magnolia, and those of the orange, have an oppressive fragrance, as have those of the heliotrope and the tuberose; but those of the mignonette, the lemon-scented verbena, the rose, the violet,and Lonícera flexuòsa are refreshing, at the same time that they yield a delicious perfume.
I must now give you some hints on cultivating your flowers. To begin with thebulbs, as they flower first in spring. The crocuses and snowdrops should be planted, five or six together, as close as possible, so as to form little tufts; and these, when once planted, should never be removed, unless they should grow out of bounds, so as to spoil the shape of the bed. The tulips, on the contrary, should be taken up as soon as their leaves begin to decay, and kept in a dry place till the proper time for planting them next year.
You must observe that there are three kinds of plants which are said to have bulbous roots: those which are solid, and which should be properly called corms, such as the crocus, the corn-flag, and many of the half-hardy plants with similar half-tubular flowers; the tunicated bulbs, which consist of a number of distinct layers, called tunics, that may be peeled off, such as the onion, the hyacinth, and the tulip; and the scaly bulbs such as the lily. Now the real roots of all these plants are the long fibres sent down by the lower part of the bulb, which may be seen plainly in hyacinths grown in glasses, and in any of the kinds if taken up while in a growing state; and what is called the bulb is, in all the corms, only a contracted stem; but, in the tunicated and scaly bulbs, the bulbous part isformed of a contracted stem and metamorphosed leaves. If you will take the trouble to examine a hyacinth, you will find at the base of the bulb a flat fleshy substance, called the root-plate, and this is, in fact, the contracted stem of the plant; while the tunics are metamorphosed leaves. In the scaly bulbs the stem is plainly perceptible in the centre, and the scales are evidently metamorphosed leaves. You will easily remember these distinctions, and you will find it useful to attend to them in cultivating your garden, as all plants having corms never flower well till they have been allowed to form a mass, which they will not do till they have been in the ground three or four years.
Many persons fancy that the Cape bulbs require to be taken up every year, but this is altogether a mistake: all the kinds of gladiolus, ixia, tritonia, and other similar plants, will live in the open ground, and flower well, if suffered to grow in masses, which would be killed by a single English winter if planted separately. The finest bed of the scarlet gladiolus I ever saw was at Blair-Adam, near Stirling, where it was suffered to remain year after year without alteration; and the Honourable and Reverend William Herbert, now Dean of Manchester, in his celebrated work on the Amaryllidàceæ, states that he has had beds of gladiolus, ixia, tritonia, and other Capebulbs, at Spofforth in Yorkshire, which have remained for several years, without protection, in the open ground. Some persons say that, by manuring the beds every year, tulips and hyacinths may also be grown in the same beds without taking up, for several years in succession; but this I have never seen tried.
You must observe that you have no chance of keeping your flower-garden in a proper state, unless you have in some retired place what is called areserve-garden, in which the plants may be brought forward till they are in a proper state for transplanting into the proper flower-garden. This reserve-garden is generally placed near the stable, both to have it out of sight, and for the convenience of manure; as it must contain hotbeds and frames, for rearing tender annuals, striking cuttings, and, in short, for performing all those gardening operations which require to be carried on behind the scenes.
In this reserve-garden you must bring forward yourCalifornian annuals; and for this purpose choose a piece of hard ground, a walk will do, or any place that has been much trodden on, and cover it about an inch thick with light rich soil. In this the seeds of the annuals should be sown the first week in September, and suffered to remain till the bulbs have faded, and the annuals are wanted to cover the beds, which will probablybe about April. The annuals must then be taken up with the spade, in patches, and being removed to the flower-garden, they must be laid carefully on the beds, so as to cover them exactly; the spaces between the patches being filled with soil, and pressed gently down, so that the surface of the beds may be as even as possible. These annuals will come into blossom in May, but they are killed by the dry heat of summer; and, though they would sow themselves if permitted to seed, it is better to remove them as soon as they have done flowering. It is always a bad plan to permit annuals to sow themselves; as early in autumn, when the plants have done flowering, the ground not only becomes rough, but it is covered with dead stalks and leaves, which have always a most miserable and desolate appearance; and these cannot be removed till the seed has fallen, while the beds must not be forked over and raked for fear of destroying the seedlings. It is therefore much better, as soon as the annuals have done flowering, to take them up, and throw them away; a supply of seed being preserved by having left some plants in the reserve-ground for that purpose. A second or spring sowing of the Californian annuals may be made in the reserve-ground, to be ready for use in case any should be wanted to flower in the autumn.
Though I have only advised you to have Californianannuals in your beds, I may here say a few words on the culture ofannualsgenerally. You are, of course, aware that what are called annuals are plants that live only one year, or, rather, only a few months; for they are generally sown early in spring, and die as soon as they have ripened their seeds, at the latter end of summer, or the beginning of autumn. These plants are of three kinds; viz., hardy, half-hardy, and tender.
Thehardy annualsare sown in March, April, or May; but the first month is to be preferred, if the weather is tolerably open. The ground in which they are to be sown is first forked over and raked, and a little round firm place having been made by pressing the bottom of the saucer of a flower-pot on the ground, a few seeds are scattered over it, taking great care that the seeds do not lie one upon another. The seeds are then firmed, as the gardeners call it, by pressing the saucer again upon them, and some earth is strewed lightly over to finish the operation. You will observe, that, though I have recommended you to take the saucer of a flower-pot to firm the ground, both before and after sowing your seeds, regular gardeners perform this part of the operation with their spades, and farmers roll their land before they sow their seeds. The principle, however, is the same in all; and it is that every seed requires to be securely fixed in the ground before it beginsto germinate, in order to produce a strong and healthy plant. After the seeds are sown, it is customary to put a piece of stick into the ground, with the name of the seeds written upon it, to mark the place; or, if you like it better, you can write the name on a card, or a bit of pasteboard, and stick it in a notch or cleft cut in the stick.
When the seeds have come up, which, in the spring, is generally from a fortnight to six weeks after sowing, according to their nature, the seedlings may be thinned out, and the supernumerary plants either transplanted or thrown away. If the seedlings are to be transplanted, care should be taken not to break or injure the roots, and a little hole should be made with a stick for each seedling in the place to which it is to be removed; the earth being pressed close to the root at the bottom of the hole before the rest is filled in; as, if any hollow place is left round the root, it is sure to decay instead of growing. Seedling hardy annuals are, however, very seldom worth the trouble of transplanting. Many persons turn a flower-pot over every patch of seeds, from the idea that it will make them come up sooner, and protect them from the birds. It is, however, a very bad plan, as air and light are particularly necessary to seedling plants; and when they are even partially deprived of these important agents, theybecome drawn up with weak slender stems, and thin discoloured leaves.
Some annuals, such as the mignonette and the larkspur, are much longer before they vegetate than others; and these are better sown in autumn. Others, such as the escholtzia, the coreopsis, and the Erýsimum Perowskiànum, will often last two or three years, especially if they happen to be late in flowering the first season. They also do best sown in autumn, but they must be protected, if the winter should be very severe, by laying a mat over the bed. You must observe, however, that the mat must only be resorted to in frosty weather, as, in case the weather should be at all damp, the plants will be much better exposed to it, however cold it may feel, than they would be under any protection whatever.
Thehalf-hardy annuals, such as the French and African marigolds, the German and China asters, the zinnias, the purple jacobæa, the sweet sultan, the purple and yellow everlastings, and other similar plants, should be sown in pots, and plunged into a slight hotbed in February or March. As soon as they come up, and have got their second pair of leaves, the earth should be turned out of the pot, and the seedlings being carefully picked out should be transplanted into other pots, three or five in each, according to the size they are expected to attain when full grown,and the pots again plunged into the hotbed. Sometimes they are transplanted a second time, but they are generally left till the beginning of May, when they are removed to the open border, to the places where they are intended to flower. When they are planted in the border, they may either be transplanted in the ordinary way, or the ball of earth may be turned entire from the pot into a hole made to receive it. This last plan is generally considered the best, as it prevents the plants from receiving any check by their removal. Brompton ten-week, and German stocks, though quite hardy, make better plants when treated like half-hardy annuals, as they flower earlier and much more vigorously.
Tender annuals, such as balsams, cock's-combs, globe amaranths, &c., must be sown in February or March in pots of light rich earth, and plunged in a hotbed. As soon as the plants come up they should be transplanted into pots of the very smallest size, one in each pot; and these small pots should be set in the hotbed again, as near the glass as possible, and slightly shaded during sunshine. In a week or two, as soon as the roots have made their appearance on the outside of the ball of earth within the pot, which is known by turning the ball of earth with the plant in it carefully out of the pot without breaking it, the plants are shifted into pots a size larger than what theywere in before, and the space filled up with light rich soil. In another week or two the plants must be shifted again into pots a little larger, always using light rich mould to fill up the pots, and taking care that the pots are well drained, by putting potsherds, that is, pieces of broken pot at the bottom. As soon as the plants are shifted, the pots must be replunged in the hotbed, and shaded for the remainder of the day. The shifting and replunging must be continued till the plants begin to show flower-buds; after which they must neither be shifted nor plunged in the hotbed any more, but gradually hardened, by the frame in which they are placed being left open all day, and, at last, only partially closed, even at night, till the plants will bear setting out entirely in the open air; unless they should be intended to flower in a greenhouse, in which case they may be removed to the greenhouse as soon as they have formed flower-buds.
As I shall treat of the management of the greenhouse plants, which are to succeed the annuals, in my next, I may as well fill up my present letter by saying a few words on the management of hardy perennials, in case you should prefer planting biennials and perennials in your beds at once, to going through the routine that I have marked out for you in the former part of this letter.
Perennialsare those permanent plants which are not woody, and yet remain in the ground as long as most kinds of shrubs, producing flowers and seeds every year. Perennials are of two kinds: those that die down to the ground every autumn, and send up fresh stems from the root the following spring; and those which remain green all the year, as, for example, the pinks and carnations. Besides these kinds, there are other sorts of perennials, as, for example, those that have tuberous roots, such as the dahlia. Bulbs are also perennials; but of these I have already spoken.
Most kinds of perennials are propagated by dividing the roots; but, in the case of the dahlia, ranunculus, and anemone, care must be taken to choose only those portions of the tubers that have buds or eyes, as they are called, as otherwise the tuber, though it will send out fibrous roots, will never produce a stem; and, in dividing fibrous-rooted plants, care must be taken that the divided part is furnished with buds. Almost all kinds of perennials may also be propagated by cuttings; and those of pinks and carnations are called pipings, because, instead of being cut, they are pulled asunder at a joint, and this gives the separated parts a hollow appearance like small pipes. Tubers are frequently taken up every autumn; and those of the ranunculus and anemone are replanted in November or January, the formerseason being much to be preferred. The tubers of the dahlia are generally taken up in November, and replanted in May or June.
Most perennials are improved by taking them up occasionally and replanting them in another place. This used to be accounted for by supposing that plants threw out excrementitious matter, which, after a few years, poisoned the soil in which they grew; but it is now supposed that, as every plant requires peculiar earths for its nourishment, they must be removed when they have exhausted all the particular kind of earth they want which lies within their reach. It is rather difficult to explain this without entering into long details; but it will be sufficient for our present purpose merely to state the fact, that plants do require their roots to have a constant supply of fresh earth; and, to meet this want, nature has provided that the roots of trees, and of all plants that are intended to remain for several years in the soil, elongate themselves every year, so as to be continually able to obtain a fresh supply of nourishment. In gardens, however, the constant digging that is going on for the culture of annual plants is unfavourable to the elongation of the roots of the perennials, and consequently it is absolutely necessary that those plants should occasionally be taken up and replanted. The season for taking up and replanting perennialplants is either in autumn, after they have done growing, or in spring, before they begin to shoot; and, if the soil about the roots looks black and wet, or, as the gardeners express it, sour, the roots should be washed quite clean before replanting. When the roots of plants are divided, it is either done with a sharp spade or a knife, care being taken in both cases to make what is called a clean cut, and not to leave any part bruised or jagged.
Biennialsare plants raised from seeds, which do not flower till the second year, but which generally die as soon as they have ripened their seeds. Biennials are usually sown in a bed of light rich earth in the open air in the reserve-ground, and then transplanted in September to the place where they are to flower the ensuing year. The finer kinds, such as the Brompton stocks and hollyhocks, should have a bed or pit prepared for them, of rich loamy soil, in which they are planted, with a small quantity of manure. Wallflowers, snapdragons, and Canterbury bells do not require any further care than transplanting to the border; and, though they are called biennials, they will frequently live and flower three or four successive years.
Ahotbedmay be made of any material that will ferment, so as to produce heat. Stable manure and dead leaves are, however, generally preferred to all other materials; and stable manureis unquestionably the best. A cart-load of this manure will make a hotbed sufficiently large for rearing tender annuals; but as, when it is taken out of the stable, it consists partly of the dung of the horse, and partly of what is called long litter, that is, straw moistened and discoloured, but not decayed, it must first be thrown together, so as to form a heap till the straw is decomposed. A most violent heat is produced by the fermentation of the straw while decomposing; and, as this heat would be too much for any plant exposed to it, it is absolutely necessary to let the heap remain for about a fortnight, turning it over two or three times during that period with a fork, till the straw is sufficiently decomposed to be easily torn to pieces with the dung fork. When the manure is in this state it is fit for use. The hotbed should be formed in an open situation, on a surface raised about six inches from the surrounding ground, with a gutter or shallow ditch cut round it, to allow the water to drain off. The bed is then made; and, if only intended for raising annuals and striking cuttings, it may be five feet long by four feet wide. The manure should be first regularly spread over the lower part of the bed, and then continued, in successive layers, made as smooth and level as possible, till the whole of the cart-load of manure has been used.
As soon as the bed is finished the frame shouldbe set on it. The frame consists of a box without a bottom, and with a movable top, formed of a glazed sash or sashes. A frame for a bed of the size I have mentioned will only require one sash, or light as the gardeners call it; and it should be three feet wide and four feet long, so that the bed may be half a foot larger than the frame on every side. The back of the box may be two feet high, and the front one foot, so that the glass may slope from the back to the front. About two days after the bed is made, the fermentation will recommence, and a steam will be observable on the glass. The surface of the bed should now be covered two or three inches thick with light garden mould, and any common seeds may be sown in this. It is more general, however, to sow the seeds in pots, and then either to set them on the surface of the bed, or to plunge them into it up to the rim. No bed for raising annuals should ever be hotter than 60°, and when it exceeds this heat the glasses should be left open so as to cool it. The thermometer for ascertaining the heat should be put on the surface of the bed, with the glass shut above it; and it should be examined in this situation, as it will fall a degree or two immediately on being taken into the open air, if the weather should be very cold.
You will, of course, have your hotbed made in the reserve-ground; and, as the one I have givendirections for will be a very small one, you will probably find it necessary to have one much larger for your cuttings, or to have three or four small ones. I should advise the latter course, as small hotbeds are much more easily managed by inexperienced gardeners than large ones. A hotbed of two or three lights will require two or three cart-loads of manure, and will, of course, produce a great deal of heat from the immense mass of fermenting materials it contains; and, as you would find this additional quantity of heat very difficult to regulate, you might chance, some fine morning, when you visited your plants, to see them turned black, with their leaves shrivelled up, or, as the gardeners term it, burnt, from the too great heat of the bed. There is also danger of a hotbed getting too cold instead of being too hot, and, when this is the case, the heat should be renewed by the application of dung linings, that is, a quantity of fresh stable manure, round the outside of the bed; or by having linings of dead leaves piled up round the outside of the bed. If, however, you use your hotbeds only for raising seeds, they will not want any linings; as it will be advantageous for the young seedlings to let the beds gradually become cool as the plants increase in size, so that they may acquire strength and hardiness before they are turned into the open ground.
I will now say a few words on thegreenhouse plantsthat you will want for planting in the open ground in your flower-garden. Petunias may be all raised from seeds with the other half-hardy annuals; as seedling plants both grow and flower much more vigorously when planted out into the open ground, than plants that have been raised from layers or cuttings. Célsia or Alonsòa urticifòlia may also be raised from seeds; as may Thunbérgia alàta, and its white variety. Phlóx Drummóndi is almost always raised in this manner; as are the beautiful climbing plants, Lophospérmum scándens and its varieties, Maurándya Barclayàna, Cobœa scándens, Eccremocárpus or Calámpelis scàbra, Rhodochìton volùbile, the beautiful canary-bird flower (Tropœ'olum peregrìnum), the most splendid of the ipomœas, and several other well-known plants.
Geraniums, or pelargoniums, as they are now more properly called, being half-shrubby plants, require to be raised by cuttings. These are generally taken off the points of the shoots in autumn; and, a good many being put into one pot, they are plunged into the hotbed till they have struck root, and then gradually hardened and placed on the back shelf of a greenhouse, or in a cold frame, till the spring, when they are removed to separate pots till they are wanted for planting out. Some gardeners do not put themselvesto the trouble of potting them, but keep them in the same pots in which the cuttings were struck till they are wanted for planting out; but this is a slovenly mode of culture, as, when the plants are kept so long in one pot, they become drawn up, and never have the compact bushy appearance that they have when they are properly transplanted early in spring. Verbenas may be either preserved by cuttings or layers, or raised afresh from seed. The usual way of propagating them, however, is by layers, as they strike root readily at the joints, if the joints are covered with a little earth. All the other greenhouse plants which you may want to grow for planting out may be treated in the same manner as those I have mentioned.
Acold frameis a bottomless box of the kind described for a hotbed, but formed of brick or stone instead of wood. These frames have a glass sash at the top, but contain no manure; and they are generally sunk in the soil, that the warmth of the earth around may aid in protecting the plants they contain from the frost. These frames, if they have only one light, are generally five feet in width; that is, from the back to the front; but, if they have two or three lights, the width is generally seven feet, as these are the dimensions of the frames used for hotbeds in kitchen-gardens. The greenhouse plants that are to be preserved inthe cold frame are merely set in their pots close together, and, the glass sashes being then closed, mats and other coverings are laid on to keep out the frost.
Sometimes greenhouse plants which are left in the open ground are preserved from the frost by coverings of wicker-work like beehives being put over them, or tin hoops over which mats have been stretched; or, where the plants are small, a flower-pot may be turned over them, or a hand-glass used for the same purpose. It is seldom, however, worth while to take much pains to preserve greenhouse plants that have flowered in the open air. The ordinary way is to make abundance of cuttings in autumn; to strike them in a hotbed, and then, after hardening them by degrees, to preserve them in a small greenhouse, or in a cold pit, till the time for planting out next year.
Before I say any thing of the management of the plants in your greenhouse, I must remind you that, in order to grow plants well, it is not enough merely to preserve them from the frost, but we must imitate as well as we can their native climate: that is, the degree of heat, light, and moisture they have been accustomed to in their native country, together with the air and the soil. The latter is the easiest condition to fulfil; as, by combining different kinds of earth, we can, without much difficulty, produce a very tolerable imitationof any soil we please: but it is not so easy to give plants abundance of light and air in combination with heat; and, though we can readily give plants plenty of water, it requires some management to surround them with a moist warm atmosphere, like that they have been used to in their native woods. To meet these difficulties, buildings have been constructed, suited for the reception of plants, with various contrivances for producing heat and distributing air and moisture, and with a glass roof, front, and sides, to admit abundance of light.
These structures are what we call plant-houses; and they are not only divided into hothouses for tender plants, and greenhouses for half-hardy plants, but subdivided into various kinds to suit the various climates in which plants are found. These climates, however, are not so numerous as might at first be supposed; as it is a curious fact in the history of plants, that many of the most ornamental grow in patches in some parts of the world without being found anywhere else, as, for example, the pelargoniums or shrubby geraniums at the Cape of Good Hope. Even when the same plant is found in different parts of the world, it is generally in the same climate, though in different countries; and thus pines and firs, oaks and birches, spread like belts or zones round the globe, from Asia, through Europe, to America,almost in the same degree of latitude, making an allowance for islands being warmer than continents, and mountains colder than valleys; as you must always remember that knowing the degree of latitude from which a plant comes is not sufficient to teach its culture, unless we know also whether it grows on the mountains or in the valleys, and whether the climate of the locality is moist or dry. A plant will be soon killed by a dry atmosphere, if it requires a moist one; and it will be as much injured by being kept too hot as too cold. Furze and heath will not grow within the tropics; and the first camellias introduced into England were killed by being kept in a hothouse.
From what I have said, you will perceive that as plants will only thrive in climates suitable to them, it is not enough to have a hothouse for tropical plants, and a greenhouse for those of moderately warm countries, but that you must have three or four houses imitating different climates, if you wish to grow different kinds of plants to perfection. Philosophers who have written on the subject describe sixteen distinct kinds of climate, including our own; but, as these would be too many to imitate, gardeners are obliged to content themselves with the following kinds of plant-houses and pits.
Thedry stoveis generally kept at a heat offrom 70° to 84° in the day, and never allowed to fall below 65° at night, even in winter. It should be placed in a situation sheltered from cold winds, but quite open to the sun; as the plants grown in it require a strong light, most of them being natives of dry sandy plains, on which there is no tree high enough to cast a shade. The plants are grown in pots, which are generally placed on a frame or stage of wooden or stone shelves, so as to have abundance of air around them; and the stove is best heated by flues. The plants suitable for a stove of this kind are some of the kinds of Cactàceæ, such as the genera Melocáctus, Epiphýllum, and Cèreus, with the tender kinds of Euphórbium, Mesembryánthemum, Stapèlia, Crássula, Sèdum, Sempervìvum, and Agàve, and some kinds of bulbs.
Thebark stovehas a brick pit filled with tan or dead leaves in the centre; and it is generally heated with pipes of hot water or steam, from 60° at night to 80° in the day; the pots in which the plants are grown being either plunged in the tan, or placed on the walls of the pit, or on a stone shelf near the glass in front. Sometimes the trees of hot climates are grown in the bark bed in the centre without pots; and sometimes there is no bark pit, but the space in the centre of the house is filled with boxes containing tropical trees. This last kind is frequently called the botanic stove,as it is most common in botanic gardens; and it is best adapted for growing palms, and other monocotyledonous plants with large leaves, such as bananas, which require abundance of air and light.
Thedamp stove, or orchideous house, is only suited for orchideous plants and exotic ferns. The heat should be from 70° at night to 90° in the day, or even more; and the house should be heated with hot flues, on which water should be thrown twice or three times a day, and hot-water pipes with open tanks; as all the plants to be grown in this kind of house require excessive heat and constant moisture. As they are also plants that love the shade, the house should have only a subdued light; and though I cannot say that I approve of the coloured glass adopted by some cultivators, as it decomposes the rays of light, and deprives the plants of a portion of the heat they would otherwise derive from the sun, yet I would certainly advise that some of those climbing plants which will grow in a moist warm climate should be trained close under the glass, to produce shade.
Forcing-housesfor grapes and early stone fruits are of the nature of the bark stove; and in them the pit in the centre is frequently filled with pine-apple plants, in pots plunged up to the rim in the tan; but these houses belong to the kitchen-garden,as do pits for growing pines, cucumbers, and melons.
You will thus observe that there are only three distinct kinds of hothouses in use in British gardens, viz. the damp stove, or orchideous house, which is the hottest; the dry stove, or house for succulent plants, which is the rarest; and the bark stove, which is the most common, and which may be said to have two varieties, viz. the botanic stove and the forcing-house.
The culture of hothouse plantsin thebark stoverequires more care than can be expected from any one not a regular gardener; and, as most tropical plants are valuable in this country, I would not advise you to try to manage them yourself, as you would be very much vexed if you should chance to kill them. I will, however, give you a few general hints on the subject, if you should like to have a house of this kind.
All bark-stove plants require a great deal of water when they are in a growing state, and, as it is necessary that the water should be of the same temperature as the house, there should be either an open cistern in the house, or a cistern in the shed behind, near the furnace, and communicating with the house by a pipe. The best plan is to have a cistern in the house, as it can be used as an aquarium; and there are many beautiful tropical aquatics, such as the different species ofNymphæ'a and Nelúmbium, which deserve growing for their beauty, while others are interesting for their curiosity, such as the Papyrus. In summer, bark-stove plants require very little care, except to prevent them from receiving any sudden check, as, if the heat be not kept up regularly, the plants are very liable to stop growing, and, when the heat is renewed, to shoot a second time, and thus to waste their strength in sickly and imperfect growth. Great care is also required in autumn to increase the fire heat in proportion as the weather grows cold, so as to prevent the plants from receiving any check from the decrease of temperature in the atmospheric air, as tropical plants may be said to have only two seasons, viz. summer and winter; and thus they should be kept as nearly as possible at the same heat as long as they are in a growing state; and then have a complete change to a season of rest, by never letting the heat rise higher than from 60° to 65° during the dark days of winter. During the winter months very little air can be admitted, on account of the great difference between the air of the atmosphere and that within the house; but in the spring, advantage should be taken of every warm day, even in March and April, to open the sashes a few inches wide for half an hour or an hour in the middle of the day, when the sun shines; but the house should be shut up immediately if thesun should go in and the air become chilled. As the summer advances, air should be admitted freely, and continued till the beginning of September, when it should be gradually reduced till the cold of winter prevents any being given at all. Most gardeners repot, or shift, as they call it, all their bark-stove plants about the middle or end of April; but this is too indiscriminate a practice, and, therefore, only those should be repotted that appear to want such an operation.
One of the greatest difficulties attending the culture of plants in a bark stove is, guarding against the ravages of the immense number of insects that are engendered by the heat; and one of the most troublesome of these is the active little mite called by gardeners the red spider (Àcarus telùrius). This little pest breeds in the bark, and when first hatched it is so small as to be scarcely perceptible; particularly as it is of a pale green, nearly the colour of the under side of the leaf, to which it fixes itself, and there spins a web. As it gets older it becomes of a brownish red, and having eight legs, it runs with the greatest rapidity. It is also furnished with a proboscis, with which it sucks the juices of the leaves, making them wither and shrivel up; and thus the flowers and the fruit of the trees are both spoiled, as neither can attain perfection unless the sap that is to nourish them be first properly matured in the leaves.Tobacco smoke, and most of the other usual remedies against insects, have no effect on the red spider; and, though sprinkling it with very cold water will kill it, it is difficult to apply without injuring the plants. The best remedy is allowing plenty of air to pass through the house, whenever the weather is hot enough to allow the atmospheric air to be admitted with safety.
The culture of the plants contained in thedry stoverequires considerable care. The Cáctus family may be arranged in three groups; first, the Tree Cacti, which are included in the genus Cèreus, and have long slender stems without a single leaf, sometimes thirty or forty feet high, and not thicker than a man's arm. These plants grow on the summits of the mountains in Brazil, and only require greenhouse heat in England. Secondly, the Mammillàriæ and Echinocácti, which grow in the valleys of the temperate parts of South America, and should be kept in a warm greenhouse in this country; and thirdly, the Melocácti, the Epiphýllum, the Opúntiæ, and the Rhípsalis, which grow in the tropics, and require a dry stove in England. These plants should be grown in pots well drained with cinders, and they should be kept almost without water from October till March, and then watered profusely till they are about flowering, when the quantity of water given to them should be gradually diminished. Somecultivators keep a few of their plants in a bark stove, and plunge the pots in the tan, and they are said to thrive on this treatment, if carefully managed; but as it requires a great deal of care to prevent them from damping off, the ordinary way is the safest for an inexperienced gardener. Mesembryanthemums, which are also kept in a dry stove, require the same treatment as the Cácti.
The orchidaceous plants grown in adamp stoveare all epiphytes, which, in their natural state, grow either on the branches of trees, or on exposed rocks. The former of these are found in their wild state with their roots hanging down in the air, and growing in dense forests, where shade, moisture, and excessive heat are essential to their existence. Most of these plants, in a state of culture, are grown in the husks of cocoa-nuts, half filled with moss, from which the roots hang down, or they are tied with wire to pieces of wood hung from the rafters. The wood generally preferred for this purpose in England is the robinia, or false acacia, on account of the roughness of its bark, and the softness of its wood: and moss is generally put between the epiphyte and log so as to make it quite compact. Some genera of orchideous plants, such as Dendròbium, Epidéndrum, and Cattlèya, are always grown in pots, which are filled with turfy peat, chopped moss, and lime rubbish. Others,such as Stanhòpea and Catasètum, should be grown in baskets half filled with moss, or in a curious kind of frame, made of pieces of turf fastened between four upright pegs of wood; as the flowers of these plants come from their roots, and they must be allowed abundance of room to enable them to protrude properly. The baskets or frames for the Stanhòpea and other root-flowering plants should be from three to six inches deep, and from six to ten inches wide; and the frames should be filled with strips of turf, two or three inches wide, piled up on one another so as to fill the frame, and yet leave a sufficient space between to admit the passage of the flower stems which protrude downwards from the root. When orchideous plants are grown in pots, the pots are drained with cinders, and then filled with chopped turf mixed with lime rubbish to keep it open. The exotic ferns grown in the same house require no particular care, except that of potting them so as to insure perfect drainage, and keeping them frequently syringed overhead.
There may be said to be five kinds of greenhouse; viz., the Australian house, the common greenhouse, the heath house, the conservatory, and the orangery, to which is sometimes added, the camellia house, though these plants are generally kept in the conservatory.
TheAustralian housecontains all the curiousNew Holland plants, such as Bánksia, Dryándra, Grevíllea, Melaleùca, Callistèmon, Metrosidèros, and various genera belonging to the Leguminòsæ, together with the Cape plants belonging to the Proteàceæ and Compósitæ. These plants require a considerable degree of heat, and also as much air and light as can be given to any plants which require shelter from the open air. On this account they are generally grown in curvilinear houses, that is, houses that have glass on all sides, like that in the garden of the London Horticultural Society at Turnham Green. All the plants contained in this house are extremely difficult to grow, and they require the greatest care in watering, so that they may never have too much, and yet never be suffered to become too dry. Houses of this kind are generally heated by pipes of hot water, and kept at a temperature of from 40° to 50° or 60°. There is no pit in the centre, and the plants are either planted in the ground as in a conservatory, or kept on a stage formed of wooden shelves.
Thecommon greenhousehas a brick wall at the back, with a glass roof at an angle of about 45°, and upright glass at the front and sides. The plants are grown in pots placed on a stage or range of wooden shelves rising one above another, with a path all round, and a shelf for the plants under the glass in front. All the sashes are madeto open, as it is essential that there should be a free circulation of air; and so little fire is necessary, that one fireplace will be sufficient to heat a greenhouse from thirty to forty feet long, and from twelve to fifteen feet wide. The house may be heated either by hot-water pipes or by flues; in the latter case the flue should go round at the front and return at the back, being about twenty inches high and twelve inches wide. The heat of a greenhouse of this nature need never be more than 50° in the day, and it may be allowed to sink even as low as 35° at night, the object being merely to keep out the frost.
Theheath house, like the Australian house, requires to be as transparent, and as thoroughly ventilated, as possible. A heathery, however, is generally a span-roofed house with a walk down the centre, and shelves for the plants on each side. It is usually heated by hot water, the pipes for conveying which are placed in the centre of the house. The width of the house should be about ten feet, and the height in the centre of the span should never exceed nine, as it is of great importance to have the plants as near the glass as possible. The floor of the house should stand one foot above the level of the ground: and, where expense is not an object, the house is sometimes built on arches to insure perfect dryness. All the windows are made to move in every possibledirection so as to admit of a current of air through the house, whenever the state of the atmosphere will permit it.
Theconservatoryhas all the plants growing in the soil, instead of being in pots and placed on shelves. It is generally more lofty and architectural than a greenhouse, and of much greater extent; and it is frequently attached to the house, being so contrived that it can be entered from one of the living-rooms. The temperature of the conservatory is generally rather warmer than that of the common greenhouse, as it is kept at 60° during the day, and seldom allowed to fall lower than 40° at night.
Theorangeryis a still more architectural-looking building than the conservatory, and it has an opaque roof. It is used only for preserving orange trees and other plants that remain in a dormant state during the winter, and it requires no more heat than is absolutely essential to keep out the frost.
Thecamellia houseis generally formed like a common greenhouse, but so contrived as to allow the whole of the sashes to be taken off during the summer. The plants are kept on stone shelves, raised one above another; and there is generally no walk at the back.
Of the culture of the plants in the Australian house I have already spoken; and of those in thegreenhouse I need only detail the management during the winter months, as your greenhouse will, I suppose, be in the reserve-ground, and will be only used to preserve those plants during winter which you have kept in other more conspicuous situations during the summer.
Many persons injure greenhouse plants by keeping them too warm, and giving them too little air during winter, and then are surprised that their plants become sickly and remain without flowering, notwithstanding all the care and expense that have been bestowed upon them. No greenhouse ought to be kept at a greater heat at night than from 35° to 40°; and in the daytime it should not be allowed to rise above 50°, or at most 52°. When there happens to be sunshine, the fire ought to be lessened, and whenever the air is not frosty the windows ought to be opened from twelve till two every day. If a greenhouse is kept too warm, it will induce premature vegetation, and the plants will waste their strength in an attempt to produce flowers and fruit, at a season when nature requires them to be kept in a state of complete repose. Greenhouse plants should be watered generally every morning; but in frosty weather water need not be given every day, and some plants will not require watering oftener than once a week. This, however, must depend in a great measure on circumstances, and, as a general rule, it may beobserved, that water may always be given in small quantities when the surface of the earth contained in the pot looks dry. The pots should never be allowed to stand in saucers, as stagnant water is peculiarly injurious in winter. Whenever the earth looks black and sodden, the plant should be turned out of the pot, and, after the black earth has been carefully shaken from the root, it should be repotted in fresh soil, an inch or more in the bottom of the pot being filled in with small pieces of broken crocks.